“Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” – John Adams (1735-1826) American Patriot and Founding Father who served as the second President of the United States (1797–1801) and the first Vice President (1789–97)

Barely 10 years after the first truly global war in human history [which World War I most certainly was not] called the Seven Years’ War (that involved every European great power of the time (except the Ottoman Empire), spanned five continents, affected Europe, the Americas (French and Indian War), West Africa, India, and the Philippines) ended in 1763, the war weary citizens of the British American colonies began rebelling against their ever increasing taxes and continuing loss of freedom—thus leading, in 1773, to these people causing a relatively minor political protest (over high taxes) called the Boston Tea Party that involved a secret society named The Sons of Liberty, who while disguising themselves as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company.
With the Crown Post Office being that times main “communication technology”, and in order to suppress the spreading of these Sons of Liberty protests, and in order to further block the efforts of the Colonies to act in concert with one another, the British government, in 1774, began delaying or destroying newspapers and opening and reading private mail (hacking) belonging to these American colonists, and that the British authorites said was legal for them to do—after all, the were dealing with “terrorists”.