Was this already public info? I feel weird about people sharing classified info on the forums I frequent. (Even information that I don’t agree should be classified)
I’ve had no access to classified anything ever and could have told you the US navy has remarkably good maps of several key parts of the ocean in which friendly or enemy boomer subs are likely to operate.
Like, of course they do. If there are any unusually-good ocean maps they have, it’s those, at least.
It's also public knowledge that the USS Jimmy Carter is a "very special" submarine. I have no direct knowledge of what it can do (I was a surface warfare type) but splicing into fiberoptic cables has been rumored many times by many sources.
"Blind Man's Bluff" is a great book about the work of espionage submarines and includes many anecdotes from other boats that were based at Kitsap.
Tapping cables is definitely something that's been done through history, but more of the stories were about things like recovering the remains of enemy test missiles for physical intelligence. Now that that fiber traffic is routinely encrypted anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if more of USS Jimmy Carter's missions are recovering North Korean rockets.
A former Navy Seal heads the org I work in. He’s an expert in telecommunications and fiber tech. I’ve always wondered how he go the job and knows so much about telecom…especially fiber.