Room 641A
loreprivacygovernance & risk
The San Francisco AT&T facility where a technician revealed fiber splitters copying Internet traffic for the NSA.
In 2006, retired AT&T technician Mark Klein disclosed documents describing a secure room at the Folsom Street switching center where beam splitters duplicated backbone fiber traffic into NSA-connected analysis equipment. The revelation fueled the EFF's Hepting v. AT&T lawsuit and, years before 2013's leaks, put bulk interception of domestic traffic on the public record. It remains the concrete image behind the phrase upstream collection.