[rst]

The funny thing is that FISA was originally intended to curb the intelligence abuses that had come to light earlier in the '70s, in which phones were tapped, and international telegrams seized en masse, with no legal authority whatever. It doesn't seem to have been effective in that regard even before it was effectively gutted by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, but it's still not quite of a piece with the stuff that came later.