Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted
an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action
lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges
that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously
allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of
AT&T customers without warrants.
According
to an AT&T whistleblower, the telephone giant made available to a
government snoop every single phone call you made, every single email
you wrote, every single online video or text chat you ever had, a list
of every Web site or chat room you ever visited, copies of every photo
you've ever downloaded or emailed or received, so government spies
could go through it and do whatever it is they do when they peep into
your private life.
On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction
prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed
a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents
that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works.
"I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret
job was the person working to install equipment in this room," Klein
wrote. "The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room."
Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a
splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of
that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being
installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and
San Diego.
"While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the
secret room were tapping into the Worldnet (AT&T's internet
service) circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal,"
Klein wrote.
The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to
other internet backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also
diverting traffic routed from its network to or from other domestic and
international providers, according to Klein's statement.
The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus
STA 6400, "known to be used particularly by government intelligence
agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data
looking for preprogrammed targets," according to Klein's statement.
Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush
administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial
monitoring of Americans' communications.
"Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track
record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims
that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign
communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or
with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted
wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to
be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of
countless citizens."
After asking for a preview copy of the documents last week, the
government did not object to the EFF filing the paper under seal,
although the EFF asked the court Wednesday to make the documents public.
According to court rules, AT&T has until Thursday to file a motion
to keep the documents sealed. The government could also step in to the
case and request that the documents not be made public, or even that
the entire lawsuit be barred under the seldom-used State Secrets Privilege.
Ok to those fun folks who keep saying "Its ok for them to spy on me, I have nothing to hide!"
Have
you done online banking, paid a bill on the phone giving your routing
& account number, have you refilled a prescription online or your
doctor gave you your lab results by phone? Did you know that
NSA's IT and computer functions were privatized in 2001 as part of
Project Groundbreaker with the IT backbone, the computer systems that
holds and analyzes all those domestic calls being operated by consortia
of defense contractors and telecoms.
Just think of the DHS
hiring lately... you want those kind of people wandering through YOUR
private information, your banking information, you medical records?
What about the phone sex? I usually leave a verbal disclaimer: "Hi, to whoever is listening, this is just a fantasy". Can you hear me now? I guess the answer is pretty clear by now.Yeah, it's LOUD and CLEAR!
