The internet commemorates AT&T whistleblower who risked it all to tell us the truth

Mere days ago, a man by the name of Mark Klein passed away – he was a telecommunications technician for AT&T for 22 years and risked it all just to open our eyes.

Mark Klein is not forgotten and will never be, at least in the minds of those who care deeply about privacy and illegal government spying:



The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), a nonprofit for civil liberties in the digital world, pays a tribute to Mark Klein and what he did years ago.

Mark Klein never set out to be a whistleblower, but his decision to expose a secretive government surveillance program made him a crucial figure in the fight for privacy rights. For more than two decades, he worked as a telecommunications technician at AT&T, most of that time in San Francisco. He was simply doing his job… until he realized he had unwittingly played a role in something far bigger and far more troubling.

In late 2005, the New York Times reported on the NSA's unauthorized surveillance within the US; it was exactly then that Klein connected the dots. He had seen firsthand how the program operated. Though newly retired by that time, he knew he had to act. Early in 2006, he approached the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) with a straightforward but significant question:



What Klein revealed reshaped the public's understanding of mass surveillance.

At AT&T's central office in San Francisco, he witnessed the installation of a secret NSA-controlled room. This place's called Room 641A. His job required him to connect major internet circuits to optical splitters positioned just outside this classified facility. Those splitters copied everything passing through AT&T's networks, diverting the data directly into the NSA's system.

And this wasn't an isolated case—similar setups existed in other major cities.



Klein didn't just describe what he saw; he backed it up with evidence. He provided over a hundred pages of internal AT&T documents, including schematic diagrams and tables that detailed the surveillance infrastructure. He shared his findings with EFF, journalists, and key members of Congress, even meeting personally with senators. Senator Chris Dodd took to the Senate floor to recognize Klein's courage and his contribution to exposing government overreach.

Klein's evidence became the foundation of two lawsuits, both aimed at challenging the legality of the mass surveillance he had uncovered. He also traveled to Washington, advocating for transparency and accountability. His experience was later chronicled in his book, "Wiring Up the Big Brother Machine... And Fighting It".

Despite facing threats of legal action from AT&T, Klein never backed down. Though Congress and the courts ultimately failed to put an end to mass surveillance, the report notes – despite additional revelations from whistleblowers years later – he played a key role in exposing government overreach. May he rest in peace.