AT&T Helped U.S. Spy on Internet on a Vast Scale

[Ketchup]

The National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T.

While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed N.S.A. documents show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as “highly collaborative,” while another lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/u...spy-on-an-array-of-internet-traffic.html?_r=0

I rarely read the news, and after I saw this I remembered why. It just makes me mad! I am sure this was only used for national security reasons. Yeah, right!

 

[TheGardener]

This setup between AT&T and NSA is/was very well known in the telephony and telecommunications industry. I knew about this in the mid-00's. Worked down the street from a huge AT&T site in Cambridge MA. So old news for me.

Maybe the millennials have the right attitude. They expect no privacy, and have learned to live and thrive with it. Its only us Boomers that are disillusioned.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

This setup between AT&T and NSA is/was very well known in the telephony and telecommunications industry. I knew about this in the mid-00's. Worked down the street from a huge AT&T site in Cambridge MA. So old news for me.

Maybe the millennials have the right attitude. They expect no privacy, and have learned to live and thrive with it. Its only us Boomers that are disillusioned.

The mid-00's? Even fictional movies like the 1993 release "Sneakers" explains something of it. BBC broadcast an expose' of NSA's ECHELON system in 1999, the same year Bamford published "Body of Secrets."

ATT and other companies wouldn't be what it is today without the NSA.

All the trouble-spots in the world today are detritus from the Cold War. Except for the addition of the Patriot Act, NSA today is just a continuation of what it was meant to be in 1953.

ADDED : About 5 years ago, I met a woman in her early 20s in a smog-test customer-lounge. We struck up a conversation. When I made some reference to the "Cold War," she said "Oh! We studied that in high-school! We were fighting the Columnists!"

So I could wonder today. Is she running around like Chicken Little? "NSA's got my cell-phone billing data! The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!"

 

[Moonbeam]

Once there was a man so fearful that his end was near he bricked himself in a fortress and dies of oxygen starvation.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Oh dear, what will the corporate cheerleaders do now?

Can a corporation do whatever it pleases? Or, do they get a disapproving wag of the finger from the the usual forum corporate praisers?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Oh dear, what will the corporate cheerleaders do now?

Can a corporation do whatever it pleases? Or, do they get a disapproving wag of the finger from the the usual forum corporate praisers?

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWiIYW_fBfY

About 10 years ago, George Will, the conservative columnist, wrote an op-ed suggesting there really wasn't any "Military Industrial Complex."

Since then, he's become more of a salesman for failed, contradictory logic, and an establishment who . . . well . . . fit the profile. Frankly, I think his brain is more and more addled by old age.

But sure. NSA and ATT aren't "military." Neither is the oil-industry -- strategic minerals notwithstanding.

"Obama did it! Obama tapped my cellphone and sent the cops to render my computer inoperable!"

And, of course, like the South-Park episode about some fat guy with glasses, some fi-fi Kleenex wipes and a jar of vasoline in a room full of computers and monitors is really getting paid to listen in while you have phone-sex with Christian Tingle up at the Bunny Ranch in Reno.

 

[Ketchup]

Once there was a man so fearful that his end was near he bricked himself in a fortress and dies of oxygen starvation.

That description reminds me of the music video for the Toby Keith song, A Little Too Late. He had enough air to sing though.

 

[Moonbeam]

That description reminds me of the music video for the Toby Keith song, A Little Too Late. He had enough air to sing though.

It reminds me of the United States. What better way is there to prosecute a war against evil than to justify your own evil by calling it the good. Who among us imagines himself to be anything but good? Who among us will not cast the first stone?

 

[Ketchup]

Oh dear, what will the corporate cheerleaders do now?

Can a corporation do whatever it pleases? Or, do they get a disapproving wag of the finger from the the usual forum corporate praisers?

I do think it's interesting that, when I was a kid, ATT was order to break up into several smaller firms:
http://wps.aw.com/aw_carltonper_modernio_4/21/5566/1425000.cw/content/index.html

But now, SBC has taken/bought the name to become as big or larger than the company ATT was before (largest in land-line, second largest provider of mobile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT&T). But I guess it's ok now, since they will do whatever the government asks them to.

 

[Ketchup]

... Who among us will not cast the first stone?

I think we all struggle with that Moonbeam, but

It reminds me of the United States. What better way is there to prosecute a war against evil than to justify your own evil by calling it the good.

maybe you can expound one what you mean here. Are you pointing at any war in particular, or are you making a general statement about wars in general?

 

[MongGrel]

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWiIYW_fBfY

About 10 years ago, George Will, the conservative columnist, wrote an op-ed suggesting there really wasn't any "Military Industrial Complex."

Since then, he's become more of a salesman for failed, contradictory logic, and an establishment who . . . well . . . fit the profile. Frankly, I think his brain is more and more addled by old age.

But sure. NSA and ATT aren't "military." Neither is the oil-industry -- strategic minerals notwithstanding.

"Obama did it! Obama tapped my cellphone and sent the cops to render my computer inoperable!"

And, of course, like the South-Park episode about some fat guy with glasses, some fi-fi Kleenex wipes and a jar of vasoline in a room full of computers and monitors is really getting paid to listen in while you have phone-sex with Christian Tingle up at the Bunny Ranch in Reno.

George Will actually said that ?

I haven't read him in many years but seems a bit surprising.

I guess he is a bit irrelevant these days.

 

[TheGardener]

All Moonbeam does is toss verbal grenades. Offers nothing of substance. Probably because he's afraid someone will toss grenades back at his comments.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

George Will actually said that ?

I haven't read him in many years but seems a bit surprising.

I guess he is a bit irrelevant these days.

I wish I could locate a link to that op-ed in an archive. But -- yes -- he said that.

It was another screed against the Liberal sentiment.

He showed a little of his education by invoking Thomas Hobbes in that article, turned to his own purpose for pointing fingers. Hobbes had written that people will give up their freedom to a "Sovereign" who will protect them from life that is "brutish, nasty and short." He quoted that passage.

So in the same article, he made that statement about the "Military Industrial Complex." And what the lemmings have never fully understood is simple: The Military Industrial Complex IS the "Sovereign," and Hobbes didn't anticipate the emergence of "corporatism" -- one of several shades of "fascism."

Corporatism needs a spokesman and sales-promoter: best of all, a presidential spokesman and sales-promoter. The Spokesman says one thing to the public; he acts together with the entities in the shadows with a different agenda.

So to the public, one Spokeman-in-Chief said "We live in a classless society," invoking the old class-warfare accusations.

Then, the Spokesman-in-Chief was video-taped at an event attended by Carlyle Group (defense) investors: something like "I'm happy to visit with the 'haves' and 'have-mores' -- my base."

Since then, the Sturmabteilung of the Tea Party Right was calling for more defense investment when the budget was still at $800 billion/annum and China's was around $70+ billion.

Now, concerning potential Spokes-persons, I see the latest shrubbery sprouting with vague circuitous pronouncements about the Iraq War.

What a web we weave, when we struggle to deceive.

 

[Auric]

But sure. NSA and ATT aren't "military." Neither is the oil-industry -- strategic minerals notwithstanding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_infrastructure#United_States

 

[Jaskalas]

Over 10 years ago I heard that the AT&T lines are simply forked. One line carries traffic to the rest of the internet - the other sends (all data) to our government.

 

[Auric]

Optical splitter.

 

[Moonbeam]

All Moonbeam does is toss verbal grenades. Offers nothing of substance. Probably because he's afraid someone will toss grenades back at his comments.

Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 404

Yup, nothing found.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_infrastructure#United_States

Yup.

My attention is focused on those agencies with revolving doors and special relationships with concentrated industries.

An average citizen would not want his government to work that way. On the other hand, there are legitimate concerns, which NSA and other parts of the apparatus address.

Also, I suggested NSA wasn't "military," but it is traditional to appoint a director from the Navy admiralty or similar posts. But "military" is less of a problem than the "industrial complex" -- dependent on agency contracts, special relationships, and influence that wouldn't have a home if people decided to attenuate it.

I think when Bamford's book was published, NSA had some 90,000 employees or assets -- with the assets spread around throughout the telecommunications industry. It maintains its own para-military capability.

I don't think you can even get into Fort Meade for a tour.

What I'd like to see is one serious, publicized case of abuse before the Great Snowden Precipitation of outrage and panic. Or -- after it.

 

[werepossum]

All Moonbeam does is toss verbal grenades. Offers nothing of substance. Probably because he's afraid someone will toss grenades back at his comments.

Occasionally he stops patting himself on the back and says something profound and dare I say poetic. You just have to wait for it. Besides, going around claiming that everyone who doesn't exactly toe his line is brain defective is so ludicrous that it's really harmless and it comforts him so what's the harm?

 

[Printer Bandit]

Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 404

Yup, nothing found.

he's just saying what we all think, but afraid to say.

 

[BoberFett]

Oh dear, what will the corporate cheerleaders do now?

Can a corporation do whatever it pleases? Or, do they get a disapproving wag of the finger from the the usual forum corporate praisers?

LOL, government spying on us with the help of a corporation, and somehow Cleveland Steamer can only find the will to blame the corporation. His beloved government was innocent I tells ya! Innocent!!!

Cleveland Steamer: Dropping A Deuce On ATP&N Since 2014

 

[werepossum]

LOL, government spying on us with the help of a corporation, and somehow Cleveland Steamer can only find the will to blame the corporation. His beloved government was innocent I tells ya! Innocent!!!

Cleveland Steamer: Dropping A Deuce On ATP&N Since 2014

It is interesting how a corporation doing whatever government tells it is morphed into a corporation doing whatever it pleases.

 

[Newell Steamer]

LOL, government spying on us with the help of a corporation, and somehow Cleveland Steamer can only find the will to blame the corporation. His beloved government was innocent I tells ya! Innocent!!!

Cleveland Steamer: Dropping A Deuce On ATP&N Since 2014

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[unokitty]

AT&T: ... 52 members of Congress owned AT&T shares in 2013...

AT&T was the 18th biggest spender on lobbying in 2014 — $14 million — and employed 87 federal lobbyists, including 59 who came through the revolving door, and two former members of Congress.

Anyone surprised by the news that AT&T assisted the Federal Government in spying on the Internet hasn't been paying attention.

Uno

 

[sm625]

I vividly remember Alex Jones more than 10 years ago talking about how the big telecoms had entire floors dedicated to NSA spying. Goddam kook. Frickin quack. He should have just lied his ass off like everybody else, then he wouldnt be a frickin goddam crackpot. And people wonder why I have zero patience for their establishment bootlicking bull#%+...