Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

for the U.S.

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

, as part of its warrantless surveillance program as authorized by the

Patriot Act The USA PATRIOT Act (commonly known as the Patriot Act) was a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropr ...

. The facility commenced operations in 2003 and its purpose was publicly revealed in 2006.

Description

Room 641A is located in the

SBC Communications The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell ...

building at 611 Folsom Street,

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, three floors of which were occupied by AT&T before SBC purchased AT&T. The room was referred to in internal AT&T documents as the ''SG3 tudy Group 3Secure Room''. The room measures about and contains several racks of equipment, including a Narus STA 6400, a device designed to intercept and analyze Internet communications at very high speeds. It is fed by

fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

lines from

beam splitter A beam splitter or ''beamsplitter'' is an optical device that splits a beam of light into a transmitted and a reflected beam. It is a crucial part of many optical experimental and measurement systems, such as interferometers, also finding wide ...

s installed in fiber optic trunks carrying

Internet backbone The Internet backbone may be defined by the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected computer networks and core routers of the Internet. These data routes are hosted by commercial, government, academic and other high-ca ...

traffic. In the analysis of J. Scott Marcus, a former CTO for

GTE GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing furth ...

and a former adviser to the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

, it has access to all Internet traffic that passes through the building, and therefore "the capability to enable surveillance and analysis of internet content on a massive scale, including both overseas and purely domestic traffic." The existence of the room was revealed by former AT&T technician

Mark Klein Mark Klein is a former AT&T technician and whistleblower who revealed details of the company's cooperation with the United States National Security Agency in installing network hardware at a site known as Room 641A to monitor, capture and proce ...

and was the subject of a 2006

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

lawsuit by the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

against AT&T. Klein claims he was told that similar

black room __NOTOC__ A black room is part of a communication center (e.g. a post office) used by state officials to conduct clandestine interception and surveillance of communications. Typically, all letters or communications pass through the black room bef ...

s are operated at other facilities around the country. Room 641A and the controversies surrounding it were subjects of an episode of ''

Frontline Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield. Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to: Books and publications * ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant * ''Frontlines ...

'', the current affairs documentary program on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

. It was originally broadcast on May 15, 2007. It was also featured on PBS's ''

NOW Now most commonly refers to the present time. Now, NOW, or The Now may also refer to: Organizations * Natal Organisation of Women, a South African women's organization * National Organization for Women, an American feminist organization * Now ...

'' on March 14, 2008. The room was also covered in the PBS ''

Nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...

'' episode "The Spy Factory".

Lawsuits

The

(EFF) filed a

class-action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...

lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

against

on January 31, 2006, accusing the telecommunication company of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the

(NSA) in a massive, illegal program to

wiretap Telephone tapping (also wire tapping or wiretapping in American English) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitorin ...

and data-mine Americans' communications. On July 20, 2006, a federal judge denied the government's and AT&T's motions to dismiss the case, chiefly on the ground of the

state secrets privilege The state secrets privilege is an evidentiary rule created by United States legal precedent. Application of the privilege results in exclusion of evidence from a legal case based solely on affidavits submitted by the government stating that court ...

, allowing the lawsuit to go forward. On August 15, 2007, the case was heard by the

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District o ...

and was dismissed on December 29, 2011, based on a retroactive grant of immunity by Congress for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the government. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. A different case by the Electronic Frontier Foundation was filed on September 18, 2008, titled ''

Jewel v. NSA ''Jewel v. National Security Agency'', 673 F.3d 902 (9th Cir., 2011), was a class action lawsuit argued before the District Court for the Northern District of California and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, filed by Electronic Fro ...

''. After many years of litigation, on April 25, 2019, ruling from the Northern District of California for ''Jewel v. NSA'' concluded that the evidence presented by the plaintiff's experts was insufficient; "the Court confirms its earlier finding that Klein cannot establish the content, function, or purpose of the secure room at the AT&T site based on his own independent knowledge." The ruling noted, "Klein can only speculate about what data were actually processed and by whom in the secure room and how and for what purpose, as he was never involved in its operation." The Court further went on to discredit other experts called upon, citing their heavy reliance on the Klein declaration. In the Spring of 2006, over 50 other lawsuits were filed against various telecommunications companies, in response to the article. There has been speculation that several rooms similar to this exist all over the United States.

Gallery

File:SER marcus decl.djvu, page=17, Page 17: Basic diagram of how the alleged wiretapping was accomplished. From

EFF EFF or eff may refer to: Politics * Economic Freedom Fighters, a South African communist political party * Economic Freedom Fund, an American political organization * Election Fighting Fund, a British suffragist organization supporting the ear ...

court filings. File:SER klein exhibits.djvu, page=9, Page 9: More complicated diagram of how it allegedly worked. From EFF court filings. File:Fiber optic tap.png, A fiber optic tap

References

External links

* * * {{National Security Agency AT&T buildings George W. Bush administration controversies History of cryptography Locations in the history of espionage National Security Agency facilities Privacy of telecommunications Signals intelligence Privacy in the United States Organizations based in San Francisco Individual rooms

Description

Lawsuits

Gallery

See also

References

External links