Alright so I believe you're correct, again with respect to federal guidelines, and that the state guidelines are murky. I believe I may have to rescind my post

Alright so I believe you're correct, again with respect to federal guidelines, and that the state guidelines are murky. I believe I may have to rescind my post at the top of this thread according to my friend, whose name I'll redact for his privacy: "It's funny -- one of the ideas I had batted around with my publisher for a second book was a history of wiretapping. :-) But, I never got around to doing any research and don't know the definitive answers to your questions off hand. In the thread you linked to below, mrexroad is correct about the Communications Act of 1934 (and section 605) being the first wiretapping federal law, at least that I'm aware of. And Olmstead is indeed a seminal case in the field, but whether it was the first, I don't know. The American Bar Association article he linked to seems pretty definitive. I had not ever heard the theory that wiretap/eavesdropping laws originated due to party lines. Not saying it isn't true, just that I've never heard that." So that's that. I'll have to blame some of the old engineers I talked to at AT&T for my miseducation, although they may have been referring to local (non-federal) laws. This has been fun :).