Posted on 11/07/2007 2:02:09 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Big Brother Spying on Americans' Internet Data? AT&T Whistleblower Describes Secret Room That Sends
By Z. BYRON WOLF
Nov. 7, 2007 —
It would be difficult to say whose e-mail, text messages or Internet phone calls the government is monitoring at any given time, but according to a former AT&T employee, the government has warrantless access to a great deal of Internet traffic should they care to take a peek.
As information is traded between users it flows also into a locked, secret room on the sixth floor of AT&T's San Francisco offices and other rooms around the country -- where the U.S. government can sift through and find the information it wants, former AT&T employee Mark Klein alleged Wednesday at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
"An exact copy of all Internet traffic that flowed through critical AT&T cables -- e-mails, documents, pictures, Web browsing, voice-over-Internet phone conversations, everything -- was being diverted to equipment inside the secret room," he said.
Klein, who worked for more than 20 years as a technician at AT&T, said that the highly secretive electronics-focused National Security Agency began working with telecom companies to gain wholesale access to vast amounts of data traveling over the Internet.
Whistleblower: AT&T Allows U.S. to Spy on Internet Data
Klein was on Capitol Hill Wednesday attempting to convince lawmakers not to give a blanket, retroactive immunity to telecom companies for their secret cooperation with the government.
He said that as an AT&T technician overseeing Internet operations in San Francisco, he helped maintain optical splitters that diverted data en route to and from AT&T customers.
One day he found that the splitters were hard-wired into a secret room on the sixth floor.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Isn’t this essentially the same thing as the Carnivore/Echelon programs of a decade ago?
Kline should be waterboarded.
Prove it.
Hmm... That secret room isn’t a secret room. It is the relay for the back-up satellite uplink...
How’s that for an explanation?
Just the kind of tool that a President Hillary would love, eh?
Quite aside from nefarious uses, ordinary traffic analysis is done like this to optimize the networks. Further, for anything unencrypted, anyone that owns a device that passes internet traffic can look at that traffic. Gee, start with encrypting anything you have ANY interest in not being read, and go from there.
Pictures? Man, they must have one heck of a collection of porno.
Why? Waterboarding is a legal interrogation technique in which certain high profile terrorists, suspected to have knowledge of imminent attacks, are coerced into divulging that information. Do you think Kline has knowledge of an impending attack on America?
Or are you just trying to discredit the American Intelligence Community by suggesting that their interrogation techniques are used willy-nilly against American citizens?
Is anyone surprised by this? I would say this is no surprise, no matter what political party is in power.
Naaahh, I'm sure it was for a good cause.
“Isn’t this essentially the same thing as the Carnivore/Echelon programs of a decade ago?”
Yup.
And why would the Feds need a room at the ISP? Why not just use a few specialized routers at strategic locations?
he is a traitor to America and should be treated as such.
Ms. Ashwari-Jennings:"You can trust us. Unless you are an American. "
Yeah, even though I'm not that technical the logistics seem imposing, it just doesn't "make sense" to me technically.
Of course that's thin ice but still. Perhaps someone with some technical expertise can shed some light on it.
I would like to see the proof of this as well having spent 32 years with PT&T,Pacific Bell,SBC and AT&T in Special Services.
Know it. Use it. Love it. There's a 50% chance that the tools of the GWOT will be in the hands of a Clinton in 2009. Best to prepare now, even if you never use it.
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