Irony?: The USS Jimmy Carter might be involved in dragnet surveillance.

This is all thought to be fairly recent technology however. Previously, the only way that undersea cables could be accessed was by tapping into them directly. To fulfil this purposes, the USS Jimmy Carter submarine was apparently repurposed for the job. The sub apparently accesses the cables at “regeneration points”, where their signal is amplified and where the cables are no longer bundled, but can be accessed individually.

"I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial."