Spying on Americans: Project Shamrock Begins
Project Shamrock, begun on this day, involved government monitoring telegraphic messages entering and leaving the U.S.
At its height, the program was monitoring 150,000 messages a month. Interestingly, the program was begun before the creation of either the CIA or the NSA. Shamrock was exposed in 1975, and terminated by NSA director Lew Allen that year.
Government spying on American citizens began during World War I (including burglarizing the offices of the National Civil Liberties Bureau) and continued intermittently during the early 1920s. It then resumed in earnest in 1936 when it was authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (see August 24, 1936).
For major exposés of spying on Americans by U.S. intelligence agencies, see The New York Times coverage of CIA spying on Americans on December 22, 1974; the Times exposé of NSA spying under President George W. Bush, on December 16, 2005; and the first in a long series of exposes of NSA spying under President Barack Obama on June 5, 2013.
Read a CIA account of Project Shamrock: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/winter99-00/art4.html
Learn more about Project Shamrock from the Senate Church Committee (pp. 765–776: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports_book3.htm
Read: Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (2007)
Learn more: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008)