The most amusing part of this discussion is us "nutters" have been talking about this for years and were labeled exactly that "Nutters" and "Conspiracy Theorists."
Need me to take you back into the rabbit hole?
AT&T engineer: NSA built secret rooms in our facilities
Apr 12 2006 - by Nate Anderson
Mark Klein, an AT&T engineer and witness in the EFF's case against the company ?
The EFF's case against AT&T has barely begun, yet it has already brought to light some fascinating details about the methods behind the NSA's alleged wiretapping abilities. Mark Klein, a retired AT&T engineer who is now participating in the case as a witness, has released a statement to the media in which he outlines many of the allegations that are currently under seal. Chief among them is his claim that AT&T installed powerful traffic monitoring equipment in a "secret room" in their San Francisco switching office at the behest of the NSA.
"In 2002, when I was working in an AT&T office in San Francisco, the site manager told me to expect a visit from a National Security Agency agent, who was to interview a management-level technician for a special job. The agent came, and by chance I met him and directed him to the appropriate people.
In January 2003, I, along with others, toured the AT&T central office on Folsom Street in San Francisco?actually three floors of an SBC building. There I saw a new room being built adjacent to the 4ESS switch room where the public's phone calls are routed. I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room. The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room."
According to Klein, this room contained (among other things) a Narus STA 6400 traffic analyzer into which all of AT&T's Internet and phone traffic was routed; Klein himself helped wire the splitter box that made this possible. In addition to AT&T's own traffic, Klein alleges that the company also routed its peering links into the splitter, meaning that any traffic that passed through AT&T's own network could be scanned. Futhermore, San Francisco wasn't the only place such secret rooms were built; Klein claims that AT&T offices in Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego also have them.
continues:
http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/04/6585-2/
Now back to the future
DID YOU KNOW?: Two Secretive Israeli Companies Reportedly Bugged The US Telecommunications Grid For The NSA
Jun. 7, 2013 - Michael Kelley
exerpted:
The newest information regarding the NSA domestic spying scandal raises an important question: If America's tech giants didn't 'participate knowingly' in the dragnet of electronic communication, how does the NSA get all of their data?
One theory: the NSA hired two secretive Israeli companies to wiretap the U.S. telecommunications network.
In April 2012 Wired's James Bamford ? author of the book "The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America" ? reported that two companies with extensive links to Israel's intelligence service provided hardware and software the U.S. telecommunications network for the National Security Agency (NSA).
Klein, an engineer, discovered the "secret room" at AT&T central office in San Francisco, through which the NSA actively "*vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T" through the wiretapping rooms, emphasizing that "much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic."
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NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake corroborated Klein's assertions, testifying that while the NSA is using Israeli-made NARUS hardware to "seize and save all personal electronic communications."
Both Verint and Narus were founded in Israel in the 1990s. Both provide monitoring and intercept capabilities to service providers and government organizations, promoting claims that their equipment can access and retain large amounts of information on a vast number of targets.
continues:
http://www.businessinsider.com/israe...the-nsa-2013-6