"The
most important surveillance story you will see for years just went
online, revealing how AT&T became the internet's biggest enemy,
secretly collaborating against its customers and partners to destroy
your privacy."
That was
how whistleblower and privacy advocate Edward Snowden reacted to the
publication of an explosive story by The Intercept on Monday,
which reveals for the first time how "fortress-like" AT&T
buildings located in eight major American cities have played a
central role in a massive National Security Agency (NSA) spying
program "that has for years monitored billions of emails,
phone calls, and online chats passing across U.S. territory."
"It's
eye-opening and ominous the extent to which this is happening right
here on American soil," Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of
the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for
Justice, told The Intercept in an interview. "It puts
a face on surveillance that we could never think of before in terms
of actual buildings and actual facilities in our own cities, in our
own backyards."
The
Intercept's detailed report—based on a large body of evidence
that includes public records, classified NSA documents, and
interviews with former AT&T employees—shows how the telecom
giant has willingly helped the NSA collect the data of its own
customers and those of other companies, thanks to its "unique
relationships with other phone and internet providers."
According
to Intercept reporters Ryan Gallagher and Henrik Moltke, who bylined
Monday's story, eight AT&T facilities—known as "peering
sites"—in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York
City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. "serve a
specific function, processing AT&T customers' data and also
carrying large quantities of data from other internet providers."
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