When cell phones first became big, probably 10-15 years ago at least, there was a website for my area I lived in at the time (southern Illinois) that would list texts and people could vote on the funniest ones. There were some really private messages that would hit the top (obviously phone numbers weren’t displayed.) So it used to be people had the assumption that texts were public, because for some carriers they basically were.

This is hilarious.

Do you happen to have any links regarding this? Would love to read more.

If I understand correctly, the initial telephone systems were run by manual operators at a physical switchboard, who could listen in to anything that was said on any line. Many people also had party lines, where someone (in another house or apartment) could pick up their phone and listen to your conversations.

So, no, not much of an expectation of privacy - at least, there shouldn't have been.

If there was no expectation of privacy, the police would not need a warrant to tap a line.

Is the initial set of expectations the immutable legal standard?

Wiretapping (without a warrant) is stupidly illegal.

Saying something is illegal and expecting everyone to follow the law is just pinky-swearing.

Yeah! Why have laws anyways? Every law will be broken sooner or later and it’s not like we have institutions tasked with enforcing laws. /s

I'm under the assumption that wiretapping to create evidence is illegal, but wiretapping to get a warrant probably happens all the time. (AKA Judge and Police officer listen to illegally captured audio - Judge approves official warrant to make future recordings legal)

Wiretapping by a private person should not happen.

"should not" and "does not" are not equal statements.