The New York Times has revealed recently that the National Security Agency has been secretly intercepting international telephonic and email communications involving U.S. citizens since Sept. 11. This systemic, non-court-sanctioned domestic spying apparently violates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but President Bush quickly rationalized all of it in the name of "protecting us from terrorism."

Almost immediately, the usual outraged congressional suspects (Sens. Ted Kennedy, Charles Schumer, Arlen Specter) admitted that they were shocked, yes shocked, by such a blatant abuse of governmental power and promised Capitol Hill hearings to resolve the matter. Sure.

But to be "shocked" is, frankly, to have been fast asleep for the last 50 years. The private activities of thousands upon thousands of Americans have been shadowed, followed, monitored and placed under surveillance since World War II, and mostly without any judicial oversight whatsoever. The bulk of the domestic snooping has been related to alleged issues of national security, but radical environmentalist groups, drug peddlers and civil-rights groups have also been targeted, as well as celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra.

Much of undercover spying was accomplished by the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover and by various military intelligence agencies, later subsumed under the Defense Intelligence Agency. All of these agencies maintained thousands of files on individuals and groups of "interest" for decades without any seriously raised congressional eyebrows.

Perhaps the earliest domestic government program to snoop on private electronic communications was the World War II cable intercept program, code-named Operation Shamrock. Shamrock was instituted to intercept cable transmissions between U.S. citizens and foreign nationals, companies, embassies and governments. The intercepts were accomplished with the willing support of U.S telecommunications companies such as ITT, RCA and Western Union, and the entire operation was super secret.

Like many of the activities of the NSA today, Congress in the 1940s was blissfully ignorant of the existence and scope of the snooping program. But even more important, the domestic and foreign cable transmission intercepts continued after the war and, indeed, for the next 30 years in almost complete secrecy. No one in the public arena ever leaked anything on Shamrock, and no legislation ever was introduced to legitimize domestic cable surveillance. The program that never officially existed was terminated (supposedly) on May 15, 1975.

Who says that agencies of government can't keep secrets? The Operation Shamrock secret was kept in a lock-box for almost 30 years. If the information is compartmentalized enough, and if the media are compliant enough, secrets can be kept.

But the NSA spying, past and present, makes Operation Shamrock look almost harmless. Some of the earliest unauthorized NSA spying occurred in the late 1960s and centered on individuals and groups associated with anti-Vietnam War protesting. But the largest and most under-reported snooping is the NSA's project Echelon. Echelon encompasses a vast network of electronic spy stations located in the United States, England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand designed to monitor almost every telephonic, fax, e-mail and fiber-optic communication in those countries. Supercomputers reportedly search for suspicious "key" words that may relate to political and commercial activities, as well as national security. Most Americans have never heard of Echelon, and I guess that's the point.

Am I outraged by the most recent spying revelations? Of course. There should be no government monitoring of private communications (telephone, e-mail, cable) absent explicit approval from a judiciary that demands the highest proof of any so-called national security "risk." But am I surprised that agencies such as the NSA are covertly snooping on Americans, this time with a presidential sanction? You must be kidding.

Armentano, a Vero Beach resident, is professor emeritus at the University of Hartford and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

Commentary:
That's why the Congress created the FISA Court. Previous mistakes and violations of our constitutional rights and breaking our laws should be condemned not excused.