Image: eff.org
The Story
AT&T’s San Francisco room could copy vast traffic, but the public record still cannot show exactly what the NSA collected.
AT&T built a secure room, installed network equipment and splitters, and gave NSA-cleared personnel access. Expert analysis found the design capable of monitoring enormous volumes of traffic, including domestic communications. What remains unresolved is how much data was actually collected and under what legal authority.
- EvidenceKlein’s documents, technical records and expert analysis support the room’s existence and surveillance capability.
- LimitsThe available sources do not establish the complete operational scope or final legal resolution.
- A former FCC technology adviser concluded that the installation was most likely used for government surveillance and could reach widespread internet traffic.
- ProPublica reported that Klein’s technical evidence described a secret room installed in 2002–03 and designed for “vacuum-cleaner” surveillance of data crossing the facility.
- Wired reported that AT&T built the room, connected it to copied fiber traffic, and installed routers, servers and Narus traffic-analysis software.
Deeper Insight
AT&T split the fiber and handed the copy to the NSA. Privacy disappears when the people who own the pipes become the watchers.
Behind a locked door in AT&T’s San Francisco building, splitters copied fiber traffic into an NSA-controlled room for high-speed analysis. The design could reach vast amounts of domestic communication, though the full collection and legal authority stayed hidden. The warning is bigger than one room: control the pipes, and you can quietly map a society.
- What it could changeA proven copy of the network’s traffic would overturn the idea that private messages stay private in transit.
- How it touches todayEvery message still passes through infrastructure ordinary people cannot inspect or measure.
- Our futurePrivacy could become a promise on paper while the pipes quietly tell the state where everyone has been.
- EFF’s account describes a complete copy of AT&T internet traffic being diverted through a splitter to an NSA-controlled room for high-speed analysis.
- Legal analysis of Klein’s account describes NSA involvement, restricted access and instructions to install splitters diverting phone and internet signals.
- Earlier reporting placed the San Francisco installation within a broader post-September 11 expansion of secret communications surveillance, while noting that the full picture remained unavailable.
Sources · 8
Featured · Analysis · eff.org
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