These towering, windowless, bomb-proof buildings in major US cities are reportedly part of an under-the-radar partnership between AT&T and the NSA
- AT&T has been helping the NSA with its mass surveillance programme, according to documents and sources obtained by The Intercept.
- Eight AT&T buildings around the US, many fortified, are used as sites where the NSA can tap into phone, text, and browsing records from around the world, documents suggest.
- A nuclear bomb-proof building in New York and a mostly windowless building in Los Angeles are among these sites.
- AT&T did not address the claim, but said it fulfils its legal obligations. The NSA declined to comment.
AT&T has reportedly been collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) to allow it to review people's texts, phone calls, and browsing data through eight fortress-like buildings across major US cities.
Online news site The Intercept has obtained documents and interviews suggesting the telecommunications company's facilities in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC, are central to an NSA initiative that has reviewed billions of emails, phone calls and online conversations from the US and around the world.
While the eight buildings are known publicly as AT&T facilities, Monday's report suggests that they are also used by the NSA for one of the agency's largest surveillance programs, codenamed Fairview.
Known as "backbone" facilities, they process user data including emails, phone calls, online chats, social media updates, and browsing history of AT&T customers as well as other phone and internet providers.
When a network is overloaded with data, another operator can provide bandwidth in a process known as "peering." AT&T is so large that it often does this, and transports the data from other companies' users.
The NSA uses this large pool of data for Fairview, The Intercept said.
The facilities
Many of the the buildings are windowless, and constructed to withstand earthquakes and nuclear blasts. Here's what we know about them:
51 Peachtree Center Avenue, Atlanta: This 14-story, art deco limestone structure was first built in the 1920s, and expanded between the 1947 and 1963. Documents and interviews have linked the building to NSA surveillance.
10 South Canal Street, Chicago: This facility was designed during the Cold War to survive a nuclear attack. Eighteen out of its 28 floors have no windows.
4211 Bryan Street, Dallas: This is also fortified with few windows, many of which appear to have been blacked out or covered in reflective glass.
420 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles: This 17-story building is mostly windowless. A large tower on top was once used to transmit phone calls, though its technology is now obsolete and it is no longer used. It is one of the largest telephone central offices in the country.
811 10th Avenue, New York City: This windowless 24-story building, located 15 minutes from Central Park, was designed to withstand a nuclear blast. It appears to primarily collect online communications, such as emails and browsing data.
30 E Street Southwest, Washington, DC: This property, located less than a mile from the US Capitol, has few windows. Verizon owns a majority of this concrete building, while AT&T owns a smaller part and occupies the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, property tax records indicated.
1122 3rd Avenue, Seattle: This 15-story building has blacked-out windows. It is in the city's downtown area. The building appears to be primarily owned by the Qwest Corporation, according to The Intercept, but AT&T has a presence inside.
611 Folsom Street, San Francisco: This nine-story building is covered with silver-colored paneling on the outside, and there are few windows. A former AT&T employee told The Intercept of a room in the facility that allegedly contained NSA surveillance equipment.
"Information that transits the nation"
AT&T, the world's largest telecommunications company, is identified as the only company involved in Fairview. NSA documents state that the agency values AT&T because it "has access to information that transits the nation."
AT&T processes data from other telecommunications companies such as Sprint and Cogent Communications in the US, and Telecom Italia in Italy and Deutsche Telekom in Germany.
Internet data and communications from around the world is processed by American companies if it arrives on US soil. A large portion of the world's internet traffic, which passes through undersea cables, goes through the US due to the country's geographical location and partly because of the popularity of American internet companies around the world.
Christopher Augustine, a spokesperson for the NSA, told The Intercept that the NSA could "neither confirm nor deny its role in alleged classified intelligence activities."
The agency "conducts its foreign signals intelligence mission under the legal authorities established by Congress and is bound by both policy and law to protect US persons' privacy and civil liberties," he added.
AT&T spokesperson Jim Greer said that the company was "required by law to provide information to government and law enforcement entities by complying with court orders, subpoenas, lawful discovery requests, and other legal requirements."
The company provides "voluntary assistance to law enforcement when a person's life is in danger and in other immediate, emergency situations," he said. "In all cases, we ensure that requests for assistance are valid and that we act in compliance with the law.
The NSA has appeared to amp up its information collection. The agency said it collected more than 534 million records of phone calls and text messages from American providers in 2017 - more than three times what it collected the year before.