Remember the NSA scandal of 2013, and the revelations revealed by whistle blower Edward Snowden? Remember how most tech companies denied they willingly participated and insisted they were forced into cooperating with the NSA? Now, there’s an article out stating that may not be necessarily true. Were the NSA and AT&T in cahoots?
This article claims telecommunications conglomerate AT&T has been “highly collaborative” and talks about their “extreme willingness to help” ?with the NSA from 2003-2013. There are documents claiming they gave billions of emails to the NSA and helped in carrying out secret orders allowing wiretapping of UN headquarters. Keep in mind the UN [United Nations] is one of AT&T’s biggest customers. These documents suggest AT&T built far more surveillance equipment than Verizon and other competitors did. Not only that, AT&T was the first corporation was the first to try out NSA’s spying technology. These documents even told NSA officials to be nicer toward AT&T because, “This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship.” Snowden himself let these documents be known. News agencies from mainstream New York Times to alternative media site Pro Publica exposed them. As you would expect, AT&T didn’t comment, claiming they don’t openly talk about national security issues. It’s unclear if the NSA and AT&T is allegedly this tight today. A lot has changed in the last two years. Or has it?
The NSA surveillance scandal is going nowhere fast. It came up during the Republican presidential debate a few weeks ago. And now these revelations. These are just acquisitions. But I’ve never heard NSA get this chummy with Verizon, Yahoo, or any other telecommunications or online companies. And AT&T ?doesn’t want to comment on such matters. I think they should. A lot of people are still upset over the NSA spying on our way of life without the American people’s knowledge or approval. How upset could people be in they find out AT&T was this in cahoots with the NSA? How bad will that be for AT&T’s business?