NSA vacuuming down Internet traffic

[jim bell]

At 02:08 PM 1/23/96 -0600, Rick Smith wrote:
>>>...listening for Kissinger..
>
>> Don't tell me, let me guess:  20 years ago, if you had told anyone about
>> this project, you would have had to kill them.  Now, 20 years later, after a
>> few levels of re-classifications and de-classifications, all you have to do
>> is to sneer in our general direction.  <G>
>
>Not. It wasn't a classified project. It was upstairs from Woolworth's
>in Central Square, ferheavens sake. SCIFs would have annoyed the
>landlord, and presented interesting "challenges" given the pasteboard
>construction. We didn't even have any of those clunky file cabinets
>for Keeping Secrets Safe.  We just amused ourselves with such
>speculation, since this was clearly a technology that excited interest
>in certain quarters.
>Rick.

I heard vague rumors of such capabilities about 20 years ago.  At the time,
I had no reason to make overseas telephone calls, but if I did I would have
interspersed the friendly conversation with terms like
"Plutonium...Khadafi...Khomeini...football...uranium..."