Room 641A- you need to know about this

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underpants (1000+ posts)

Fri Feb-15-08 02:49 PM Response to Original message

57. Room 641A- you need to know about this

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/underpants/10... In 2003, Room 641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a "special job" by the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T technician. It was fed by fiber-optic cables that siphoned copies of e-mails and other online traffic from one of the largest Internet hubs in the United States, the former employee says in court filings. Neither AT&T nor the federal government has admitted even the existence of a secret room, and the Justice Department is arguing that the cases should be dismissed because their subject matter is a state secret. The communications company, meanwhile, says it is prevented from properly defending itself because of national security reasons and dismisses the employee who briefly saw the room and worked on supporting equipment as a "line technician who . . . never had access to the 'secret room' he purports to describe." <--- that is as scarey an excuse as it is laughable The allegations by Mark Klein, who worked for AT&T's WorldNet Service, underscore the government's dependence on major telecommunications providers to physically tap optic fibers that carry electronic signals around the globe. Some of the evidence also suggests that the NSA efforts were not limited to overseas e-mail communications and included the collection of purely domestic traffic. "I conclude that AT&T has constructed an extensive -- and expensive -- collection of infrastructure that collectively has all the capability necessary to conduct large-scale covert gathering of -based communications information, not only for communications to overseas locations, but for purely domestic communications as well," said Marcus, a veteran computer network executive who worked at GTE, Genuity and other companies before joining the FCC. James X. Dempsey, policy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the evidence gleaned from the AT&T case appears to confirm that "there is a massive surveillance capability built into the network" by the federal government. But, Dempsey added, "the mere fact that the capability has been built and utilized still does not answer the fundamental question -- has it been exercised under constitutional parameters? That, in a way, is what these cases are trying to get to."

Ghost Dog (1000+ posts)

Fri Feb-15-08 11:08 PM Response to Reply #57

113. In this context, check out Miami-based Terremark Inc:

http://www.terremark.com/about/video-podcast.aspx http://www.terremark.com/industry-solutions/government.... "Terremark's Managed Routing Service (MRS) leverages the massive global network connectivity provided by the world's largest telecommunications companies located within our carrier-neutral facility. With direct access to the backbones of the world's leading carriers, we connect you directly to the heart of the Internet, consistently delivering the quality of service required for Streaming Multimedia, Voice over IP and other demanding applications. Our ultra secure and reliable facilities are complete with redundant systems and infrastructure. Our highly trained Network Management staff can proactively monitor your service, 24x7x365. In addition, our high-performance Network Analysis Modules (NAMs) offer proactive monitoring and quick troubleshooting that provides our engineers with visibility into all layers of the network. This enables us to analyze traffic flows for applications, hosts, conversations and network-based services such as Quality of Service (QoS) and Voice over IP (VoIP)."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x93692#93803