[1]https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/01/us_customs_open.html
   Here, Schneier commends the ACLU for improving civil liberties
   protections.
   [2]http://www.rstreet.org/2014/11/19/yes-the-government-can-open-your-m
   ail-without-a-warrant/ A John Conyers requested the DoJ view on the
   matter, to investigate it. Governmentattic requested the documents in
   2010, was released to them in 2012, and they finally posted it in 2014.
   A large issue in our modern era is apparently how US laws are being
   interpreted far outside what people expect.
   The ACLU has done nothing in this matter. They are protecting civil
   liberties through the most ineffective and indirect mechanisms
   imaginable, anyone who spends millions of dollars per year with their
   lack of accomplishments must be doing something wrong. The executive
   issues signing statements saying that the judicial branch overrules
   Congress, whereas Congress writes the laws. Congress will always
   overrule the Supreme Court when it comes to reasonable interpretations
   of laws, it appears as if Congress has to explicitly state it so, which
   Congress has not done.
   I just thought everyone should be aware that the Holocaust was strictly
   legal. So was the Soviet gulag. The law itself is not a prophylactic
   against immorality.
   Anyway, Seymour Hersh has done incredible reporting, he talks about it
   here: [3]https://www.c-span.org/video/?311093-1/seymour-hersh-investiga
   tive-journalism
   He hears a rumor from one place, and then goes thoroughly investigates
   it. (makes me wonder how anything was Top Secret with Bavarian fire
   drills)
   Of course it doesn't seem like the ACLU ever asked him about any of
   it... or famed Jason Leopold for that matter.
   So what matters? Either federal intrusions are wholly legal, or they
   are illegal. Somehow they have proven to be wholly legal over time,
   besides the meek complaints by the ACLU that it's still illegal. Or
   maybe the NSA is filled with thousands of men acting with impunity, who
   know what they are doing is illegal. The most frightening possibility
   of all, no?
   On a wholly different topic, I wonder why certain crimes are still
   possible to commit through the internet. Congress can always mandate ID
   for some services or cut funding for other services.

References

   1. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/01/us_customs_open.html
   2. http://www.rstreet.org/2014/11/19/yes-the-government-can-open-your-mail-without-a-warrant/
   3. https://www.c-span.org/video/?311093-1/seymour-hersh-investigative-journalism