Team
Telecom is a group of lawyers from the FBI, DoJ, DHS, and DoD who were
empowered to enter any US network operations center of companies like Global
Crossing on 30 minutes' notice, allowing them to secretly audit and intervene
in the maintenance of the Internet's biggest backbones. The employees who dealt
with the team were required to be US citizens, sworn to secrecy, and unable to
discuss what they did, sometimes even with their own employers.
The security agreement
for Global Crossing, whose fiber-optic network connected 27 nations and four
continents, required the company to have a “Network Operations Center” on U.S.
soil that could be visited by government officials with 30 minutes of warning.
Surveillance requests, meanwhile, had to be handled by U.S. citizens screened
by the government and sworn to secrecy — in many cases prohibiting information
from being shared even with the company’s executives and directors.
“Our telecommunications
companies have no real independence in standing up to the requests of
government or in revealing data,” said Susan Crawford, a Yeshiva University law
professor and former Obama White House official. “This is yet another example
where that’s the case.”
The full extent of the
National Security Agency’s access to fiber-optic cables remains classified. The
Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a statement saying that
legally authorized data collection “has been one of our most important tools
for the protection of the nation’s — and our allies’ — security. Our use of
these authorities has been properly classified to maximize the potential for
effective collection against foreign terrorists and other adversaries...”
...Lipman, a partner
with Bingham McCutchen, based in Washington, said the talks with Team Telecom
typically involve little give and take. “It’s like negotiating with the Motor
Vehicle Department,” he said.
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