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AT&T Helped the NSA Spy On Internet Traffic
An anonymous reader writes: Newly disclosed NSA documents show that the agency gained access to billions of emails through a "highly collaborative" relationship with AT&T. The company provided access from 2003 to 2013, including technical assistance to carry out court orders permitting wiretapping. "The company installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its Internet hubs on American soil, far more than its similarly sized competitor, Verizon. And its engineers were the first to try out new surveillance technologies invented by the eavesdropping agency. One document reminds NSA officials to be polite when visiting AT&T facilities, noting, 'This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship.'" The new files don't indicate whether the partnership currently exists, but the government has been doing its best to keep corporate partnerships hidden. The article also notes that "In 2011, AT&T began handing over 1.1 billion domestic cellphone calling records a day to the N.S.A. after 'a push to get this flow operational prior to the 10th anniversary of 9/11,' according to an internal agency newsletter."
Home of the slave!
it was against the law to refuse the access
DUH!
of course ATT and the NSA have been working together i wouldn't surprised if they shared employees!
I remember when the technician in this article was being called out as paranoid and many did not believe it.
Unfortunately too true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
... you're probably logging this right now because I'm on your network, so read carefully: FUCK. YOU. Did you get all that?
When a government that kills citizens without due process wants you to be a "partner", it's pretty much an offer you can't refuse.
Please stop wanting to "tax the rich" or have "everyone pay their fair share". This government DOES NOT NEED MORE RESOURCES TO USE AGAINST US!!!!!!!
NSA got access to everything, blah blah. The NSA is our new overlord and conscience. So I'm contrarian here and curious: what did AT&T get out of this?
Or are they just happy they can listen in to phone calls again way back when the (actual) operators supported party-lines across multiple families and literally did the dialing for you?
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For those of you too young to remember: a party line was a single shared telephone line spread across multiple houses where anyone could pick up the phone and hear a conversation that another family was having -- that's how it was designed; no single line per each room in a house but a single line shared between disparate houses.
If someone was calling, the ringtone (a clapper striking a physical bell attached to the phone) was a different pattern for each house so the correct person would know to pick up.
Speed-dial? Touch-tones? Rotary? Dial-tone? No, you flashed the hook to get the attention of the mostly-present operator and verbally told them the name or number to dial for you.
I've got a phone like that hanging in the kitchen. Unattached and unused for decades, of course, until I give in and pay for the "Twilight Zone" option.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Which pretty much makes it explicit that when the NSA comes to your CEO, they're rude, obnoxious and demanding. And you can't say no.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Isn't this a little old by this point? I mean, we've known that the NSA taps off every CO at the optical level for about as long as the timeframe you're suggesting... if you're talking phones, even longer.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
"Look, I know I'm letting you fuck my wife while I watch and rummage around my stuff, but could you please be polite about it? This is a partnership here."
"One document reminds NSA officials to be polite"
Which pretty much makes it explicit that when the NSA comes to your CEO, they're rude, obnoxious and demanding. And you can't say no.
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Seems to me that datacaps facilitate the surveillance.
The published/public reasons for datacaps are to "reduce network congestion" and that various telcos would like to charge [gouge] their customers more money.
Many articles have debunked the "network congestion" argument. But, telcos would like to charge higher prices so they continue to float the myth ad naseum. It's also a great cover.
Maybe the only "congestion" is that while it would be relatively easy/inexpensive to build out networks to handle it [routers, etc.], it would be prohibitively more expensive to add the requisite amount of surveillance equipment to handle the load [if they could]. Otherwise, the "secret room" inside a telco's CO would have to become the "secret floor" and eventually the "secret building".
Charging customers higher prices for congestion is a misnomer. But, instead of using this capital [or any capital for that matter] to build out networks to accommodate legitimate internet traffic increases, like any reasonably/responsibly managed company, diverting it to a telco's "black budget" would be harder to justify [even internally] to an auditor.
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
We already knew from previous leaks that AT&T was the telecom most eagerly cooperative with the NSA.
What this underscores is just how eager they were, taking NSA dicks in all holes and begging for more, *splort*ing packets all over their faces. HLARGHARLARGH.
All completely illegal and unconstitutional, thanks Dubya for getting this rolling and thanks Obama for covering their asses after the rock was turned over.
I've pointed out numerous times that corps have helped the NSA only to be branded a"conspiracy theorist".
About time they got around to putting this info out, again I am positive that Google, Apple, and MS do the same thing, if not now then certainly after CISA passes.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Nobody else should either.
Well... You can say no... but...
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-joseph-nacchio-and-the-nsa-2013-6
The NSA wasn't "fucking the wife" and it really is a partnership. AT&T is a loyal corporate citizen and was doing its loyal patriotic duty. If you were AT&T, wouldn't you? Isn't the NSA and the rest of the state police apparatus there to protect AT&T and its class?
jodido, I'm sure you realize this, so this is more for other people.
The NSA and its predecessors have long worked with telecommunications companies who willingly hand over data without warrants.
here is a starting point as an overview...
http://www.vice.com/read/a-bri...
Tl;dr
AT&T owes the government some favors. You may recall they were broken up into smaller companies in the 1980s. Well not long after AT&T quietly bought up nearly everything again. Don't think that went over without anyone noticing.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Collaboration leads to Financial Gain
An interesting long term review of NSG/GCHQ snooping - by Duncan Campbell.
Wow, even a stopped calendar is right once a year
This is no surprise, and isn't really an isolated incident.
Anyone here old enough (grin) to remember a CNN report back in the 90's, where we didn't believe massive amounts of data could be analyzed, yet the CIA had a specialized capsule/device inside an AT&T closet that was doing just that, that a whistle blower exposed. AT&T has been bent over for the gov't for a long time; I can only imagine the arrangements of that marriage. But, I wouldn't doubt if the other major telcos were just as dirty.
AT&T are a deadbeat carrier, whose main source of income is from the Federal agencies and sale of USA cellphones and packages.
Their main business activity is Global Surveillence. They have a truely global data and voice network.
When IBM (under Lou Gerstner of Carlisle fame) had built up their Global Network (IGN) and were approached by NSA to be their main global wiretap corporation, they instead sold off the entire network, staff and assets to AT&T.
This gave AT&T access to the internet backbone on a global scale in every country on the planet.
Just saying...
We have the workorders for that installation of this program. This is not news. The documents garnishing further proof is "of interest" at best. Slashdot going down hill like the Roman Empire and the American Hegemony.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
A stopped calendar? Fuck is a stopped calendar
Been there and still there since 2007. Redundant splitters one hop up from the telco border router from ATT's mail sub-contracted to Yahoo. 55 Marietta Suite 500 Atlanta, GA 30303
NSA local listening post is right next door to a large ATT building right off of I-85.
Right, because a third-rate writer put some words in the mouth of a cardboard character that represents all she despised, that has something to do with reality?