Its immediate adoption by many foreign intelligence agencies, for whatever purpose, was a revealing sign. Brad Thor, in one of his books, describes a surveillance program that can effectively monitor a household, tell how many people come and go, when no one is home, and much of internal activities -- without ever entering the premises to place sensors. I am confident that such a program grew out of ProMIS software.
After I wrote that earlier post I remembered the FBI using Carnivore, a program to monitor web activity, often connecting it to private ISP servers. I know they were monitoring my FR activity in the 90s because I had two ISP providers ask me to find a different service for obscure reasons.
Way back in the 70s I knew my phone was monitored - either FBI or mil intel (I'm getting old, I can't remember the designation.) I had a girlfriend who loved to call me on the phone Friday nights and weekends and talk explicitly about our physical relations. I warned her that my phone was monitored and she might want to keep that in mind; that seemed to just stimulate her more. I used to amuse myself thinking how some surveillance supervisor was scratching his head wondering why so many of his agents wanted to work weekends when they didn't have to. 🤗😄