In a Constitutional Democracy citizens have, in some ways, more rights than the government. The reason for that is, of course, to protect that same Constitution and thus the individual freedom of its citizens. That is how it is and that is how it shoul…

15%

The same Fucktard Fifteen that supports Darth Cheney.

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers’ phone calls, and shunted its customers’ internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit against the company.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF’s lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.

On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works.

The Government has asserted “states secret privilege”(pdf) in the EFF lawsuit and is seeking its dismissal.

Here is Mark Klein’s statement:

Statement: Mark Klein, April 6, 2006

My background:

For 22 and 1/2 years I worked as an AT&T technician, first in New York and then in California.

What I observed first-hand:

In 2002, when I was working in an AT&T office in San Francisco, the site manager told me to expect a visit from a National Security Agency agent, who was to interview a management-level technician for a special job. The agent came, and by chance I met him and directed him to the appropriate people.

In January 2003, I, along with others, toured the AT&T central office on Folsom Street in San Francisco — actually three floors of an SBC building. There I saw a new room being built adjacent to the 4ESS switch room where the public’s phone calls are routed. I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room. The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room.

In October 2003, the company transferred me to the San Francisco building to oversee the Worldnet Internet room, which included large routers, racks of modems for customers’ dial-in services, and other equipment. I was responsible for troubleshooting problems on the fiber optic circuits and installing new circuits.

While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the secret room were tapping into the Worldnet circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal. I saw this in a design document available to me, entitled “Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San Francisco” dated Dec. 10, 2002. I also saw design documents dated Jan. 13, 2004 and Jan. 24, 2003, which instructed technicians on connecting some of the already in-service circuits to the “splitter” cabinet, which diverts some of the light signal to the secret room. The circuits listed were the Peering Links, which connect Worldnet with other networks and hence the whole country, as well as the rest of the world.

One of the documents listed the equipment installed in the secret room, and this list included a Narus STA 6400, which is a “Semantic Traffic Analyzer”. The Narus STA technology is known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets. The company’s advertising boasts that its technology “captures comprehensive customer usage data … and transforms it into actionable information…. (It) provides complete visibility for all internet applications.”

My job required me to connect new circuits to the “splitter” cabinet and get them up and running. While working on a particularly difficult one with a technician back East, I learned that other such “splitter” cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.

What is the significance and why is it important to bring these facts to light?

Based on my understanding of the connections and equipment at issue, it appears the NSA is capable of conducting what amounts to vacuum-cleaner surveillance of all the data crossing the internet — whether that be peoples’ e-mail, web surfing or any other data.

Given the public debate about the constitutionality of the Bush administration’s spying on U.S. citizens without obtaining a FISA warrant, I think it is critical that this information be brought out into the open, and that the American people be told the truth about the extent of the administration’s warrantless surveillance practices, particularly as it relates to the internet.

Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA’s spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA’s charter or with FISA. And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals’ phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens.

I suggest you are the one that needs to get on track.

I deplore every one of the Republican cretins. But how would you like to have had NO hearings. Specter is the only one who has consistently been constitutionally troubled enough to throw open the doors of his powerful committee to these outrages.

And I remind you, that every time one of those hearings is held, there are DEMOCRATS on the panel. OUR Democrats, who would have no other way to fire questions at these witnesses.

If they do not turn the hearing into gasps and whispers about the exposures they have just forced and cause it to make headlines on the newscasts that night, it is OUR fault–not Specters. If you know of any blockbusters we have scored, let me know.

And do you have any idea how much his hearings have contributed to the rocket sled ride to the the cellar in the poll ratings for that slime bag in the White House? I suggest it is enormous.

Now here he comes again, throwing open those doors, as the only one who can, to provide a bullseye for our Democrats to expose this cabal again. I suggest his questions will not be the softball variety either that he will ask himself.

You better give some thought to encouraging Specter instead of slamming him. Without him we would not possibly even have had the NSA revelations we had today.

And we certainly would not have had anything but Bush love with any other Republican syndicate member in that Congress.

I applaud Senator Specter. He has been the only thing between coverup and the demise of our constitution in that Congress!

At least, Arlen has held some hearings, even though they haven’t done one whit of good, as far as getting rid of the Bushites.

They do give the Bushites the opportubnity to lie and evade on the record, just in case the record ever matters again.