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The New York Times published a story today that confirms what has long been suspected, AT&T was not just one of the means by which the NSA did its domestic eavesdropping, it was a willing partner:
The National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T.
While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed N.S.A. documents show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as “highly collaborative,” while another lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.”
AT&T’s cooperation has involved a broad range of classified activities, according to the documents, which date from 2003 to 2013. AT&T has given the N.S.A. access, through several methods covered under different legal rules, to billions of emails as they have flowed across its domestic networks. It provided technical assistance in carrying out a secret court order permitting the wiretapping of all Internet communications at the United Nations headquarters, a customer of AT&T.
The article ends with a curious statement from an AT&T spokesman:
“We do not voluntarily provide information to any investigating authorities other than if a person’s life is in danger and time is of the essence,” Brad Burns, an AT&T spokesman, said. He declined to elaborate.
I think his nose grew a few inches after telling that whopper.
This story is the latest revelation out of the cache of goodies taken from the NSA by Edward Snowden. I am drooling with anticipation at the next tidbit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by davester666 on Sunday August 16 2015, @04:10AM
He would be the last person that would be told about any kind of classified program to work mouth-to-dick with the NSA.
This is not a surprise to virtually anybody reading this forum.
The problem is, 99% of the population don't know this, and even worse, if they did know it, would go "oh, well, as long as they are keeping us safe".
Then there is the problem that you can't not use AT&T's infrastructure, as just signing up with another phone/internet/cell provider will have a good likelihood of having to use some of AT&T's infrastructure somewhere along the connection [for example, the multi-state internet outage last month for virtual all connections because AT&T went down].