Yeah, and I got a recent report that "Long Lines" and other microwave tower lines were deliberately routed so as to cross over Indian Reservation lands in several places. Why? Allegedly because Indian lands are legally treated as "sovereign nations" and the (purported) rules against NSA listening could be ignored.
A small historical note. It was not until 1986 that most unauthorized interceptions of microwave radio common carrier transmissions such as AT&T Long Lines TD-2 and TH routes were definately and clearly made illegal (in the ECPA). Before that time such interception for other than foreign government espionage purposes was a gray area in the law, quite possibly there deliberately as was a curious similar absence of any prohibition at all against interception of any kind of digital data or record communications such as telegrams, twxs, faxes etc. transmitted over any media. It might be noted that microwave radio as a medium for transmitting long distance public telephone and data traffic was already undergoing a precipitous decline in 1986 as noisy analog microwave systems were rapidly being replaced with much cleaner digital fiber optic lines. At the present time very few (at least compared to the past) microwave long distance telephone links are still in use - but interestingly I am told that some out in the Indian reservation area of the west were still active as recently as a couple of years ago. [This in the face of successful federal prosecution of Indians for TV satellite piracy, ignoring any arguments that as a sovereign nation the Indian tribes were exempt from federal communications law]. Dave Emery