“Before the Internet, when surveillance consisted largely of government-on-government espionage, agencies like the NSA would target specific communications circuits: that Soviet undersea cable between Petropavlovsk and Vladivostok, a military communications satellite, a microwave network. This was for the most part passive, requiring large antenna farms in nearby countries.”
Source: Why US Officials Stopped Talking about ‘Cyberwar’ – Nextgov.com
