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United States AT&T Privacy

Mark Klein, AT&T Whistleblower Who Revealed NSA Mass Spying, Has Died (eff.org) 35

Posted by BeauHD from the rest-in-peace dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the EFF: EFF is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mark Klein, a bona fide hero who risked civil liability and criminal prosecution to help expose a massive spying program that violated the rights of millions of Americans. Mark didn't set out to change the world. For 22 years, he was a telecommunications technician for AT&T, most of that in San Francisco. But he always had a strong sense of right and wrong and a commitment to privacy. When the New York Times reported in late 2005 that the NSA was engaging in spying inside the U.S., Mark realized that he had witnessed how it was happening. He also realized that the President was not telling Americans the truth about the program. And, though newly retired, he knew that he had to do something. He showed up at EFF's front door in early 2006 with a simple question: "Do you folks care about privacy?"

We did. And what Mark told us changed everything. Through his work, Mark had learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) had installed a secret, secure room at AT&T's central office in San Francisco, called Room 641A. Mark was assigned to connect circuits carrying Internet data to optical "splitters" that sat just outside of the secret NSA room but were hardwired into it. Those splitters -- as well as similar ones in cities around the U.S. -- made a copy of all data going through those circuits and delivered it into the secret room. Mark not only saw how it works, he had the documents to prove it. He brought us over a hundred pages of authenticated AT&T schematic diagrams and tables. Mark also shared this information with major media outlets, numerous Congressional staffers, and at least two senators personally. One, Senator Chris Dodd, took the floor of the Senate to acknowledge Mark as the great American hero he was.

Mark Klein, AT&T Whistleblower Who Revealed NSA Mass Spying, Has Died More | Reply

Mark Klein, AT&T Whistleblower Who Revealed NSA Mass Spying, Has Died

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  • The old black lab (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2025 @06:54PM (#65229105)

    It's amazing how quickly the media erased all signs of this after it was proven. This was definite proof the NSA was up to pure bad, and it made a lot of noise (on this website, before it became a corporate shill) but disappeared almost as quickly.

    That should have been the first sign our country was on a dark path that led us to the collapse we're in today.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by retchdog ( 1319261 )

      roflmao "first"

    • Re:The old black lab (Score:4, Insightful)

      by evanh ( 627108 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2025 @07:12PM (#65229129)

      I guess the fact it isn't a regular punching bag for the news organisations says they are complicit in the current dark path.

    • I honestly think proving it was pointless (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2025 @07:57PM (#65229179)
      We know the government spies on us all the damn time. The problem is a substantial number of us think it's fine and a fair trade-off for them to catch whatever bad guys they don't like.

      It's like how the Panama paper is told us the specifics of how the ultra wealthy avoided paying taxes. But it's not like we really needed to be told that. It's only nerdy journalist types who need to be told specifics we know it's happening and we could easily use the government to find it and stop it if we really wanted to.

      There's a belief among the left wing in particular that good information and the truth will solve problems. I'm pretty sure last year's election proved that wrong but that hasn't stopped anyone from wanting to believe it.

      I mean yeah there are limits but really there are other political problems that need to be solved, notably voting rights and voter suppression, that if you don't do something about it really doesn't matter how poorly informed the public is on specific types of corruption

    • Re:The old black lab (Score:5, Insightful)

      by courteaudotbiz ( 1191083 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2025 @08:29PM (#65229219) Homepage

      Well, by now, since everyone has its own personal wiretap in the pocket (smartphone) that constantly listens and report all activity to the big data companies, they no longer need this fancy stuff in secret rooms.

      Privacy no longer matters to anyone, so there's no news to this, or the people just don't care enough for the news outlet to care about the subject.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by evanh ( 627108 )

        Which is what happens when people are repeatedly told there is no issue. And then there's the hypocrisy of, at the same, being told the opposite when it's another country doing the spying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rrab ( 10365852 )
      > how quickly the media erased all signs of this

      I've experienced that kind of suppression first hand. Erased from Google search results.
      Someone also purchased a domain recently, just to attempt to suppress my open-source project.
      I founded OpenV2K, which seeks to open-source pulse modulation, of the microwave auditory effect.
      Okay I *was* out to change the world, but I'm just an IT guy, also with a strong sense of right and wrong.
      I realized that I had an engineering grasp on how "V2K" was possible, so I pr
    • Collapsing? Take another look. We’re not living in a utopia, thats for sure. But as far as countries go, the US is close to the top when it comes to freedoms, economics, tech, science, medicine, military and a bunch of other stuff. I’m not some brainless USA-MAGA zombie, but to claim were in a state of collapse is disconnected from reality.

      Leaks like this have pretty much proven that our intelligence agencies monitor everything. Full stop. Nothing more to discuss. Everything means EVERYTHIN
      • The United States are quite ahead, but the spread is so large, that loads of people are at the bottom end. So yeah, running at the very front, but last across the finish line too. Aside that, please read up on Martin Luther King, who almost got blocked. How can you be really sure this kind of stuff isn't currently happening to that kind of people? With social media and Trust going on, the public have their bread and games, and nobody is looking at the other hand....
        • You have a valid point. My country has a very problematic history. The good thing is that we're basically free to wrestle with it. Other countries will straight-up deny their demons, but in the US we're free to (try to) learn from them.

          Especially last century, the US government did a TON of things that are now considered wildly wrong. How the government handled MLK definitely falls in that category.

          But, nowadays, we've got tons of public figures saying stuff that make MLK look downright boring, and
          • You're not wrong on the improvements and changes. What I find astonishing is the allergic reaction to anything that sounds like social, even by people who would need the country/rules to be more social and lift up the poorest...
            • That's because a particularly vicious form of government gave itself the name "socialism" and then proceeded to visibly, loudly wreck every single country thats adopted it. Our allergic response to "socialism" is healthy. And, unfortunatey, "social" and "socialism" are simply too linguistically close together. We shouldn't even be using the term social any more - socialists ruined it.

              Don't me wrong - I'm 100% in favor of using tax structure to provide various services and assistance to make sure there's
              • What's in a word, eh.... In French, my work colleagues at the time did call for more socialism. The word got tainted in English, but not so in many Western European countries, or not so much so. In other words, those languages differentiate between the Russian make believe version and the genuine/ utopic but inexistent socialism. Which isn't a form of state to strive for, but which has ideas that are worthwhile. So I'd put it like this: some parts of Europe integrated some ideas of socialism and people in s
                • It isn't my place to tell anyone, anywhere else, what to do with their own language.

                  But, I can tell you that people who try to sell any sort of "socialism" in the US should be prepared for a *very* hostile response, even from a lot of progressives (outside a few limited circles of hard-leftwingers).

                  This isn't a nativist elite thing either. One of the most anti-socialist groups in the US are recent immigrants from South America, because that population has a lot of very recent memories of brutal dic

    • It's amazing how quickly the media erased all signs of this after it was proven. This was definite proof the NSA was up to pure bad, and it made a lot of noise (on this website, before it became a corporate shill) but disappeared almost as quickly.

      .

      Appropriately, the Wired link from the referenced /. link returns a 404 :-)

    • I *think* these are the docs referenced:

      https://www.eff.org/document/p... [eff.org]

  • Kind of ironic (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    American leader takes to the Senate floor to acknowledge the hero that exposed something he should have known was happening.

  • Note: the NSA got away with it... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2025 @08:13PM (#65229193)

    No consequences for breaking the law. I wonder whether the Orange One got the idea that the law could be ignored from this...

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Folks in Washington are scared to death of the "intelligence services". In words of then Senate majority leader Charles Schumer, "They have so many ways to get back at you." There can be no serious expectation congress is going to provide oversight.
      • That quote is from when Trump was belittling and mocking them, trying to pick a fight, because they were warning about Russian cyberattacks.

        It has nothing to do with generalized fear about the services, and is instead about Trump being a bully and an idiot. Again.

  • RIP (Score:2)

    by nsaspook ( 20301 )

    R.I.P.

  • I'm glad he exposed it (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blastard ( 816262 ) on Thursday March 13, 2025 @12:36AM (#65229507)

    Until late 2001, I was a test engineer at the company that built the core router that enabled this. I wasn't involved in the No Such Agency part of it, but knew we were building the routing capability. All clients were initially only known by code names. AT&T was Zeus. Still have the shirt commemorating the first OC-192C coast to coast routing. That was when we could finally acknowledge AT&T as a client.

    Sadly I don't recall MCI or other client code names.
    Coincidentally, the company ceased to be shortly after the revelations. Looking back I realize how much weird $#!7 that company was involved in. It was one of the six companies mentioned by name in the Sherron Watkins Enron memo.

  • The government wanted you to know Ed Snowden was a "rougue" operator.

  • Thank you.

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