AT&T Forwards ALL Internet Traffic Into NSA

[kpete]

AT&T Forwards ALL Internet Traffic Into NSA Says EFF

Thursday, April 06 2006 @ 03:13 AM CDT
Contributed by: ByteEnable


San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Wednesday filed the legal briefs and evidence supporting its motion for a preliminary injunction in its class-action lawsuit against AT&T. After asking EFF to hold back the documents so that it could review them, the Department of Justice consented to EFF's filing them under seal — a well-established procedure that prohibits public access and permits only the judge and the litigants to see the evidence. While not a party to the case, the government was concerned that even this procedure would not provide sufficient security and has represented to the Court that it is "presently considering whether and, if so, how it will participate in this case."

"The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "More than just threatening individuals' privacy, AT&T's apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans' Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now."

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20060406031301790

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. big brother is with us.

[ThomCat]

2. And doesn't almost all internet traffic

ride over their network somewhere at some point? That's got to make data mining easy.

[Marie26]

3. Is anyone really surprised? nt

[nascar55]

5. Not at all

Are they taking away our privacy? Or is it we are giving it away? :argh:

[Marie26]

8. Both

It's like the gov. saying "Can I borrow this for a second" & you nod distractedly w/o barely even noticing that they've taken the keys to your house.

[HeatherDawn]

4. We need to find out what AT&T got in return for this???

It must be something huge for them to break the law like this. I mean, unless they were served a warrant requiring them to turn over this info they have NO defense in court.

[Blaze Diem]

6. Great Point.......What was the Reward for AT&T to Risk

breaking the law?
Who were the top players in this deal?

[Marie26]

9. I'm guessing

Terra, terra, terra... for the good of the country... you want the next gov. contract, don't you?

[Horse with no Name]

12. What was the reward to AT&T?

Deregulation.

[ConsAreLiars]

14. Fascism is good for Big Business. The PNAC cabal was funded by AT&T

and all the rest to drive down the cost of labor and impose direct corporate control of regulations and laws. The NSA is just doing a service for AT&T and the rest of those for which corporatism is just good business policy.

[NashVegas]

13. They're Getting a Merger With BellSouth Approved

Neat how that works, huh?

[shenmue]

7. Bastards

:grr:

[flashsmith]

10. I thought so

I run a small dot.com where my customers do transactions over the Internet so whenever the speed drops I get a ton of phone calls. Normally it's my computers gasping from the load but recently the slowdown's have been in the Internet. I run a traceroute and I see 2 new hops, going to and from DC. Suspected it was the government eavesdropping but didn't have the wherewithal to identify the IP addresses. I'm fairly convinced now that it's the NSA.

[Marie26]

11. When did you notice this change? nt

[flashsmith]

15. Re: change

I noticed it a month ago but I have no idea when it began. I only do traceroutes when slowdowns are inexplicable. I also don't known when it ended because it's not there now. I wouldn't have noticed except that the 2 new hops were responsible for the delays so they drew my attention. Surprisingly, the IP addresses had domain names associated with them which is not usually the case. The domain had the state in it which is how I know where it was diverted. What I thought was the most likely explanation at the time was that one of the links between our office and the servers went down and traffic was rerouted. I did think it was odd that it would reroute from Jersey to D.C. and back to Jersey. New York would have been more logical. I joked to myself that the NSA was spying on us.