Psst ... Our government has spied on us for
decades
TCP
By DOM ARMENTANO
guest columnist
December 29, 2005
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.
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