The U. S. State Department sharply criticized the state of “freedom” in Russia in its 2001 annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices:

Authorities continued to infringe on citizens’ privacy rights. Government technical regulations that require Internet service providers and telecommunications companies to invest in equipment that enables the FSB [successor to the KGB –ed.] to monitor Internet traffic, telephone calls, and pagers without judicial approval caused serious concern. However, in response to a challenge by a St. Petersburg journalist, the Supreme Court ruled in September that the FSB is required to obtain and show court approval to telecommunications companies before it can proceed to initiate surveillance. Past practices raised questions among many observers about whether the FSB would abide by this ruling.

Well, at least somebody’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government can’t eavesdrop on telecommunications without a warrant!

Here in the Land of the Free, our Congress is busily trying to write retroactive laws that will protect the telecom companies that spied on U. S. citizens without judicial approval, at the behest of Dear Leader, of course.

(h/t: Glenn Greenwald, a.k.a. Glenzilla. See particularly this post about retroactive immunity.)