Whistleblower Discovers that NSA Work is Underhand and Illegal as They Collaborate with Major Telecommunications Company.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is the United States’ most secret intelligence agency and has its headquarters at Fort George G Meade, Maryland.

It was created in 1952 by then President Harry S. Truman to collect and analyze foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence.

NSA work involves cracking codes and encrypted information, whilst also protecting U.S. government communications and information systems from similar agencies overseas.

There is a clear brief that NSA work does not involve the interception of domestic activities and that under Executive Order 12333 they collect only foreign intelligence or counterintelligence.

NSA work is different to the FBI, who collects intelligence on foreign activity within the borders of the United States.

It was interesting then to hear the claims of Mark Klein, a former employee of telecommunications giant AT&T in 2007.

He told ABC News that NSA had set up a secret room on the sixth floor of the AT&T building where he worked in San Francisco.

The room was connected to cables for foreign and domestic internet traffic, and access to the room was highly restricted.

Klein came across secret documentation that had been clumsily left behind, which outlined the NSA work to be carried out in the AT&T office.

The purpose of the work was to make copies of all the foreign and domestic internet traffic going through the fibre optic cable, and sending it to the secret NSA room.

This is a clear abuse of the NSA’s authority and a worrying breach of every American citizen’s privacy, however, it seems this was done under Government orders as part of the war on terror campaign initiated by President George W Bush.

That said President Bush made it clear to the public that the Government agencies would be focused on intercepting calls to and from Al-Qaeda, and their known associates.

There was no mention of the surveillance being extended to all forms of communication involving everyone, not just suspected terrorists, in the United States.

AT&T and the NSA would not confirm that secret offices were set up, but Klein’s evidence confirms a major cover up.

AT&T released a statement saying: “AT&T is fully committed to protecting our customers’ privacy”.

Well this clearly is not the case whilst collaborating with government agencies but they wouldn’t say otherwise as the statement continued: “We do not comment on matters of national security.”

Bush and Dick Cheney were able to force through this breach of civil liberties in a very underhand way, using telecommunication and media companies to assist the process in the name of national security.

History of Irregularities

NSA work has been shown to be underhand on other occasions too.

Following the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974, there were investigations made in to misuse of CIA and NSA facilities.

The Watergate scandal, which was the undoing of Nixon, had made everybody very suspicious.

The Church Committee uncovered activities that had not been known previously, one of these was a plot ordered by President John F Kennedy to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

The investigation also revealed the NSA had wiretaps on various American citizens.

Bush Above the Law

As a result of the Church Committee findings, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 was made law.

This basically put restrictions on when and how domestic surveillance in the United States was permitted, there were now clear parameters it seemed for the NSA to work within.

However, the parameters are broken when it suits the US Government and they cannot get their way.

This was the case with President Bush in 2005. The NSA again was tapping the telephones of citizens within the United States.

This was under an executive order from Bush, which his supporters argue override the FISA law.

Goodbye Civil Liberties

The activities of the NSA are clearly unlawful, but the President says that is ok because it is all for the sake of national security.

So the majority of people with no connection to Al-Qaeda or other known terrorist organizations will be tracked anyway.

With a new President in place, no-one should be fooled in to thinking this will stop.

The New York Times has uncovered that the NSA is still intercepting calls of American citizens in 2009. American citizens do not have the freedom to do anything without being tracked.

More and more surveillance cameras are watching people outside, whilst phones, e-mails etc are tracked in the home. Big Brother is watching.