Posted on July 18, 2018
AT&T is one of the NSA’s “most trusted partners”
We’ve known for a while that AT&T was working hand-in-hand with the NSA to spy on Americans’ internet traffic. But a new investigative report by the Intercept revealed the eight cities where AT&T hosts “wiretap rooms” for the NSA to skim data as it passes through their networking equipment.
In each of these eight locations, AT&T provides the NSA with access to a special facility designed to transport vast quantities of our internet traffic. Even if you are not an AT&T customer, these facilities may sometimes transport your emails, phone calls, and online chats.
The Intercept report confirms what we already knew: the NSA “considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company’s ‘extreme willingness to help.'”
AT&T’s active partnership with the NSA is outrageous and unconstitutional, and we’re not going to stand for it. That’s why we’ve launched an urgent petition demanding that AT&T stop giving the data it collects to the NSA. (You can sign the petition here.)
Unlike AT&T and other phone companies who profit by selling your information to the federal government, privacy is a core value for CREDO, and we will fight to defend it. CREDO will never collaborate with the NSA or give our customers’ data to the government unless legally required to do so.
In fact, we’re proud to protect our customers’ privacy from government intrusion. We’re the first mobile company to issue a transparency report. We filed a lawsuit against the FBI challenging the constitutionality of National Security Letters that we received in 2013.
And we’re proud to be the only mobile company to earn a five-star rating last year from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for our policies protecting your data from government requests.
You can read more about how we stand up for our customers’ privacy here.