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In the wake of the illegal NSA wiretapping scandals that broke in December, it seems that some Americans are waking up to the realities of homeland security. The President’s approval ratings are hitting all time lows, and polls show that a majority of Americans feel he isn’t even fit to be in office. If America thinks it’s scary to have the NSA listen in on telephone calls, wait until they hear about what’s been happening over at the offices of AT&T: No-Such-Agency Internet spying. In Jan. 31, 2006, The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a class action lawsuit against the AT&T Corporation accusing them of Internet spying for the NSA on a massive scale. The evidence? The real backbone of the case is the eight-page testimony of AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, who came forward after hearing about illegal NSA wiretaps on the news. Klein had observed the creation and administration of a “secret room” in his office building, operated by the NSA for the purpose of illegally spying on the American public. Afraid of a consumer backlash, AT&T filed a motion to have Klein’s testimony sealed on the grounds that information within the documents could be damaging to AT&T’s image. That is, until an anonymous source close to the prosecution decided that justice was too important to leave up to the justice system. Klein’s testimony was leaked to Wired News, who published it on their website. What a document it is, too. It seems that AT&T was approached in 2002 by agents of the NSA regarding an Internet surveillance program. AT&T installed secret rooms deep in the networking hubs of office buildings in at least three major cities. These rooms contained equipment that would split the signal from key Internet pipelines and send one copy into a massive databank. In simpler (and more frightening) terms, AT&T has been recording all of its Internet traffic for the past three years. Practically every email, instant message, bank transaction, and pirated movie since 2003 was kept track of by AT&T and hand delivered to the National Security Agency for review. For those who already fear that their ideas may land them on some sort of Orwellian government “watch” list, this is really less of a surprise than a refreshing opportunity to be taken seriously by individuals more trusting of Uncle Sam. Of course, I say "opportunity" because, as one might have expected, none of the major news networks has done a story on it. For over a month now, this information has been unrestricted and available to the public, and you’d never know it from cable news broadcasts. Not a single peep from the talking heads about any of it. Like the Downing Street memo last year, this story has been intentionally excluded from coverage by corporate news sources. It is vital that this story be forced to break into major media. As backward as it sounds, AT&T’s spying scandal will make coverage on cable news if enough people know about it first. Visit the web sites below to get the facts for yourself, and show this information to everybody you know. Tell people the truth and get the word out. Just don’t say too much over the Internet—you never know who might be watching. Read Mark Klein’s testimony: Visit the EFF’s page on their lawsuit against AT&T: Jay Jackson is a journalism major at the University of Houston. His concerns include globalization, the environment, and the prison-industrial complex.
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May/June 2006 
