February 2003: AT&T Completes Installing Equipment to Allow NSA to Monitor Domestic, International Communications

AT&T completes installing “splitter” equipment in its Folsom Street, San Francisco, facility (see January 2003), enabling the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor a vast amount of domestic and international electronic communications over telephone and Internet connections. [Klein, 2009, pp. 34-35] Veteran AT&T technician Mark Klein (see July 7, 2009) later helps connect Internet circuitry to a splitting cabinet that leads into the secret room (see October 2003). In an affidavit, Klein will later state, “While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the secret room were tapping into the Worldnet (AT&T’s Internet service) circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal.” The circuitry allows AT&T to divert traffic to and from its network from other domestic and international providers to the NSA monitoring equipment, meaning that even citizens who do not use AT&T as their provider can be monitored. [Wired News, 4/7/2006]