Ernestine, the take-no-crap telephone operator, would be thrilled to read this recent news item from the Associated Press: “Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau’s repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.”

At issue are over 450 unpaid bills for wiretap operations in five field offices (which of course are not identified). One of those offices ran up a total of $66,000 in snooping services. Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said that his audit of the agency found “late payments (that) have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence.”

Of course, this would never have happened during the reign of terror of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Under his dictatorial rule, the FBI was notorious for prodding into the personal lives of American citizens. Hoover was at the beck and call of presidents (liberal and conservative) who wanted the inside dirt on all sorts of people. Journalists were often their favorite targets. That was back in the days when reporters wrote real stories.

Presidents weren’t the only ones employing Hoover’s services. U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy okayed wiretapping Washington journalists in order to track down news leaks in the Department of Defense. He also authorized the FBI to spy on Martin Luther King because of the famed civil rights leader’s association with an alleged Communist Party member.

According to a 1975 Time Magazine report, Hoover went above and beyond the call of duty. Like the vacuum cleaner of the same name. He kept files on anyone he thought might be a threat to him. That included every member of Congress. As soon as someone was elected to the House or Senate, Hoover created a file folder with his name on it. When a subcommittee was formed in the mid-60’s to look at the bureau’s eavesdropping habits, Hoover kept “special memoranda” on its members.

Hoover kept notes on the drinking habits of Supreme Court justices. He knew what public officials were unfaithful to their wives. He spied on civil rights, antiwar, feminist and queer organizations. He was an evil Santa Claus, keeping tabs on everyone’s behavior, and determining who was naughty and who was nice.

Ironically, Hoover may have had his own secret life as a closeted gay man who was in love with fellow FBIer Clyde Tolson. The two were inseparable, though they didn’t live together. They are even buried side-by-side. Then there’s the persistent rumors that Hoover liked to do drag.

Whatever the truth is (and it’s probably not possible to know it now), Hoover was one of the more despicable characters in this country’s history. That his legacy lives on in the current spying practices of the FBI and other agencies (with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies) is reprehensible. It proves once again that America learns nothing from its mistakes.

For a brief moment, unpaid FBI phone bills have done what Congress doesn’t have the cojones to do.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical southern Italian queer atheist with a website: avicollimecca.com