TRANSLTR, like all great technological advancements, had been a child of necessity.
TRANSLTR, like all great technological advancements, had been a child of necessity. During the 1980s, the NSA witnessed a revolution in telecommunications that would change the world of intelligence reconnaissance forever—public access to the Internet. More specifically, the arrival of E-mail.
Criminals, terrorists, and spies had grown tired of having their phones tapped and immediately embraced this new means of global communication. E-mail had the security of conventional mail and the speed of the telephone. Since the transfers traveled through underground fiber-optic lines and were never transmitted into the airwaves, they were entirely intercept-proof—at least that was the perception.
In reality, intercepting E-mail as it zipped across the Internet was child’s play for the NSA’s techno-gurus. The Internet was not the new home computer revelation that most believed. It had been created by the Department of Defense three decades earlier—an enormous network of computers designed to provide secure government communication in the event of nuclear war. The eyes and ears of the NSA were old Internet pros. People conducting illegal business via E-mail quickly learned their secrets were not as private as they’d thought. The FBI, DEA, IRS, and other U.S. law enforcement agencies—aided by the NSA’s staff of wily hackers—enjoyed a tidal wave of arrests and convictions.
