AT & T collaborates on the spying of the NSA through a network of secret buildings in the United States – TechCrunch

A new report from Intercept illuminates the NSA close relationship with the AT & T communications provider

Intercept has identified eight facilities across the United States that function as hubs for AT & T collaborative efforts with the intelligence agency. The site first identified a potential pole of this type in 2017 in South Manhattan.

The report reveals that eight AT & T data centers in the United States are considered high value sites by the NSA to give the agency direct access to raw data that transit, including emails, navigation Web, social media and any other form of encryption. online activity. The NSA uses the network of eight AT & T hubs for a monitoring operation code named FAIRVIEW, a program previously reported by The New York Times. The program, created in 1985, "consists of operating international cables, routers and telecommunication switches" and coordinates directly only with AT & T and not with other major US mobile operators.

The strong involvement of AT & T in the monitoring program of the NSA operated under the code name SAGUARO. Email, e-mail, and other types of Web traffic accessed through the program have been made available via XKEYSCORE, one of the NSA's best-known surveillance tools.

The Intercept explains how these sites allow the NSA to access data beyond only AT & T subscribers:

"The exchange of data between AT & T and other networks is initially outside of AT & T control, according to sources, in third-party data centers that are owned and operated by companies like Equinix in California, but the data is then channeled – in whole or in part – through the eight AT & T buildings, where the NSA draws from the building. peering 'on the eight sites, the spying agency can collect' not only AT & T data, but also all the data exchanged between the AT & T network and d & # 39; "Other companies" who worked with the company for 22 years. "

The NSA describes these locations as "peering link routing network" sites while AT & T calls them "NTS Routing Complexes". The eight complexes are spread across the country's major cities with locations in Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC. The Intercept Report identifies these facilities:

"Among the identified buildings, there is a nuclear facility without explosion resistance in the Hell & # 39; s Kitchen district of New York; in Washington, DC, a fortress-like concrete structure less than half a mile south of the United States Capitol; in Chicago, an anti-seismic skyscraper in the West Loop Gate area; in Atlanta, a 429-foot art deco structure in the heart of the downtown area; and Dallas, a cube-shaped building with narrow windows and large openings on the outside, located in the Old East neighborhood.

… in downtown Los Angeles, an impressive concrete tower near the Walt Disney Concert Hall and Staples Center, two blocks from the largest Internet stock exchange in the area; in Seattle, a 15-storey building with blackened windows and reinforced concrete foundations, near the city's waterfront; and in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, a building where it was previously claimed that the NSA was monitoring Internet traffic from a secure room on the sixth floor.

While these facilities may be capable of monitoring US traffic, they also handle large amounts of international traffic as it travels across the globe – which probably explains why the NSA would consider these AT & T nodes as sites of great value. Original documents, some of the leaked files provided by Edward Snowden, are available in the original report.