the.com/wiretap
surveillance that started by literally clipping copper, now just sips your data from the cloud
means To secretly listen in on someone's phone calls or electronic communications, usually by tapping into the line that carries them.
from A plain compound of "wire" and "tap," born from the telegraph and telephone age in America, when the lines really were wires. To "tap" a line meant to make a connection that drew off the signal — like tapping a barrel to draw off the wine, the same sense of "tap" that lets you broach a keg. So early eavesdroppers literally clipped onto the copper to siphon off the conversation, and the word has clung to the practice ever since, long after the wires went digital.
- origin
- named for physical taps on telegraph wires
- civil war
- used to intercept telegraphs in the 1860s
- olmstead 1928
- Supreme Court first said it needed no warrant
- katz reversal
- 1967 ruling extended privacy to phone booths
- pen register
- a tap that logs numbers, not voices
watergate break-in wiretaps — 1972 dnc headquarters wiretaps that triggered the scandal leading to nixon's resignation