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PDF documents from AT&T attorneys reveal details confirming previous allegations of NSA wiretapping

AT&T attorneys released a legal briefing with three pages of redacted information in a PDF format.  Unfortunately for AT&T and the US National Security Agency, the censored information was still readable in many PDF viewing applications.  The document was part of the same EFF lawsuit filed back in February of this year.

The document alluded that a room in one of AT&T's switching centers is dedicated to NSA digital eavesdropping -- complete with backup fiber optic splices and monitoring equipment.  CNET claims the following is part of the censored text with regard to the NSA room: "Although the plaintiffs ominously refer to the equipment as the 'Surveillance Configuration,' the same physical equipment could be utilized exclusively for other surveillance in full compliance with [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]."

This accidental leak of information comes on the heels of a separate document leak incident orchestrated by AT&T insider and whistleblower Mark Klein.  Klein claims he spliced fiber optic cable to a room in an AT&T switching center for the NSA.  That room, it turns out, is the same room mentioned in the PDF document that was improperly censored.

Cable companies have been quick to jump on the negative press surrounding AT&T and its alleged breach of privacy.  Several cable companies including Comcast, Cox and Time Warner, issued statements claiming they will not provide the NSA with unwarranted information.

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If they had a warrant...
By creathir on 5/26/06, Rating: 0
RE: If they had a warrant...
By JonB on 5/26/2006 4:18:47 PM , Rating: 2
that's the deal, though. The NSA never quite bothered getting warrants. It would have been too much trouble, bothering a judge and all.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By rrsurfer1 on 5/26/2006 4:20:12 PM , Rating: 2
I think the point is here, they didn't have a warrant at all. Especially not for unrestricted wiretapping, that kind of warrant would never be issued.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By Duwelon on 5/26/06, Rating: -1
RE: If they had a warrant...
By soydeedo on 5/26/2006 4:51:29 PM , Rating: 1
"calling trends" sounds like a phone company trying to decide if i need a long distance plan. having unwarranted eavesdropping on your telephone conversations is akin to having the possibility that someone could be listening to any/all face to face conversations. i'm not sure about you, but that just makes me uncomfortable and i don't think there are many that like behemoths to look over their shoulders.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By Duwelon on 5/26/06, Rating: -1
RE: If they had a warrant...
By AndreasM on 5/26/2006 5:31:07 PM , Rating: 2
Who cares if it's legal or not? It's WRONG.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By deeznuts on 5/26/2006 4:51:55 PM , Rating: 2
Slippery slope. Yeah this is fine, what's next? If it was legal, then fine. But apparently this is illegal.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By Duwelon on 5/26/2006 4:56:05 PM , Rating: 2
How apparrent is it that it's illegal? I'm not saying it's not, although it shouldn't be imo, though i'm not saying i'm FOR actual evesdropping. Just cause it's on the news and some group is up in arms about it, doesn't mean it's illegal.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By smitty3268 on 5/26/2006 7:27:13 PM , Rating: 2
It directly breaks the FISA law that Congress passed back in the 70's. Of course, the administration claims that the Constitution gives them the right to break that law for national security purposes.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By creathir on 5/26/06, Rating: -1
RE: If they had a warrant...
By Martin Blank on 5/26/2006 7:12:07 PM , Rating: 2
Grand juries do not decide matters of guilt or innocence. They listen to evidence brought by prosecutors (defense attorneys are rarely, if ever, allowed to present counter-evidence), and decide if there's a reasonable chance of success at trial. If so, they hand down an indictment, which allows the prosecutors to actually take the case to court, where a normal jury (or a judge, if a jury trial is waived or under certain other conditions, such as FISA) decide the guilt or innocence of the accused party.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By rrsurfer1 on 5/26/2006 4:54:55 PM , Rating: 4
Well, you and the people you've "actualy talked to about this" may be OK with the NSA violating our rights to "secure our country" but many are certainly not. Many others including myself see this as invasion of privacy.

If we did everything possible to "secure our country" we would be living in a police state. The NSA had no right to create these indexes (if thats all they are, which is questionable, that's all that been PROVEN).


RE: If they had a warrant...
By Duwelon on 5/26/06, Rating: 0
RE: If they had a warrant...
By smokenjoe on 5/26/2006 5:11:18 PM , Rating: 2
This is scary that some people have no idea what think kind of thing meas- basicly they can listen to your converstations with no real limit if they decide you are one of the enimy then they can start attacking your frends or start taking your converstations out of context and prossicuting you for it. Go read your history there are plenty of examples why we have a constitution.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By CrystalBay on 5/26/2006 5:45:12 PM , Rating: 2
they're gonna do it anyways no matter who's in charge. So you can't do any thing about it , except stop doing what's is bothering you concious...


RE: If they had a warrant...
By mindless1 on 5/28/2006 10:05:31 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, NO. They weren't, but now are. Clearly there was a change in policy.

Don't pretend it has anything to do with conscience, I'm sure there are things you do innocently every day that could be twisted into sounding nefarious, and of course you wouldn't be aware at the time because it wasn't.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By rrsurfer1 on 5/26/2006 5:43:20 PM , Rating: 2
I can think of so many examples... I'm sure if you think about it you can too.

1) A senator is calling another senator frequently to discuss a new bill. This information would be valuable to many different groups.

2) A CEO makes calls to a competitor discussing a merger.



RE: If they had a warrant...
By Motley on 5/26/06, Rating: -1
RE: If they had a warrant...
By gramboh on 5/26/2006 5:58:32 PM , Rating: 4
It's funny, the people that support measures like this accuse the opposition of being paranoid and over-reacting, yet the people supporting the measures are paranoid themselves of an imminent but unknown 'threat' to U.S. security.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By Duwelon on 5/27/2006 8:52:17 AM , Rating: 2
"It's funny, the people that support measures like this accuse the opposition of being paranoid and over-reacting, yet the people supporting the measures are paranoid themselves of an imminent but unknown 'threat' to U.S. security. "

I agree, because the only terrorist is George Bush who orchestrated 9/11 as a one time thing and nothing like it will ever happen again, nor has any attempt like 9/11 ever been made in previous history. Furthermore, nobody is out to get the USA for any reason so we should just see what happens without trying to defend ourselves.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By milomnderbnder21 on 5/26/2006 6:02:17 PM , Rating: 2
'It's the NSA's job to keep this country safe, and they are trying to do it. They only complaint I have is that they should have found out that weezle was about to leak information and shot him dead before he could.'

So government agencies should operate without oversight and our consitutional rights are actually ficticious? There is absolutely no reason they cannot do their jobs without breaking the law.

Nobody actually has to die to spy on terrorists. And are you actually one of those people that believes that by blowing the cover on illegal surveillance, that a whistleblower actually let the terrorists know that we're trying to spy on them? Because that is actually as absurd as my question just made it sound.


RE: If they had a warrant...
By adastro2u on 5/26/2006 6:31:20 PM , Rating: 2
Im no lawyer, but maybe this applies:

"...a telecommunications carrier shall ensure that its equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications are capable of--
(1) expeditiously isolating and enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to intercept, to the exclusion of any other communications, all wire and electronic communications carried by the carrier..."

from CALEA SEC 103 Part A, passed in 1994

It seems to me this means that gov. agencies don't need a warrant, just "lawful authorization".


RE: If they had a warrant...
By Motley on 5/26/2006 6:57:54 PM , Rating: 2
'So government agencies should operate without oversight'

I didn't say that. The NSA does report to someone, it just isn't you.

'our consitutional rights are actually ficticious?'

No, but the right to privacy when it harms national security is NOT one of them. Perhaps you should reread the constitution.

'And are you actually one of those people that believes that by blowing the cover on illegal surveillance, that a whistleblower actually let the terrorists know that we're trying to spy on them?'

No, I'm one of those people that believes that by blowing the cover of surveillance methods, that the whistleblower actually let the terrorists know how to avoid detection. Or are you one of those people that believes that terrorists are all knowing and already know every method that is used (and when) for surveillance? I guess surveillance is futile in that case. Perhaps we should just pick straws to determine our intelligence gathering, because if it was up to people like you every other method of intelligence gathering would be too slow to be of use, if it wasn't already deemed illegal because of the possible privacy concerns.


By milomnderbnder21 on 5/27/2006 12:00:22 AM , Rating: 2
What,they didn't know that we were listening to their phone calls, or at least trying to? How else has the media disclosed methods? With good cause, you can legitimately listen to someone's phone calls for up to 90 days without a warrant, if it's important enough, so the 'warrants are too slow' excuse is a bunch of nonsense, just like every other argument in support of these activities.

And the NSA is supposed to report to someone other than the president, but it essentially hasn't been, so there has not been any actual oversight...That is why illegal activities were able to commence.

And our constitution and other laws stipulate that the government needs a warrant to conduct certain activities, regardless of whether the president decides he's special. Our right to privacy causes no harm, under current laws, to our ability to maintain national security. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise.





Add a couple things...
By milomnderbnder21 on 5/26/2006 5:58:25 PM , Rating: 5
Just to try and point a couple things out. This most recent scandal regarding the NSA wiretapping does not concern actual 'eavesdropping' on phone calls. It's massive data collection, they record who calls who and for how long. Some people think that this is perfectly legit and requires no warrant, so there is no actual scandal, as no law has been broken.

Also, there is a thing called a pen register. Placed on a phone line, it records who is called on that line, and how long they talk. It does not record what they say. The pen register was ruled by the courts to be illegal unless used with a warrant.

It is perfectly clear, to me at least, that what the NSA has done is the same as putting a pen register on every phone line in those companies, only they didn't have to go to the expense of paying for it and installing them all. Nor did they bother to get millions of warrants.

Making the assumption that information regarding the scandal is accurate, ie that they have been recording who calls who and for how long without getting warrants for each phone line, then the program is unquestionably illegal.

We should of course monitor terrorists, but there is no evidence to suggest that we cannot effectively do it within the laws as they currently are, nor should we have to forfeit our right to privacy. For example, we had all the evidence and recordings we needed to stop 9-11, we just didn't process it in time.




RE: Add a couple things...
By Ckilla on 5/26/2006 7:13:59 PM , Rating: 3
a very smart man once said......


Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin




RE: Add a couple things...
By shadowzz on 5/27/2006 12:42:39 AM , Rating: 2
"... deserve neither and will lose both ."


RE: Add a couple things...
By Targon on 5/27/2006 7:50:27 AM , Rating: 2
If the government is checking my phone records without a warrant, that becomes a case of illegal search since I am not doing anything illegal.

There is a concept that would allow such a check without a warrant is there was suspicion that I was doing something illegal, and that is the only time when a warrant wouldn't be needed to search my personal belongings, and my calling someone should not constitute suspicion.

That's really at the heart of this whole issue, and is why people are up in arms. Checking calls going in to and out of the country might be allowed under the blanket of security, but not just checking where all calls go to and from. That's where the government crosses the line, and why people are up in arms over this issue.

I will note that I don't use AT&T, and havn't for quite some time, but since the issue seems to extend to every long distance company, I have a valid reason for concern.

This country marked itself apart from others by putting limits on what the government and police can and can't do when it was founded. What do you do when the government steps over the line?


They even said it was legal
By Trisped on 5/26/2006 7:43:29 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Although the plaintiffs ominously refer to the equipment as the 'Surveillance Configuration,' the same physical equipment could be utilized exclusively for other surveillance in full compliance with [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]."
So the equipment may have been used for an illegal act. Until someone actually finds that they did that, there is no point in complaining about it.

As for weather it is wrong or not, if the NSA properly policed themselves then it is not. If, while testing leads, they found someone that was performing another illegal activity, I would say it is ok for the NSA to contact the appropriate authorities as long as they didn't turn over the info. Some would say this type of notification would be wrong, but I question what any law abiding citizen would lose from such a thing.

If the NSA was using the information incorrectly, bring those facts, otherwise I think it is important that they have enough power to follow terrorist activists.




RE: They even said it was legal
By Triring on 5/26/2006 8:27:56 PM , Rating: 2
Have you ever heard the saying "All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
There was an earlier scandal where the US goverment started to deport and detain foreigners to offshore territories which is outside the jurisdiction of the US court for interrogation. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice admits the US commited these actions in the name of "War against terror".
This time it is NSA wire tapping without warrant.
Do you see a pattern?
I certainly do.
I wounder what will be next?


RE: They even said it was legal
By Decaydence on 5/26/2006 8:36:20 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
If the NSA was using the information incorrectly, bring those facts, otherwise I think it is important that they have enough power to follow terrorist activists.


If the NSA isn't bound by a system in which an exterior authority (i.e. Judges) has oversight, then how would we ever know they are "using the information incorrectly" or using their power for improper endeavors? The reason we require warrants is to make sure government officials don't have unchecked power over the population. Even though many of you would like to pretend constitutional precedent doesn't guarantee a right to privacy, it does. The executive branch cannot simply pretend that right doesn't exist or that they have the power to circumvent the safeguards in place to ensure this right.

If you truly believe that a small group of individuals should alone have the ability to decide which rights they will allow you to enjoy, then your beliefs are the antithesis to those that founded this country. If that is fine with you, then stop using patriotism and American zeal to bash those of us who still believe in what this nation was meant to be.

NOTE: Many criticisms leveled in this post are not directed at Trisped, but at others commenting on this board or in public.


RE: They even said it was legal
By TomZ on 5/26/2006 10:38:47 PM , Rating: 2
Good point, and I agree with you. But I don't belive this is a privacy issue, this is a Fourth Amendment issue - search and seizure.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What I can't understand is why NSA and the Executive Branch wouldn't have got warrants from the secret court and/or consulted with top Congressional leaders prior to taking this on. This, in my opinion, shows an Executive Branch arrogance where they feel they are above the law.


that jefferson fella
By poohbear on 5/27/2006 1:07:58 AM , Rating: 2
"those who give up liberty for a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security"

-thomas jefferson




RE: that jefferson fella
By poohbear on 5/27/2006 1:09:09 AM , Rating: 2
whoooops. it was ben franklin that said that, not jefferson.:p bloody founding fathers.


RE: that jefferson fella
By RandomThoughts on 5/27/2006 1:38:07 PM , Rating: 2
Whooops, wrong again poohbear. Ben Franklin never said that.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

Just out of curiosity, can someone point to the portion of the Constitution that guarantees the right to privacy? The 4th amendment to the Constitution talks about unreasonable search and seizure. Over time the judiciary has expanded the 4th amendment to include the concept of a "right to privacy." The judiciary in all of its wisdom has decided that you are guaranteed privacy where society expects privacy (this as loose as the definition of what is pornography).

So, for example, the government looking through your garbage is not a violation of your "right to privacy" (California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988)), the governement looking through the windows of your house is not a violation of your "right to privacy" and the government monitoring what phone numbers you dial is not a violation of your "right to privacy" (Smith vs Maryland 442 U.S. 735 (1979).

In an era where one person can kill millions with the right weapon, what is our expectation of our governement protecting us? And how do we expect them to meet those expectations?


RE: that jefferson fella
By Alexvrb on 5/28/2006 2:30:32 AM , Rating: 2
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Too much, too much! Imagine the outcry if we had another successful attack on the scale of 9/11. Too little, too little!

Or in South Park form: Rabble rabble rabble!


SFW
By CrystalBay on 5/26/2006 3:59:22 PM , Rating: 2
S.F.W.




RE: SFW
By Samus on 5/27/2006 8:58:13 AM , Rating: 2
I don't see how this is AT&T's fault. It's the NSA fault for getting all these companies into all this shit.

If you were AT&T and one of the highest profile agencies in the government told you to play ball and turn over information, wouldn't you? Most, if not all, of these companies have turned over information, they're just hiding it because they don't know how to deal with it from a public oppinion perspective.


Strange Coincidence?
By Xavian on 5/27/2006 3:32:58 AM , Rating: 2
Is it a strange coincidence that only a few days after passing a bill which is first steps to net neutrality (which AT&T has publicly critisied). That very same AT&T has 'accidentally' leaked something which could very well damage the government further. Leverage prehaps? :P

maybe i should just take my tin foil hat off and accept it for what it is... but it does seem a very strange coincidence.




RE: Strange Coincidence?
By suryad on 5/27/2006 3:13:56 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly what I was going to say. Some politically correct whistleblower in the AT&T ranks?


a high price
By mindless1 on 5/28/2006 10:09:49 PM , Rating: 2
It terribly saddens me that so many people died on 9/11 but they are hardly as many as those who have died in several wars to preserve the freedoms that are being taken away one at a time. What is it that NSA claims to protect? America is built upon the standard of fighting for our freedoms, not sacrifice for least resistance.




Nonsense
By Sahrin on 5/27/06, Rating: 0
"Nowadays you can buy a CPU cheaper than the CPU fan." -- Unnamed AMD executive











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