In the mid-1990s, the NSA installed one such tap, say former intelligence officials familiar with the covert project. Using a special spy submarine, they say, agency personnel descended hundreds of feet into one of the oceans and sliced into a fiber-optic cable. The mixed results of the experiment--particularly the agencys inability to make sense of the vast flood of data unleashed by the tap--show that Americas pre-eminent spy service has huge challenges to overcome if it hopes to keep from going deaf in the digital age.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2764372,00.html
