Room 641A: The Secret NSA Wiretap AT&T Hid in San Francisco

Room 641A: The Secret NSA Wiretap AT&T Hid in San Francisco

Room 641A is an AT&T facility in San Francisco used by the NSA for mass surveillance. It began operations in 2003 and was exposed by AT&T technician Mark Klein in 2006. The room contained a Narus STA 6400 to intercept Internet traffic. The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued AT&T, but the case was dismissed after Congress granted retroactive immunity to telecom companies.

The room was referred to in internal AT&T documents as the SG3 [Study Group 3] Secure Room.
  1. tedd4u

    Covered many times before.

    How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt] (https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-whistleblower-who-unc...)

    710 points | the-mitr | 4 months ago | 254 comments

    Room 641A (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

    333 points | hourislate | 6 years ago | 70 comments

    Room 641A (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

    248 points | llambda | 13 years ago | 44 comments

    Room 641A (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

    207 points | mimsee | 10 years ago | 75 comments

    Room 641A (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

    51 points | jihadjihad | 2 years ago | 5 comments

  2. godwinson__4-8

    > On August 15, 2007, the case was heard by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 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.

    "Retroactive grant of immunity" is a nice reminder that the law is ultimately about power.

    Amass enough power and the law is yours.

  3. Charly_HW

    9/11 was the starting point for profiting from many places, but mainly for keeping Americans afraid and prompting them to turn against people from outside the country to justify military spending.

  4. Cider9986

    9/11 was used as an excuse to create more mass spying on Americans even though 2,977 people died while 42,116 died from car accidents that same year.

  5. nzoschke

    Crazy I just walked by this building last night and discussed how ominous it looks with a friend

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2026-09-11