It is ahistorical and (perversely) wishful to suggest that communications surveillance in the 1950s was less onerous to the civilian population than it is today. During the heyday of the Cold War, no police force needed a court order to wiretap a phone; the notion of wiretap authorization dates back to, what, 1968?
Today, we have rumors and gossip about NSA analysts "training" on Obama's comms in the early '00s. During the Cold War, the FBI brazenly monitored and transcribed all calls to various public figures and then blackmailed them: see Martin Luther King.
I know you have a background in this, and I understand the intelligence agencies COULD have monitored anyone they wanted to in the past, but they couldn't automate it to create the scope of surveillance now in place.
A phone tap in the 1950s would require recording and someone listening to it, would it not? How many people could the NSA employ to listen to conversations? Millions?
Either way, just because they have been doing disgusting things for so long does not make it something we should stop getting upset about.
Today, we have rumors and gossip about NSA analysts "training" on Obama's comms in the early '00s. During the Cold War, the FBI brazenly monitored and transcribed all calls to various public figures and then blackmailed them: see Martin Luther King.