Documents Detail AT&T-NSA Web Surveillance Claim

Wired magazine has posted the full text of the evidence former AT&T technician Mark Klein has presented to back up an accusation that AT&T helped the federal government spy on phone and Internet traffic.

The documents, here in PDF form, include descriptions of the fiber-optic splitters, routers and wiring Klein alleges that AT&T set up in “secret rooms” to monitor traffic across its WorldNet Internet Backbone.

Klein’s documents describe the setup, testing and maintenance of equipment for the locked wiring closets—which were located within larger networking facilities but were accessible only to specific management-level technicians with the right security clearance.

Central to the surveillance setup in each location, Klein writes, was a packet-inspection unit called a Semantic Traffic Analyzer from Narus, whose flagship products are designed for IP security intercept and traffic classification.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), which has filed a class-action suit accusing AT&T of helping the NSA (National Security Agency) break laws against domestic spying and invasion of privacy, can’t comment on the increased detail in Klein’s latest revelations, said EFF spokesperson Rebecca Jeschke. Jeschkey did, however, reiterate EFF’s reasons for filing the suit.

“AT&T violated the law and the privacy of its customers, in collaboration with the NSA,” Jeschke said.

“AT&T was key to allowing the surveillance to go on. When the NSA came knocking, [AT&T] should have said, ‘Come back with a warrant.'”

Pressure to control information related to the case is intense from both AT&T and the NSA, whose cloak of secrecy extends to the motion the government filed to dismiss the case, here in PDF form.

Read the full story on eWEEK.com: Documents Detail AT&T-NSA Web Surveillance Claim