"Massively unconstitutional."

Jim-

I saw this guy on Keith Olbermann last night. It's un-effing-believable how these CEO's just happily let the government stick a microscope up my ass without even the slightest consideration for my privacy. I pay the bill and what do I get in return? A colonoscopy from the fed!

I am a little pissed that Mr. Klein was too worried about his job and waited till now (after his retirement) to reveal these transgressions. On the other hand, I can't say with certainty that I would not have done the same. This country needs stronger "Whistleblower Protection" laws.

Rather than posting a link to the entire transcript of last nights show, I am just going to paste the Klein interview:

OLBERMANN: In room 226 of the Dirkson (ph) Building in Washington tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider whether to protect some of America‘s most powerful corporate executives from the legal consequences of having spied on the rest of us in this country. In our third story tonight, an AT&T whistle-blower today told members of Congress much more than that is at stake with the secret crimes that took place at Room 641A of AT&T‘s Fulsome Street facility in San Francisco, and potentially at others throughout country. Specifically, retired 22 year AT&T technician Mark Klein says that despite Mr. Bush‘s claims, the U.S. government used AT&T‘s cooperation to spy not only on overseas communications, but to vacuum up virtually all of America‘s use of the Internet for years, email, Googling, web surfing, you name it, thanks to AT&T‘s secure rooms, like 641A in San Francisco, accessible only to those cleared by the NSA.

Klein obtaining AT&T schematics showing how the company used splitters to send secure room 641A a duplicate of every fiber-optic signal routed through its facilities. It involved not just AT&T customers, but virtually every Internet and telecommunications company, and virtually all email and web traffic in the country, without a warrant, without any mechanism for separating domestic from overseas, without separating suspect from citizen.

We welcome now former AT&T technician Mark Klein, whose documentation and claims are now part of a class action lawsuit against AT&T, one of 38 telecom spy lawsuits. AT&T so far declining to comment on the specifics of the allegations. Mr. Klein, great thanks for speaking out tonight.

MARK KLEIN, GOVERNMENT SPYING WHISTLE BLOWER: Thanks for inviting me.

OLBERMANN: The Senate is considering granting the telecom executives immunity. You lobbied Congress today not to do so. How come?

KLEIN: Well, if they give them immunity, it would probably shut down the lawsuit that I‘m a witness for, and then the American people won‘t find out what‘s really going on. And so that‘s why I‘m here to stop immunity. Congress should let the judicial process go forward.

OLBERMANN: Two parts here; first, can you explain to those of us that could use the Internet, but would not be able to tell the difference between its physical form and a box full of guitar strings, exactly what happened in that secure room or secret room 641A?

KLEIN: I don‘t know what goes on in the secret room, because I didn‘t have security clearance. But I know what went on outside, because my job - - I worked in the Internet room. My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard wired to the secret room. And effectively the splitter copied the entire data stream of those Internet cables into the secret room.

We are talking about phone conversations, email, web browsing, everything that goes across the Internet. And that device, the splitters, is a dumb device. It doesn‘t do any selection at all.

OLBERMANN: And the follow-up to that, as you mentioned, you didn‘t have the security, the NSA clearance. So give us an idea how you know all of this, in addition to your expertise as a technician.

KLEIN: As a technician, I had the engineering wiring documents, which told me how the splitter was wired to the secret room. So I had to know that in order to do my job. So I know that whatever went across those cables was copied. The entire data stream was copied into the secret room. The splitter device has no selective capability, just copies everything.

We are talking about domestic traffic, as well as international traffic. And that‘s what got me upset to begin with.

OLBERMANN: I was just going to say, Mr. Klein, this huge distinction the White House made when all of this was first revealed, what its defenders still say; we were just intercepting international communications; no domestic communications were affected. I take it you don‘t buy that it in the slightest?

KLEIN: No. I know that wasn‘t not true. That‘s what got me going in December of 2005, when the “New York Times” revealed this, and then the administration came back, the president himself, and various cabinet people, trying to argue—and they still do—that it‘s just international communications. It just effects a handful of people who were making phone calls to the Middle East.

I know the physical equipment and I know that statement is not true. It involves millions of communications, a lot of it domestic communications that they‘re copying wholesale, sweeping up into that secret room.

OLBERMANN: When you saw this and realized what was going on, what was this like? Was this like sitting there and finding yourself in a scene from the sci-fi flick “Invasion of The Body Snatchers?” Did it have that sort of horror quality to it?

KLEIN: I‘m a little older, so my thought was George Orwell‘s 1984, and here I am being forced to connect the big brother machine.

OLBERMANN: Oh, boy.

KLEIN: I felt I was in a funny position, but I needed my job so I didn‘t want to make a fuss. After I retired, I thought about it some more.

OLBERMANN: In talking to Congress today, what did you hear? Did you get a sense that anybody is prepared to go after not just the telecom execs but the government officials who ordered this.

KLEIN: I couldn‘t tell. I‘m not a politician. They play their cards close to the vest. All I can do is emphasize, again, that they are copying everything. This is a violation of the Constitution. It‘s domestic traffic. It‘s phone calls as well as email. And something should be done to stop it. And Congress should not kill the—kill the judicial process.

OLBERMANN: The nice thing is that if there is anything that‘s going to stop it, it‘s going to be because people like you have the courage to do something about it.

KLEIN: Thank you.

OLBERMANN: Mark Klein, formerly of AT&T, great thanks for joining us and great thanks for what you are doing.

KLEIN: Thank you.

OLBERMANN: Talk about dubious intelligence. Bill-O can‘t go after me directly, so he attacks all of NBC again, and misses as usual. We will explain. And the report of restaurant customers having to stop a George Clooney/Fabio fight. No hair pulling and don‘t touch the faces, ahead on COUNTDOWN.

And let's not let AT&T take all of the heat. Did you see what Yahoo did? Some poor guy in China is now going to jail for 10 years because Yahoo likes money more than it cares about our freedom.