And, how can the person eavesdropping tell? An old friend of mine retains his British citizenship even though he's been in the US since the mid-sixties. However, his children have American citizenship and they use his phone sometimes.
Sometimes I'll be with a friend and he'll be talking on the phone, and hand it to me to say a few words. He may not be a citizen, but I am.
You can't always be assured that the person using a given line is a non-citizen. And the constitution protects people, not telephone lines.
Because first of all, there is a nonzero chance of a citizen's right to privacy being infringed inadvertently in the process, and secondly the difficulty in going through proper procedure to get court approval is minimal.
There are many countries where this would be a huge scandal. If you think Americans are protective of privacy, you should see the Swedes. On the other hand, there are other countries where nobody would think twice about it. Because all countries are different and people have different cultural expectations and different perceptions of rights, we can't necessarily use them as examples.
Yes, I think this is a bad thing. But I'm not Canadian.
--scott
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."