You heard it here first ladies and gentlemints thanks to the work of our esteemed Janitor Lambert and pseudonymous contributor “Philosophicus”.

Now Mark Klein, an AT&T technician for 22 and 1/2 years, blows his whistle:

While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the secret room were tapping into the Worldnet circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal. … The circuits listed were the Peering Links, which connect Worldnet with other networks and hence the whole country, as well as the rest of the world.

One of the documents listed the equipment installed in the secret room, and this list included a Narus STA 6400, which is a “Semantic Traffic Analyzer”. The Narus STA technology is known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets. The company’s advertising boasts that its technology “captures comprehensive customer usage data … and transforms it into actionable information…. (It) provides complete visibility for all internet applications.”

Read Mark Klein’s statement. Via Wired, via Escrocs et Menteurs.

Based on my understanding of the connections and equipment at issue, it appears the NSA is capable of conducting what amounts to vacuum-cleaner surveillance of all the data crossing the internet — whether that be peoples’ e-mail, web surfing or any other data.

This ties in nicely with Chicago Dyke’s post about how Abu Gonzales refused to confirm or deny that the President’s Inherent Magic Wand Authority would allow warrantless surveillance of Domestic to Domestic communications. BTW: I think Patrick Leahy posed this question to Abu in the previous hearings.

This also ties back to Lambert and Philosophicus’ point that on the WORLD Wide Web there is no distinction between Domestic and Foreign communications. There is no way the Bushista Intelligence can claim to be only monitoring Domestic to Foreign communications.

How powerful is this vacuum cleaner’s suction, you ask? What can it collect and analyze?

From Narus.com’s “products” section, here are some of the Key Features the Lawful Intercept Application Module, part of the NarusInsight Intercept Suite:

- Passive model collects off-the-line at wire speeds

- Internet, VoIP, PTT, e-mail, etc. all in one platform

- Wireline to wireless, dialup to broadband

Paranoid parsing:

- It’s fast. Collection happens in real time

- VoIP is Voice over Internet Protocol AKA the Vonage phone service. The “,etc.” means everything else

- Cell phones and all internet traffic coming out of your home or office.

I don’t know what an STA 6400 is exactly, but I gots to get me one of those. So I can smash it to bits with a sledgehammer. The top hit on Google for “Narus STA 6400” has disappeared. Here’s a press release that mentions the technology:

NARUS’ solutions are based on the company’s Semantic Traffic Analysis (STA) technology, which captures comprehensive customer usage data directly from carrier-grade networks and transforms it into actionable information. The patent-pending STA technology, which is the only technology that provides complete visibility for all Internet applications, is the foundation for applications that range from decision support to IP billing mediation.

Sweet, a Silicon Valley privately owned tech firm provides Govermnent Snoops with Total Information Awareness via a convenient graphic user interface. Worth every penny of your tax dollars, I’m sure. Wikipedia:

NSA’s budget for electricity exceeds US$21 million per year, making it the second largest electricity consumer in the entire state of Maryland. Photos have shown there to be 18,000 parking spaces at the site, although most guesses have put the NSA’s total workforce at around double that number as employees are sited worldwide.

Smells like pure ’Merkan Freedom to me.