File 019 · 1945–1975 · Surveillance

Project SHAMROCK and Operation MINARET

For about 30 years the US government collected copies of international telegrams sent from the United States, and the NSA kept watch lists that included American citizens.

Background

After the Second World War US intelligence asked the main telegraph companies to keep handing over copies of international telegrams, as they had during the war. The arrangement, code-named SHAMROCK, continued under the Army and then the National Security Agency, which was created in 1952. At first the telegrams were paper; later they were copied on magnetic tape.

A second program, MINARET, began in the late 1960s. It created 'watch lists' of people whose communications were to be flagged. Originally about foreign influence and drug trafficking, the lists came to include American anti-war activists and civil rights figures.

What the record shows

• The Church Committee's reports described SHAMROCK as a program that, in its final form, delivered a large volume of telegrams to the NSA, including messages sent by Americans.
• NSA watch lists included well-known figures: documents released in 2013 confirmed that Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali were among the names monitored.
• The Justice Department concluded in a 1976 review that some activity could have been illegal but did not bring prosecutions.
• The scandal fed directly into the creation of the FISA court.

Timeline

• 1945 SHAMROCK begins with cooperation from telegraph companies.
• 1952 The NSA is established and takes over the work.
• 1967–73 Operation MINARET runs watch lists that include US citizens.
• 1975 The Church Committee exposes both programs; SHAMROCK ends.
• Oct 1975 NSA director Lew Allen testifies publicly about the programs.
• 1978 FISA is passed to regulate surveillance for intelligence purposes.

Checking the claims

The claim: the NSA spied on ordinary Americans decades before the internet. This is documented in the Church Committee's published findings and in NSA's own later declassifications. The companies involved cooperated voluntarily at first and later, according to testimony, because they believed the government wanted it.

It is also worth separating what was and was not done. The programs collected telegrams that crossed the border, not domestic telephone calls, and the content was analyzed against lists of terms. That is still surveillance of communications involving Americans, which is why Congress treated it as a serious problem.

Claimed, but not shown

Claims that the NSA recorded all domestic telephone calls in this period are not supported by the Church Committee's findings.

Verdict

Sources

• Church Committee Final Report, Book III (1976)
• Hearings before the Select Committee: National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights (Oct 1975)
• NSA historical studies released under declassification, including the 2013 release on MINARET

Connected files (red threads)

• The Church Committee and the 'Family Jewels' — NSA telegram interception was exposed in the hearings
• Snowden and the NSA — The same agency, a different era of bulk collection
• COINTELPRO — Parallel programs aimed at activists and civil rights leaders

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