Yes. That was Hoover and the FBI. The CIA also did some domestic stuff, more during the 1960s than later. NSA, not so much.
There wasn't much wiretapping in the US before the advent of electronic central offices. Phone switches just weren't equipped for it. Somebody had to physically connect wires to listen in. (Yes, you could listen to a few lines remotely using the test gear. Telcos hated that, because it tied up the automatic line insulation test equipment, COs had only 2 to 4 sets of that, each set took up three racks, and each could only do one line at a time.) In Guliani's old book about taking down the New York mob, he writes about the government having to pay phone bills to New York Telephone for wiretap lines. Once they didn't pay the bill, and the billing system billed the party being tapped. That's where the pressure for CALEA and built-in wiretapping began.
> That was Hoover and the FBI. The CIA also did some domestic stuff, more during the 1960s than later. NSA, not so much.
Project MINARET was one of the first times the public was made aware of the NSA. It started in 1962 and it involved the wiretapping of US citizens like Martin Luther King Jr and Senator Frank Church.
There wasn't much wiretapping in the US before the advent of electronic central offices. Phone switches just weren't equipped for it. Somebody had to physically connect wires to listen in. (Yes, you could listen to a few lines remotely using the test gear. Telcos hated that, because it tied up the automatic line insulation test equipment, COs had only 2 to 4 sets of that, each set took up three racks, and each could only do one line at a time.) In Guliani's old book about taking down the New York mob, he writes about the government having to pay phone bills to New York Telephone for wiretap lines. Once they didn't pay the bill, and the billing system billed the party being tapped. That's where the pressure for CALEA and built-in wiretapping began.