…All that would be required was a simple entrapment scheme, based on today’s government statements in defense of domestic spying.
Let me illustrate a simple scheme.
To spy on a person for politically or personally motivated reasons.
Step one: enlist one of the “usual” suspects for pay or plea bargaining, to contact any person “of interest” by phone or e-mail. Once they have contacted the subject, you are “legitimately” now a person of interest? Step two: Simply justify the snooping by claiming you are coordinating with a terrorist? Step three: Have recorded phone or email on record – indicting you, if need be, in court? Step four: become victim of license to be under surveillance indefinitely? Step five: Lose all privacy and join others who have also? Step six if needed: alter or even manufacture conversations using editing software?
Simple scheme.
Accountable still, to the people? Only if these steps are merely theoretical.