[Dewayne-Net] Is the NSA spying on U.S. Internet traffic?

[Dewayne Hendricks]

Is the NSA spying on U.S. Internet traffic?

Salon exclusive: Two former AT&T employees say the telecom giant has
maintained a secret, highly secure room in St. Louis since 2002.
Intelligence experts say it bears the earmarks of a National Security
Agency operation.

By Kim Zetter

<http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/21/att_nsa/index.html?
source=salon.rss>

June 21, 2006 | In a pivotal network operations center in
metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly secured
room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according
to two former AT&T workers once employed at the center.

In interviews with Salon, the former AT&T workers said that only
government officials or AT&T employees with top-secret security
clearance are admitted to the room, located inside AT&T's facility in
Bridgeton. The room's tight security includes a biometric "mantrap"
or highly sophisticated double door, secured with retinal and
fingerprint scanners. The former workers say company supervisors told
them that employees working inside the room were "monitoring network
traffic" and that the room was being used by "a government agency."

The details provided by the two former workers about the Bridgeton
room bear the distinctive earmarks of an operation run by the
National Security Agency, according to two intelligence experts with
extensive knowledge of the NSA and its operations. In addition to the
room's high-tech security, those intelligence experts told Salon, the
exhaustive vetting process AT&T workers were put through before being
granted top-secret security clearance points to the NSA, an agency
known as much for its intense secrecy as its technological
sophistication.

"It was very hush-hush," said one of the former AT&T workers. "We
were told there was going to be some government personnel working in
that room. We were told, 'Do not try to speak to them. Do not hamper
their work. Do not impede anything that they're doing.'"

[snip]

Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>

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