AT&T is much friendlier with the NSA than we thought

Telecommunications powerhouse AT&T Inc. has provided extensive assistance to the U.S. National Security Agency as the spy agency conducts surveillance on huge volumes of Internet traffic passing through the United States, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing newly disclosed NSA documents. The newspaper reported that the company gave technical assistance to the NSA in carrying out a secret court order allowing wiretapping of all Internet communications at the headquarters of the United Nations, an AT&T customer. The documents date from 2003 to 2013 and were provided by fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, The Times reported. The company helped the spy agency in a broad range of classified activities, the newspaper reported. The documents describe how the NSA’s working relationship with AT&T has been particularly important, enabling the agency to conduct surveillance, under various legal rules, of international and foreign-to-foreign Internet communications that passed through network hubs in the United States.