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posted by takyon on Tuesday June 26 2018, @10:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the room-641a-and-friends dept.

The Wiretap Rooms: The NSA's Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

The secrets are hidden behind fortified walls in cities across the United States, inside towering, windowless skyscrapers and fortress-like concrete structures that were built to withstand earthquakes and even nuclear attack. Thousands of people pass by the buildings each day and rarely give them a second glance, because their function is not publicly known. They are an integral part of one of the world's largest telecommunications networks – and they are also linked to a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.

Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. In each of these cities, The Intercept has identified an AT&T facility containing networking equipment that transports large quantities of internet traffic across the United States and the world. A body of evidence – including classified NSA documents, public records, and interviews with several former AT&T employees – indicates that the buildings are central to an NSA spying initiative that has for years monitored billions of emails, phone calls, and online chats passing across U.S. territory.

The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company's "extreme willingness to help." It is a collaboration that dates back decades.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 26 2018, @10:21PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 26 2018, @10:21PM (#698990) Journal

    The biggest and ultimately most damaging con of all is that perpetrated by Big Oil, should sea levels rise hugely and force billions of people to at the very least abandon trillions in infrastructure and relocate to higher ground.

    Bullshit. I agree there's a con, but it's not perpetrated by Big Oil who has spent and exerted remarkably little on their supposed con. Let us note that the "rise hugely" of sea level is projected to happen over centuries. That means that not only will those trillions of USD in infrastructure be abandoned, they'll be abandoned multiple times just due to the aging of the infrastructure. Guess what will happen during one of those times? The parties threatened by rising sea levels will buy property that's further uphill or they'll add some dirt to the current space. Either way, we'll easily keep up with rising sea levels. That's why I've said all along that we won't even notice rising sea levels.

    Moving on,

    This is a rehashing of the well known proverb that "power corrupts". Whether it's government or corporate, or both together, it bears close watching and restraint.

    The thing is, the NSA is the organization with the power. It wouldn't happen without them. They write the checks. They make the plans. They protect the various guilty parties.

    If anything, our naivety goes in the other direction. We're too despairing of our own power to check the powerful

    I'd say gullibility is the worse threat, as demonstrated by your rant about sea level rise. Someone spins a pretty fairy tale about Big Oil making the seas rise, and you're all over it.

    There are so many blatantly corrupt things going on right under our noses.

    That's what happens when you have a huge system that no one can monitor. Corrupt shit happens. My suggestion is to greatly reduce the scope of the problem. That's why I'm a government minimalist.