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Ex AT&T Tech Says NSA Monitors All Web Traffic
Sir Tandeth writes "A former technician at AT&T, who alleges that the telecom giant forwards virtually all of its internet traffic into a 'secret room' to facilitate government spying, says the whole operation reminds him of something out of Orwell's 1984. Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown program, whistleblower Mark Klein told Keith Olbermann that all Internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office — to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access. 'Klein was on Capitol Hill Wednesday attempting to convince lawmakers not to give a blanket, retroactive immunity to telecom companies for their secret cooperation with the government. He said that as an AT&T technician overseeing Internet operations in San Francisco, he helped maintain optical splitters that diverted data en route to and from AT&T customers. '"
I'm certain that he has the right as the unitary executive to keep citizens from knowing that he's broken the law.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Next, I don't buy it because it's not feasible. How many NSA agents would it take to monitor ALL Internet traffic. That means bit torrents, email (including spam), web traffic (html), tunnels, ATM transactions, credit card transactions, Windows updates, NNTP porn, remote backups, YouTube videos, streaming radio stations and so on. There is just way too much crap flowing over the wires to monitor it all. The NSA, CIA, FBI, US Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force and National Guard combined wouldn't have the man power to monitor that much data.
So, I call bullshit. And this guy needs to loosen his tinfoil hat. What's worse is that this will be justified under the guise of anti-terrorism. As bills get passed to erode the freedom of American's, I'm watching the US slowly descend into totalitarianism. Lets face it, Americans just don't care. And why should they? They live comfortable lives, entertained with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. If they follow the rules, they won't get hassled. Things will have to get pretty bad until people wake up and realize what has happened. How else do you fight terrorism? What would you suggest (other than that warm fuzzy "leave them alone and they'll leave us alone BS)". How would you FIGHT terrorism.
Ignoring the feasibility of it all, whose to say that they are looking at domestic data anyway. So what if they are reading emails between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Hell! I hope they ARE reading emails between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It's called espionage. Not only is it perfectly legal, but it's something we SHOULD be doing.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
this whole story sounds like a troll designed to stir up the 9/11 truthers and the tin-foil hat crowd.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Some people also don't believe that the Constitution is a suicide pact.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Whenever someone throws the term "facisct" around indiscriminately, you've almost certainly identified a leftist, and they are typically more authoritarian than anyone, and just as anti-constitution as they accuse their ideological opponents of being.
Duh, The right wing nutjobs *are* fascists, so they don't like to use that term as calling themselves what they are is bad for business since we did fight WW2 to end those scum. Of course both the left and the right are the enemies of liberty. The defining characteristics of each are best defined by how and why they oppose Liberalism.
That said, at the moment, there's a *war* on, one that may well last beyond my lifetime, in case some hadn't noticed. The struggle against radical Islam is the world war of our time.
No, there is no war and there is no real credible threat.
You've just proven yourself to be *exactly* the type of cowardly idiot that this administration bet their whole stake that the majority of Americans are.
You are afraid of the boogie man. It's a nonsense threat that does not exist.
Grow up, grow a pair and act like a citizen and an adult, not like the cowardly little afraid of your own shadow bitch that you've proven yourself beyond the shadow of any doubt to be.
In every war - including the Revolution - some civil liberties have been curtailed. My concern in this case is that there has been an ongoing, slow curtailment of civil liberties in lockstep with the growth of government, and it is unlikely that the government will reverse any of that unless forced to do so by the ballot box. Certainly, there is no intention of doing so, and these things go back decades before the current administration.
You're a liar. You have no such "concern" of any sort. That exact curtailment of liberties is the exact reason that this whole bullshit war scam, which you're so fucking amazingly stupid as to have bought in to, was invented to create.
So, no you're not concerned about it at all. If you were, then you'd pull your head out of your ass and notice that they go hand in hand, sold by the same scum whose delusional fantasies you're promoting at the expense of any integrity you might once have had.
The NSA does not care about monitoring geeks in their Moms basement. They have a hard enough time just looking at the stuff going to Countries of Interest and coming from people for whom they have obtained a warrant. Those of you whose job it is to do computer work should know this.
There are two choices. Either the NSA tells the phone companies who they are monitoring and the phone companies do the filtering -or- the NSA does their own filtering. The former is insane, as it basically reveals a state secret, ie who we are interested in.
Mod me troll, I'm used to it.
Come on, that Countdown program is just about as biased left as you can get.
You really do not have the foggiest idea what "left" and "right" mean, do you?
I guess bias for the liberal side is called news, and bias for conservatives is an outrage,
Ahhh, well you think those are synonyms for left and right, so, no, you do not have the foggiest idea what you're talking about and so sound like a typical screeching loon.
It's a good thing that Fox News exists, or there would be no conservative voices in the media at all.
Ahh, and "conservative voices" isn't identical to "fascist propaganda" as you likewise seem to think, although that's a lot closer.
Do you seriously expect anybody to treat you as anything but an annoyingly ignorant child when you can't even demonstrate the most elementary grasp of the relevant terms and concepts?
Why not just write to Queen Pelosi and ask her what the party of hate and the party of death are going to do next? That is what the democrat party stands for after all.
Wow, a loon talking about the "party of death" with a Ronald terrorist supporting, death squad training, crack dealing, Reagan quote in his sig?!?
Wow, you wingnuts exist completely outside reality.
Do you douchebag traitors come with a disclaimer: "sanity need not apply"?
Killing mod points. Modded "Troll" on accident.... I swear I don't represent the gov't agenda.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Except the allegations predate Bush.
But, then again, he is responsible for the weather, and making the sun set in the west, and everything else that has ever happened, ever.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Have you read ANY of the KORAN? It instructs them to convert us, subjugate us, or KILL us. PERIOD. It is in their BOOK. Granted, there is crazy shit in the Bible too, but nothing about cutting my head off TODAY if I dont follow it. I may burn in hell LATER, but in the mean time, I've still got my X-Box AND my head.
The big reason we are involved happens to be a smoking hole where the World Trade Center used to be. Or are you one of those nuts who think we just blew it up ourselves, so we could go kick some Arab ass in the name of the Jews?
Sometimes I fear for the human race, based on what some of you assholes believe.