The Secret Room

A room at AT&T specifically designed for the NSA?

Last week, Wired broke the news of an affidavit filed by Mark Klein, a former AT&T employee. Klein describes a shady scenario in which the NSA came in to oversee a special hire.

“I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room,” Klein wrote. “The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room.”

He later observed that fiber optic cables wired to the “secret room” were piped into AT&T’s circuits.

While the president may or may not have the constitutional authority to demand domestic wiretaps, the involvement of a public corporation willingly cooperating without a warrant would seem to be a violation.

Of course, I personally think that domestic wiretaps completely violate the Constitution and federal statute. But this brings in a whole new element. I mean, this is downright scary. Big Brother come to life:



Even F. James Sensenbrenner is accusing the White House of stonewalling on the NSA program. If this is all true, I understand why they're stonewalling.