In the 1980s (or maybe the 70s), the UK Parliament debated a bill covering wiretapping. There was a line of questions as to what a lineman should do if he disco

In the 1980s (or maybe the 70s), the UK Parliament debated a bill covering wiretapping. There was a line of questions as to what a lineman should do if he discovered a wiretap, because he couldn't assume it was a 'legitimate' one by the security services, but if he assumed it wasn't he might run afoul of provisions of the law. This shows a couple of things: - Back then extensive surveillance would have been hard to conceal because it would have been noticed by the large workforce needed to physically maintain the system. - At that point members of parliament could reason correctly about the internal details of the telephone network, because it was simpler, and because many MPs had become MPs via the unions and so had experience of a trade.