Tin Foil Hats (I)

With the revelation (to me anyway) that AT&T had a contract with the NSA pre 9/11, a few things have fallen into place.

First a little information about what has come to light based on alligations in a series of lawsuits against AT&T for allegedly turning phone records illegally over to the NSA. According to the allegations in the lawsuit:

The project was described in the ATT sales division documents as calling for the construction of a facility to store and retain data gathered by the NSA from its domestic and foreign intelligence operations but was to be in actuality a duplicate ATT Network Operations Center for the use and possession of the NSA that would give the NSA direct, unlimited, unrestricted and unfettered access to all call information and internet and digital traffic on ATT's long distance network. […]

The NSA program was initially conceived at least one year prior to 2001 but had been called off; it was reinstated within 11 days of the entry into office of defendant George W. Bush.

An ATT Solutions logbook reviewed by counsel confirms the Pioneer-Groundbreaker project start date of February 1, 2001.

Assuming that this is true, we have the following data points:

• AT&T made arrangements to allow the NSA access to a major switching facility in San Francisco. This arrangement is from what I understand, illegal.
• This agreement pre-dates 9-11.
• Under several versions of the updates FISA telco companies are being given retroactive immunity from prosecution for illegally sharing data with the government. Probably other patriotic things as well. This is an acknowledgment that what the telcos have been doing is illegal.
• AT&T recently announced an interest in developing technologies relating to piracy:

Earlier this month, about 20 technology executives from Viacom, its Paramount movie studio and other Hollywood companies met at AT&T headquarters to start devising a technology that would stem piracy but not violate privacy laws or Internet freedoms espoused by the FCC, the “Times” reported.

So here is my idea:

The NSA can no longer gather data using the 'historical' ways of doing buisness. There is too much public exposure and (more significantly) if the FISA blanket is not put in place the CEO's and their winged monkies will be torn to pieces by the angry shareholders. Under the guise of attacking internet piracy, a whole new monitoring infrastructure will be put into place. And we will have the vast powers of the FCC to protect our basic freedoms. Joy.

That's all.