This page concerns the long history and continuing practice of the U.S. government spying on its own citizens.
There was "Record 'National Security' Surveillance in 2000" [*] under FISA according to this article by Kevin Poulsen at SecurityFocus. In addition to electronic surveillance, the panel also issues special "sneak and peek" search warrants allowing FBI agents to covertly enter a home or office to copy letters, journals and diaries, plant bugs, steal encryption keys, or install monitoring software or hardware on a target's computer.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) now has an Echelon Watch web site.
John Young's Cryptome site has links to many items related to cryptography, spying, etc. It is updated on an ongoing basis and is worth checking regularly.
Retired intelligence officer Mike Frost worked at Canada's CSE, their equivalent of the NSA. He has recently worked to expose some of the abuses of the international spying system generically known as ECHELON, appearing on 60 Minutes and other shows. In this CBN News story, "Surveillance Society: A Spy's Story," he describes the system as well as some of the harassment he has received since working to expose it. "The pressure is being applied very subtly," he says. "Letters that arrive in an opened condition, strange things happening to my answering machine when I'm not even in the house -- it becomes unplugged or turned off, or turned on and plugged in, strange footprints on my carpet, very subtle things. Not that I can go to anyone and say somebody broke into my home, because there is no sign of forced entry in any way. Constantly, my friends will say, what's the matter with your phone; there's an echo. So these things are being done just to keep me on my toes a little bit, and I'm aware of that."It is commonly believed that the CIA is not allowed to operate domestically within the United States, i.e., to spy on Americans in the U.S. This is not the CIA's interpretation of the law, however, as indicated in the CIA's own Frequently Asked Questions list. ...the CIA is restricted in the collection of intelligence information directed against US citizens. Collection is allowed only for an authorized intelligence purpose; for example, if there is a reason to believe that an individual is involved in espionage or international terrorist activities.Some of the history of domestic spying is described in the introduction to the book The Lawless State: The Crimes of the US Intelligence Agencies, by Halperin, Berman, Borosage, and Marwick, published in 1976. The excerpts reveal that despite what many people assume, committees like the Church Committee barely scrached the surface of the abuses up to that time.
This is a transcript of a 60 Minutes segment from Dec. 3, 2000. [*] It describes how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was used in practice in one case. It is online at the Cryptome site. Mr. SAUBER: They didn't find a single piece of evidence that our clients had committed espionage or that they had ever given anything to any foreign powers.Mr. ROBBINS: So what--so what they did is they set out to create that evidence.
WALLACE: And how did the FBI do that? The Bureau runs something called the Behavioral Analysis Program. Its purpose: to create personality profiles of suspects to help in their investigations. In Squillacote's case, her profile was based on everything the FBI learned in 18 months of 24-hour-a-day surveillance.
See also COINTELPRO, MHCHAOS, and Political Harassment.