The natsec establishment is now engaging in gross distortions of history, calling the founders advocates of warrantless surveillance: A few examples of the principles and practices of the founding fathers will suffice for now: General George Washington approved of mail openings because of the “innumerable advantages” that arise from such an act, and he went so far as to provide instructions on successful mail opening techniques: “contrive a means of opening them [letters] without breaking the seals, take copies of the contents, and then let them go on.” Washington was not alone in believing in this method of eavesdropping; Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams served on a committee charged with disseminating excerpts from intercepted mail for propaganda purposes.
FWIW, the philosophy of the American Revolutionaries was first articulated in the early 1760's by a lawyer named James Otis in a suit challenging the constitutionality of warrantless searches of people's houses. John Adams was in the room for this hearing and was inspired by it. Benjamin Franklin was Postmaster in the American colonies. In 1753 he required his employees to swear “not to open or suffer to be opened any Mail or Bag of Letters.” In 1782 Congress passed a law prohibiting the opening of mail without the consent of the addressee or a warrant. As for Jefferson, in 1798 he wrote “The infidelities of the post office and the circumstances of the times are against my writing fully and freely… I know not which mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things.” Publius and the NSA Surveillance Program | Online Library of Law and Liberty | 
