Project SHAMROCK was the sister project to

Project MINARET Project MINARET was a domestic espionage project operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), which, after intercepting electronic communications that contained the names of predesignated US citizens, passed them to other government law enforcem ...

, an

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...

exercise started in August 1945. Project MINARET involved the accumulation of all

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

ic data that entered or exited the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The

Armed Forces Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

(AFSA) and its successor, the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

(NSA), were given direct access to daily

microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either photographic film, films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the origin ...

copies of all incoming, outgoing, and transiting telegrams via the

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...

and its associates

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

and ITT. NSA did the operational interception, and, if there was information that would be of interest to other intelligence agencies, the material was passed to them. Intercepted messages were disseminated to the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

Secret Service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...

Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) was a bureau within the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and a predecessor agency of the modern Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). History It was created by § 3 of the Reorganizatio ...

(BNDD), and the

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philippin ...

. No court authorized the operation and there were no warrants. According to Stephen Budiansky, the precursor to the project occurred in 1940: "In January 1940 the Army's adjutant general sent a letter to the president of

David Sarnoff David Sarnoff (February 27, 1891 – December 12, 1971) was an American businessman and pioneer of American radio and television. Throughout most of his career, he led the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in various capacities from shortly afte ...

, asking if a Lieutenant Earle F. Cook might be assigned to the company..." Cook photographed all international commercial cablegrams. "The clandestine arrangement—almost certainly illegal—set a precedent..." Official wartime censorship began in Dec. 1940, when all cables were "turned over to the government for inspection." According to Louis W. Tordella, "the collection program 'just ran on' ever since its beginning in World War II 'without a great deal of attention from anyone'..." Three major cable companies provided copies of all international telegrams passing through New York, Washington, and San Francisco. In the 1950s, "New Shamrock" tapped the links of 60–70 foreign embassies. According to Athan Theoharis, the post-World War II continuation of Project SHAMROCK brought hesitation from the telegraph companies, who were concerned about the legality of their actions and that employees would reveal the companies' government cooperation to the public. Their fears were assuaged after a promise from Attorney General Tom Clark that the U.S. government would not prosecute the companies for their participation in Project SHAMROCK, and after Congress approved a bill section that made it illegal for "unauthorized" individuals to reveal information related to code-breaking, which was a part of SHAMROCK's operations. At the height of Project SHAMROCK, 150,000 messages were printed and analyzed by NSA personnel in a month. In May 1975 however, Congressional critics began to investigate and expose the program. As a result, NSA director

Lew Allen Lew Allen Jr. (September 30, 1925 – January 4, 2010) was a United States Air Force four-star general who served as the tenth Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. As chief of staff, Allen served as the senior uniformed Air Force officer ...

terminated it, on his own authority rather than that of other intelligence agencies. According to Budiansky, a 1977 US Department of Justice review concluded wiretap laws were violated, but "If the intelligence agencies possessed too much discretionary authority with too little accountability, that would seem to be a 35-year failing of Presidents and the Congress rather than the agencies or their personnel." The testimony of both the representatives from the cable companies and of director Allen at the hearings prompted

Senate Intelligence Committee The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (sometimes referred to as the Intelligence Committee or SSCI) is dedicated to overseeing the United States Intelligence Community—the agencies and bureaus of the federal government of ...

chairman Senator

Frank Church Frank Forrester Church III (July 25, 1924 – April 7, 1984) was an Americans, American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Idah ...

to conclude that Project SHAMROCK was "probably the largest government interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken." One result of these investigations was the 1978 creation of the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign po ...

(FISA) which limited the powers of the NSA and put in place a process of warrants and judicial review. Another internal safeguard, was United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18), an internal NSA and intelligence community set of procedures, originally issued in 1980. USSID 18 was the general guideline for handling

signal intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...

(SIGINT) inadvertently collected on US citizens, without a warrant, prior to the

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

Administration. The post-Clinton era interpretations of FISA and USSID 18's principles assume that the executive branch has

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

for warrantless surveillance. This assertion came under congressional investigation as an apparent violation of FISA's intent.

References

External links

Recollections from the Church Committee's Investigation of NSA: Unlucky SHAMROCK
CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence
Unlucky SHAMROCK: The View From the Other Side
James G. Hudec, August 2000

Development of Surveillance Technology & Risk of Abuse of Economic Information , PDF

{{Espionage

SHAMROCK A shamrock is a young sprig, used as a symbol of Ireland. Saint Patrick, Ireland's patron saint, is said to have used it as a metaphor for the Christian Holy Trinity. The name ''shamrock'' comes from Irish (), which is the diminutive of ...

Government databases in the United States

Shamrock A shamrock is a young sprig, used as a symbol of Ireland. Saint Patrick, Ireland's patron saint, is said to have used it as a metaphor for the Christian Holy Trinity. The name ''shamrock'' comes from Irish (), which is the diminutive of ...

Privacy of telecommunications Privacy in the United States Western Union

See also

References

External links