The amount of consumer pressure within ham radio can be larger than you think. HF rigs can go for thousands of dollars, with VHF/UHF gear up there too.

Yes there are a lot of far less expensive ways to enjoy amateur radio. And I really should get my too-long unused cheap rig out of storage and do some of them, like digital modes on a computer over HF or satellite with a homebrew antenna and my old analog HTs.

P.S. It’s ham not HAM. It has never been an acronym so it should never be capitalized. Ham radio at the beginning of a sentence just follows normal English language capitalization rules.

73 from now actually old and apparently grumpy OM

Notice that the opposition to these scans happened only after a Senator was included in the warrantless dragnet.

The reforms introduced Tuesday reflect discomfort over the practice of warrantless scans, which are authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Its opponents were galvanized when the Office of Director of National Intelligence revealed in July that the FBI had improperly conducted searches for information about a U.S. senator and two state officials.

emphasis mine