AT&T Helps NSA Spy on Americans

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.

News ID: 70983

Date: 28 June 2018 - 15:40

TEHRAN (Defapress)- 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.

Eight facilities across the United States have been identified as being used by the NSA to keep tabs on people. It's allegedly monitoring internet users' emails, internet browsing, and social media posts.

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 US territory.

The centers in question are known as "peering" facilities that process data from both AT&T customers along with customers of other internet providers. Telecom customers from foreign countries are also being watched including India, Italy, Germany and Sweden.

The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help”. According to the NSA’s documents, it values AT&T not only because it “has access to information that transits the nation”, but also because it maintains unique relationships with other phone and internet providers. The NSA exploits these relationships for surveillance purposes, commandeering AT&T’s massive infrastructure and using it as a platform to covertly tap into communications processed by other companies.

It isn't the first time that the telecom giant has been accused of helping the US government spy on its people. The NSA would not comment on the situation, however, AT&T told The Intercept that it's required by law to provide authorities with information to certain extents.

AT&T has a secret program called Project Hemisphere that searches through trillions of phone call records. It then analyzes cell data to find where the person making the call is located, along with the person on the other end of the call's location and possibly details of the call.

AT&T owns over 75 percent of US landline switches and has the second largest share of cell towers and wireless infrastructure. It keeps cell tower data going all the way back to 2008. Whereas Verizon only keeps those records for one year and Sprint keeps them for 18 months.

AT&T keeps details of every phone call, text, or other communication that has been made on its infrastructure dating back to the late 1980s. The New York Times says this database has trillions of records and is larger than any phone record database collected by the NSA under the Patriot Act. AT&T is allegedly being paid as much as $1 million a year by different police departments for access to Hemisphere.

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