Parallel Paraplegic posted:

Luckily for Gary, we don't even have to imagine!

• spying on citizens' private communications - "From George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, the key members of the founding generation believed that intelligence operations were essential to the defense of the United States, including the 18th-century equivalent of today’s electronic eavesdropping — clandestine mail opening. Certainly none of the Founders spoke about a "right to privacy," nor did James Madison initiate the effort to amend the Constitution with what became known as a "Bill of Rights."" source
  
  
• monitoring financial transactions - "County courts in Virginia exercised what conservatives today would consider outrageous power over economic relationships and transactions. They could set the prices innkeepers could charge their customers -- that sort of thing. We might now recognize such powers as unwise or misguided, but Jefferson and Washington seem to have taken it for granted," source