In The Puzzle Palace, Bamford describes how telegraph companies loaned paper records to federal intelligence services. How teletype companies loaned wire recordings, and later tapes. Mostly they relied on patriotism. Sometimes threats. International mail has always been subject to inspection.
It's also mentioned in The Idea Factory; the head of Bell Labs and most AT&T leadership had "secret schedules" where they visited DC to receive orders and transmit information.
Abraham Lincoln had the nations' telegraph wires all terminate in a room in Washington DC, get received and inspected, then retransmitted. That was 150 years ago.
considering that the first line in the states was built from DC to Baltimore [0] I find this a bit like the comments that 70% of the worlds internet goes through Northern Virginia[1]. If part of the technology was invented in a specific area where a large group of people had knowledge then that is the reason why it is a central point of crossing (termination)
In The Puzzle Palace, Bamford describes how telegraph companies loaned paper records to federal intelligence services. How teletype companies loaned wire recordings, and later tapes. Mostly they relied on patriotism. Sometimes threats. International mail has always been subject to inspection.