" Although tapping into underground fiber-optic lines is much more difficult than tapping into a copper cable, the technique has been perfected by the NSA. For cables buried in foreign countries, the task of gaining access to them was given to a unique covert organization named the Special Collection Service (SCS), which combined the clandestine skills of the CIA with the technical capabilities of the NSA. Its purpose is to put sophisticated eavesdropping equipment—from bugs to parabolic antennas—in difficult-to-reach places. It also attempts to target for recruitment key foreign communications personnel, such as database managers, systems administrators, and IT specialists. The "

― James Bamford , The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America