Documents Show Link Between AT&T and Agency in Eavesdropping Case
SAN FRANCISCO, April 12 -- Mark Klein was a veteran AT&T technician in 2002 when he began to see what he thought were suspicious connections between that telecommunications giant and the National Security Agency.
But he kept quiet about it until news broke late last year that President Bush had approved an N.S.A. program to eavesdrop without court warrants on Americans suspected of ties to Al Qaeda.
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Mr. Klein's account and the documents provide new details about how the agency works with the private sector in intercepting communications for intelligence purposes.
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The documents, which were examined by four independent telecommunications and computer security experts at the request of The New York Times, describe equipment capable of monitoring a large quantity of e-mail messages, Internet phone calls, and other Internet traffic.
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The technical experts all said that the documents showed that AT&T had an agreement with the federal government to systematically gather information flowing on the Internet through the company's network.
The gathering of such information, known as data mining, involves the use of sophisticated computer programs to detect patterns or glean useful intelligence from masses of information.
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Another expert, who had designed large federal and commercial data networks, said that the documents were consistent with administration assertions that the N.S.A. monitored only foreign communications and communications between foreign and United States locations, partly because of the location of the monitoring sites. The network designer was granted anonymity because he believed that commenting on the operation could affect his ability to work as a consultant.
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Mr. Klein said other AT&T technicians had told him of such installations in San Jose, Calif.; Los Angeles; San Diego; and Seattle.
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The documents showed that the room in San Francisco, which Mr. Klein says was off-limits to most employees but serviced by a company technician working with the security agency, contained computerized equipment that could sift through immense volumes of traffic as it passed through the cables of AT&T's WorldNet Internet service.
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The equipment could be programmed to identify and intercept voice or data conversations between e-mail, telephone or Internet addresses, said Steve Bannerman, the company's vice president for marketing.
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Based on his observations and technical knowledge, Mr. Klein concluded that the equipment permitted "vacuum-cleaner surveillance" of Internet traffic. Mr. Klein, 60, who retired in 2004 after 23 years with AT&T and lives near Oakland, Calif., said he decided to make his observations known because he believed the government's monitoring was violating Americans' civil liberties.
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45 years ago, the FBI used illegally wiretaps against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. not for legitimate law enforcement purposed but to build a file for blackmail. There is no reason to believe that it isn't happening today and we just do not know about it. The technology makes it very easy to accomplish.
