whistle-blower outs NSA spy-room

[Eugen Leitl]

Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

By Ryan Singel
11:15 AM Apr, 07, 2006

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its
customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to
data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco
switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the
Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

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.

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.

According to a statement released by Klein's attorney, an NSA agent showed up
at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level
technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being
built adjacent to the room housing AT&T's #4ESS switching equipment, which is
responsible for routing long distance and international calls.

"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.

Narus, whose website touts AT&T as a client, sells software to help internet
service providers and telecoms monitor and manage their networks, look for
intrusions, and wiretap phone calls as mandated by federal law.

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.

One of the documents is titled "Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San
Francisco," and is dated 2002. The others are allegedly a design document
instructing technicians how to wire up the taps, and a document that describes
the equipment installed in the secret room.

In a letter to the EFF, AT&T objected to the filing of the documents in any
manner, saying that they contain sensitive trade secrets and could be "could
be used to 'hack' into the AT&T network, compromising its integrity."

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.

AT&T spokesman Walt Sharp declined to comment on the allegations, citing a
company policy of not commenting on litigation or matters of national
security, but did say that "AT&T follows all laws following requests for
assistance from government authorities."


--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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