In the blink of an eye, you could miss it -- that scene in "The Bourne Supremacy" when Jason Bourne delivers a lightning-quick beat-down to a U.S. consulate official in Naples, then grabs the man's PDA, manipulates its micro-motherboard, and drives off listening to the man on this 21st-century wiretap. And in the latest film, "The Bourne Ultimatum," wiretapping is the very deed that drives the frenetic plot.

In these types of adrenaline-pumping portrayals of electronic eavesdropping, reality must step aside so that Bourne (when he's not crashing a car) or "24's" Jack Bauer (when he's not torturing someone) can eavesdrop in real time, real fast. And it's always for the good, you see, because Bourne's gotta find out what sinister spook programmed him to be a stone-cold killer and Bauer's gotta save the world. The ends justify the means. No time for questions.

Because the core of the public discourse about national security and privacy is ... Hollywood?

Sadly, it's probably the case..

Technology, 9/11 and the politics of the war on terror have shifted the paradigm on privacy, for better or worse. Perhaps that is why Americans have not been howling about the possible intrusion of wiretapping into their telephone use.

"You don't necessarily have the sense, when you see Jack Bauer, that it's wrong," says Barry Carter, a Georgetown law professor. Back in the 1970s, Carter investigated widespread NSA phone wiretapping and reading of telegrams as part of the Church Committee's probe of intelligence abuses. (The committee was named for its chairman, Democratic Sen. Frank Church of Idaho.)

Back then, "it was accepted that it was wrong that these things were being done," he says.

The argument eluded, is that we need an event that will humanize the issues surrounding illegitimate wiretaps. Just imagine if we caught the NSA in the act of monitoring Paris Hilton's phone calls without a warrant. Is that the point America would riot? Or do we need someone with more ... credibility?

For my tax dollar, I would be most entertained if the entire IC went after Scientology. Kill two birds with one stone.. Picture Tom Cruise on the cover of Vanity Fair with the tag line "they tapped my phone!" A Waco like fiasco going down in Clearwater.. Juliette Lewis testifying in front of congress. Maybe we could even get a Kristie Alley perp walk..

Who's on the Line These Days, It Could Be Everyone - washingtonpost.com