News Outlets Want Access to AT&T Spying Documents

[The Sushi Bandit]

this is from my friend who is a libertarian. It is from the JBS. Interesting read on how the JBS and progressive democrats view the same subject!



Published by The John Birch Society - Truth, Leadership, Freedom (http://www.jbs.org/node/2297)
News Outlets Want Access to AT&T Spying Documents
By Alan Scholl
Created 2006-12-27 15:17
<1>
http://www.jbs.org/node/2297
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:
Several news organizations are demanding that documents containing information on AT&T's efforts to spy on Americans for federal agencies be made public.
Follow this link to the source article: "Media Takes on AT&T in Spy Case <2>"

COMMENTARY:
Several news organizations including Wired News, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, San Jose Mercury News and Bloomberg News are demanding that documents held under seal in a lawsuit alleging that AT&T used its popular WorldNet Internet service to spy on Americans for the National Security Agency (NSA) be made public. AT&T has argued that the information should remain sealed because it contains trade secrets.
At issue is whether or not AT&T, at the request of the NSA, set up equipment to conduct surveillance of Americans' email traffic and phone calls. The allegations come from former AT&T technician Mark Klein who says that AT&T installed the equipment in a secret room in its San Francisco offices. In 2005 Klein, who is a chief witness in a class action suit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) against the telecommunications company, released a statement saying he intended to make public detailed information about the AT&T program. "I am presenting this information to facilitate the dismantling of this dangerous Orwellian project," he wrote in a statement, published online by Wired News and dated 31 December 2005.
According to Klein, "In 2003 AT&T built 'secret rooms' hidden deep in the bowels of its central offices in various cities, housing computer gear for a government spy operation which taps into the company's popular WorldNet service and the entire Internet. These installations enable the government to look at every individual message on the Internet and analyze exactly what people are doing."
According to Klein, the joint AT&T/NSA spying program is descended from the notorious Total Information Awareness program that was nixed by Congress after public outrage over the proposed surveillance program. But, Klein alleges, Congress only cancelled funding for most of the project, letting "essential hardware elements of a TIA-type spy program" continue to be slipped "surreptitiously" into telecomm offices.
Klein provided exacting details of just what, exactly, was happening in San Francisco:
In San Francisco the "secret room" is Room 641A at 611 Folsom Street, the site of a large SBC phone building, three floors of which are occupied by AT&T. High speed fiber optic circuits come in on the 8th floor and run down to the 7th floor where they connect to routers for AT&T's WorldNet service, part of the latter's vital "Common Backbone." In order to snoop on these circuits, a special cabinet was installed and cabled to the "secret room" on the 6th floor to monitor the information going through the circuits. (The location code of the cabinet is 070177.04, which denotes the 7th floor, aisle 177 and bay 04.) The "secret room" itself is roughly 24-by-48 feet, containing perhaps a dozen cabinets including such equipment as Sun servers and two Juniper routers, plus an industrial-size air conditioner.
Klein alleges that regular AT&T employees were forbidden to access the secret room and only people with security clearance from the NSA were allowed in. Klein concluded by saying, "This is the infrastructure for an Orwellian police state. It must be shut down!"
The class action suit filed by EFF is currently under appeal with the U.S. government arguing "state secret privilege" prevents the federal judiciary from determining the legality of the spying program. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled in July that the case could proceed, saying, "the compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security."
It bears remembering that the Fourth Amendment guarantees, "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." Federal authorities and AT&T seem to think that can be thrown out the window. It remains to be seen whether the courts agree. A better solution, though, would be for the American people to pressure their elected representatives to introduce and pass legislation that comprehensively and in no uncertain terms reasserts the Fourth Amendment and prohibits further federal spying on innocent Americans.
Additional Link to Klein's Statements: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70944-0.html <3>

Alan Scholl <3>
Alan is the Director of Mission and Campaigns for the John Birch Society.


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