Church Committee staff report — NSA surveillance affecting Americans
In April 1976, fifteen months after the Church Committee began its work, the staff published the definitive account of what the NSA had done. The report on NSA surveillance affecting Americans covered two programs: SHAMROCK and the watch list activity that had been codenamed MINARET.
The report established that SHAMROCK began in August 1945 and ran continuously until May 1975, when NSA Director Allen terminated it after the Committee's inquiry began. For thirty years, the three major international telecommunications companies — Western Union, RCA Global, and ITT World Communications — had been providing the NSA with direct access to their international message traffic. The arrangement was made without any statutory authority, without any warrant, and without the knowledge of Congress or the American public.
The watch list program ran from 1967 to 1973. During that period the NSA issued over 3,900 reports on Americans whose names appeared on the lists. The lists were assembled from names submitted by the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and Defense Intelligence Agency. The Committee determined that the activity violated the Fourth Amendment and likely violated Section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934.
In November 1975, the Committee voted to declassify the existence of SHAMROCK over the express objection of President Gerald Ford. It was the only time in U.S. history that a congressional committee voted to override a presidential classification determination and publish classified information the President contended should remain secret.
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY SURVEILLANCE AFFECTING AMERICANS
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY
The National Security Agency (NSA) is the largest intelligence agency in the United States Government. It performs two functions: it intercepts and analyzes foreign communications, and it protects the security of United States Government communications. NSA was formally established in 1952, but its activities as an organization date back to the Signal Intelligence Service of World War II. No statute has created NSA or defined the permissible scope of its activities. NSA operates pursuant to Executive directives, principally a Presidential memorandum of 1952 and a National Security Council Intelligence Directive.
The committee's investigation of NSA focused on two areas: (1) NSA's acquisition of international communications of Americans through a program which received copies of international telegrams from the major United States international cable companies; and (2) NSA's use of watch lists of names of Americans to direct its foreign intelligence collection activities.
The major findings of the committee with respect to NSA are:
1. For approximately 30 years, NSA received copies of most international telegrams sent from the United States through the facilities of United States telegraph companies. This activity, known by the codename SHAMROCK, was the largest governmental interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken and was apparently undertaken without any judicial or legislative authorization, or oversight. At its peak, NSA was processing 150,000 international telegrams a month, in addition to a large quantity of telex traffic.
2. During the period 1967-73, NSA received "watch lists" from other government agencies containing the names of Americans who were suspected of involvement in civil disturbances, antiwar activities, or drug trafficking, or who were considered potential threats to the physical security of the President and other government officials. NSA used these lists to select the international communications of Americans from the communications it was intercepting as part of its foreign intelligence collection activities. NSA issued some 3,900 reports based on the communications of Americans on those watch lists.
3. Watch list activity involved the interception of the international communications of Americans who were selected because of their political views or activities and not because they were suspected of any crime. The names of those who were targets of watch list activity include Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and numerous other Americans who were active in opposing the Vietnam War.
4. NSA's statutory authority to conduct its foreign intelligence mission is undefined and subject to serious question. The legal authority for both SHAMROCK and the watch list activities are questionable. SHAMROCK appears to violate Section 605 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934, as well as the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The legal authority for the watch list activities is even less clear.
PROJECT SHAMROCK
In the summer of 1945, as World War II was drawing to a close, representatives of the Army Signal Security Agency (SSA), the military predecessor of NSA, approached the three major international telegraph companies then operating in the United States — Western Union, RCA Global, and ITT World Communications — and requested that they make available to SSA copies of all international messages transmitted over their facilities. The companies agreed, on a voluntary and secret basis, to make such messages available to the government.
The primary purpose of the program at that time was to obtain intelligence information on foreign governments and their agents. The program continued after the establishment of NSA in 1952. Over the ensuing years, the nature of the program changed. In addition to foreign intelligence collection, the messages were at various times also processed to extract the communications of certain Americans.
The legal basis for SHAMROCK was never clearly established. The Department of Justice was not consulted about the legal implications of the program until 1975. In that year, after the committee began its investigation, senior government officials became concerned about SHAMROCK's legality. NSA terminated the program in May 1975.
During the course of the committee's investigation, NSA declined to provide the names of the companies involved in SHAMROCK on the grounds that such disclosure could damage national security and harm the companies. In November 1975, in the only instance in which a congressional committee voted to override a presidential classification objection, the committee voted to disclose the names of the three companies: Western Union International, RCA Global Communications, Inc., and ITT World Communications, Inc.
The volume of traffic processed under SHAMROCK was substantial. At its peak, NSA was processing 150,000 international telegrams per month. NSA analysts could select from this traffic the messages of specific individuals or organizations, messages dealing with specific subject matter, or messages sent to or from specific countries.
The legal status of SHAMROCK is clear. Section 605 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 prohibits any person from intercepting a wire communication and divulging or publishing its contents. The statute applies to telegraph messages. The fact that SHAMROCK appears to have violated the law was recognized by government officials at the time. In October 1952, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett asked former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, former Attorney General Tom Clark, and former Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson to provide assurances to the telegraph companies that participation in SHAMROCK would not subject them to criminal liability. Each former official provided such assurances, but it is questionable whether private assurances of former officials can legalize conduct which appears to violate a federal statute.
PROJECT MINARET AND THE WATCH LISTS
Beginning in the early 1960s, NSA, at the request of other government agencies, used watch lists of the names of certain Americans to monitor those individuals' international communications. The watch list activity reached its greatest extent in 1967-73, when names submitted by the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and Defense Intelligence Agency were used to direct NSA collection activities. In July 1969, NSA formally established the watch list activity as a special program with the codename MINARET.
The rationale for the program evolved over time. Initially, the objective was to identify Americans who were traveling to Cuba and who might be involved in activities contrary to U.S. policy. By 1967, the objective had expanded to include the international communications of those Americans who were believed to have connections with foreign elements that were attempting to influence or control civil disturbances in the United States. The watch lists submitted by the FBI included the names of leaders of antiwar organizations and civil rights groups. The watch lists submitted by the DIA included the names of Americans who had traveled to North Vietnam.
In July 1969, NSA Director Admiral Noel Gayler established formal procedures for the MINARET program. Reports generated under MINARET were to carry no NSA identification and were to be handled under special security procedures. The reason for these special procedures, as stated in internal NSA documents, was that the MINARET activity was particularly sensitive and that disclosure of the program could cause serious harm to NSA and to the government.
NSA Director Allen, in his testimony before the committee, acknowledged that the watch list activity was of questionable legality. He stated that there were "interpretations which deal with the right to privacy from unreasonable search and seizure of the Fourth Amendment." He also stated that some of the activity was "not authorized by law or constitutional authority and clearly prohibited." It was these concerns that led NSA to terminate the watch list activity in 1973, when Attorney General Elliot Richardson raised questions about the propriety of the program.
During the period 1967-73, NSA issued over 3,900 reports based on the international communications of Americans on the watch lists. These reports were distributed to the FBI, CIA, DIA, Secret Service, and the White House. The Americans whose communications were monitored included civil rights leaders, antiwar activists, journalists, and members of Congress.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
The committee makes the following findings with respect to NSA activities:
1. The acquisition of copies of international telegrams under Project SHAMROCK for a period of approximately 30 years was a massive program conducted without any legislative or judicial authorization or oversight. The program appears to have violated Section 605 of the Federal Communications Act and may have violated the Fourth Amendment.
2. The watch list program involved the monitoring of the international communications of American citizens on the basis of their political beliefs and activities. This was a serious violation of the constitutional rights of those Americans. The program was not authorized by statute and the claimed Executive authority for the program was questionable at best.
3. The MINARET program was established with the specific intent of preventing public disclosure of the watch list activity. The extraordinary security measures taken to protect the program from disclosure, including the instruction that MINARET reports carry no NSA identification, reflect an institutional awareness that the program was of doubtful legality.
4. Both SHAMROCK and MINARET were undertaken without any meaningful judicial or legislative oversight. The absence of adequate legal authority for these programs permitted the surveillance of Americans on the basis of their political views, in violation of First and Fourth Amendment rights.
5. The committee recommends that Congress enact legislation establishing the legal framework within which NSA may conduct its foreign intelligence mission, and that such legislation provide for appropriate judicial oversight of NSA activities that affect the rights of Americans. The committee further recommends that the interception of communications of Americans by NSA be subject to the same legal safeguards that apply to domestic intelligence collection by the FBI.
Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. "National Security Agency Surveillance Affecting Americans." Final Report, Book III: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. 94th Congress, 2d Session, Senate Report No. 94-755. April 23, 1976. U.S. Government Printing Office.
Senate Intelligence Committee: Book III PDF →
Internet Archive: Church Committee full report →
Archive.org backup: Book III NSA section →
Public domain U.S. government document. NSA section begins at page 733 of Book III. Transcription is drawn word-for-word from the source document.
The Church Committee's staff report established that both SHAMROCK and MINARET were undertaken without any meaningful judicial or legislative oversight. That sentence appears in a document produced by the United States Senate. It describes programs that ran for decades. The Colonial Authority in The Interference does not need to hide the mesh program from Congress. It needs only to ensure that Congress never asks the right questions. SHAMROCK and MINARET are the documented proof that this is achievable. The programs ran until someone decided to look. Nobody looked for thirty years.
The Interference begins with a patent. US3951134, filed in 1974, describes a device for remotely monitoring and altering human brain waves without physical contact. The patent is real. The USPTO granted it.
What precedes that patent is a documented institutional record. In 1960, the CIA funded MKUltra Subproject 119 at Texas Christian University. The stated objective included techniques of activation of the human organism by remote electronic means. The contractor was unwitting. The budget was $6,370. Sidney Gottlieb signed off. In 1952, an ARTICHOKE field team produced total amnesia in two overseas subjects held in a guarded safehouse with eyes taped shut in transit. Their dispositions after the operation were outside the team's responsibility. In 1963, the CIA Inspector General recommended termination of unwitting testing on American citizens. The program ran for another decade. In 1983, a U.S. Army Intelligence report filed in the CIA's STARGATE collection treated the brain as an electromagnetic organ that could be entrained to external frequencies. Not as theory. As established fact.
The Colonial Authority in The Interference is what that timeline produces if you follow it forward rather than stop at the declassified record. The mesh program James Harlan carries inside his skull is built on the physics in these documents. The fiction begins exactly where the public record stops answering questions.