Amazingly, most posters are apparently unaware how vulnerable they are, regardless of laws regulating NSA.

First of all, virtually every nation in the world EXCEPT us can tap overseas calls originating in the US without ANY judicial oversight. There is no enforced international law assuring the privacy of communications.

Second, all your calls on land lines are very easy to tap. Frankly, it is pretty foolish to be fearful of Uncle Sam when any local drug dealer, bill collector, or political organizer can go to the neighborhood pool of illegal aliens (usually outside the nearest Home Depot) and hire one to tap your phone. Your gardener clips grass where your phone line goes into the ground... it is trivial to attach a bug there. If your lines goes up on a pole, any guy pretending to be a "cable guy" can throw up a ladder and reach your line. In apartment buildings, the janatorial staff usually has keys to the rooms where all phone lines on the floor terminate in a box, usually unlocked since no license is required by anyone to maintain phone lines. If locked, it is easily picked. Anyway, in 90% of the apartment buildings, the wires string overhead just above the easily raised ceiling panels, easily accessed by anyone with a stepladder!

Finally, remember when the retired couple recorded a conversation by Speaker of the House Gingrich just over 10 years ago? They did intercepted it with a device they bought overseas on a lark... for voyerism! What was their punishment? ... a $2000 fine. You think this would stop someone seriously interested in tapping your cell phone?

Frankly, the laws only discourage taps by honest people. The use of SSNs by illegal imigrants is a far more serious abuse of privacy, threatening the credit ratings, retirement savings and health care of the individuals who have their number stolen. ...yet there is virtually no enforcement!

Our real security comes from the fact of how ORDINARY we are... Like a small fish in a very large school, the sharks miss just about everybody and feast only on the unlucky few that either distinguish themselves by pulling out of the pack, or just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And your recourse? Increasingly, it is a matter of civil suit rather than criminal law. Even privacy laws don't help except as fodder for civil suits, For example...

Consider the VPI murders. Consider the report out today. Key finding: the PRIVACY of the deranged young man SHOULD NOT have shielded him. If teachers THINK he is a danger to himself or others, the privacy laws can AND SHOUD be waived. Also applies to bosses, co-workers, etc.

Anyone can use that defense to justify just about anything these days. "I had to go through my neighbors mail because I believed she was dangerously depressed and might have ordered an overdose of painkillers from an Internet drug store!" ...or the local sheriff's deputy claims to have received an anonymous tip about you having a gun and raising questions about your mental health.

Sad as it is... THIS IS the state of affairs in our world today.

So quit the political sqabbling and start educating people about the fact that the constitution only works to protect you IN YOUR OWN HOME... or in open political or commercial activity. It is a misreading of the constitution to think that the laws protecting your personal privacy can be conveniently extended world-wide by carrying a cell phone!