Construction Crew Severs Secret ‘Black Line’

[Eugen Leitl]

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/blackline/

Construction Crew Severs Secret bBlack Lineb

    * By Kim Zetter Email Author

    * June 1, 2009  | 

    * 1:14 pm  | 

    * Categories: Breaches, Spooks Gone Wild, Surveillance

A Verizon lineman grips the strands contained in a fiber optic cable in
Massapequa Park, N.Y. on May 11, 2006. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

A construction crew working on an office building in Virginia in 2000 severed
a fiber optic cable that wasnbt on anyonebs map. Apparently it was a bblack
lineb used for carrying secret intelligence data, according to sources who
spoke recently with the Washington Post.

Within minutes of cutting the cable, three black SUVbs pulled up carrying men
in suits who complained that their line was severed.

bThe construction manager was shocked,b a worker told the Washington Post.
bHe had never seen a line get cut and people show up within seconds. Usually
youbve got to figure out whose line it is. To garner that kind of response
that quickly was amazing.b

AT&T crews arrived the same day to fix the line, an unusually prompt
response. When AT&T tried to bill the construction company $300,000, the
company balked and the charges bjust disappeared.b

The cut occurred in the Tysons Corner region, where the neighbors include the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National
Counterterrorism Center. The Central Intelligence Agency is a few miles away.

Tysons is also home to a site belonging to the Warrenton Training Center, a
communications training center and support facility for the National
Communications System that is suspected of handling some communication for
the CIA.