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The entry titled "AT&T whistleblower: say no to telecom immunity," and any of the comments about it.
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Home > The Secrecy File > Archives > 2007 > November > 06 > Entry
AT&T whistleblower: say no to telecom immunity
A telecommunications technician who says he witnessed the telecom giant AT&T secretly help the government with its eavesdropping program plans to tell all at a news conference tomorrow on Capitol Hill.
Mark Klein wants the Senate Judiciary committee to reject legislation that offers telecommuncations companies legal protection for participating in President Bush’s surveillance program without a court warrant. The Senate Intelligence Committee recently cleared such legislation. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will evaluate the measure.
Klein is a witness in a class-action lawsuit brought against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group based in San Francisco. The foundation alleges that the telcom company aided the government in illegally spying on Americans outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“My job required me to enable the physical connections between AT&T customers’ internet communications and the National Security Agency’s illegal, wholesale copying machine for domestic emails, internet phone conversations, web surfing and all other Internet traffic,” Klein said in a statement.
“I have first-hand knowledge of the clandestine collaboration between one giant telecommunications company, AT&T, and the NSA to facilitate the most comprehensive illegal domestic spying program in history,”Klein said.
Klein said AT&T built technology to help the government’s domestic warrantless wiretapping program at its main switching facility in San Francisco.
Klein was responsible for connecting high-speed fiber optic cables to sophisticated equipment that intercepted communications from AT&T customers and then copied and routed every single one to a room run by the National Security Agency.
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By Ian
November 6, 2007 5:41 PM | Link to this
It’s the national security version of corporate welfare.