Telecom Whistleblower Discovers Circuit that Allows Access to All Systems on Wireless Carrier—Phone Calls, Text Messages, Emails and More

Babak Pasdar is a computer security expert who was hired in 2003 to help restructure the tech infrastructure at a major wireless telecommunications company. What he found shocked him. The company had set up a system that gave a third party, presumably a governmental entity, access to every communication coming through that company’s infrastructure. This means every email, internet use, document transmission, video, text message, as well as the ability to listen to and record any phone call.
Guests:

Babak Pasdar, CEO of the computer security firm Bat Blue Corporation. He recently revealed that a major telecommunications company may have given the government access to every communication coming through that company’s infrastructure.

Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a public interest law firm dedicated to helping whistleblowers.
Rush Transcript

JUAN GONZALEZ: Another whistleblower has stepped forward with new information that could expose how the federal government is carrying out domestic spy operations.


Babak Pasdar is a computer security expert who was hired in 2003 to help restructure the tech infrastructure at a major wireless telecommunications company. What he found shocked him.


The company had set up a system that gave a third party, presumably a governmental entity, access to every communication coming through that company’s infrastructure. This means every email, internet use, document transmission, video, text message, as well as the ability to listen to and record any phone call.


It is also believed the system would allow the government to be able to trace the physical location of cell phone users. The secret system is known as the Quantico Circuit, named after the city in Virginia home to the FBI Academy.

AMY GOODMAN: Babak Pasdar has not named the company where he worked, but the publication Wired reports his claims are nearly identical to allegations made in a federal lawsuit filed against Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless is one of several major telecoms facing lawsuits over its role in the government’s spying program. Congress is still debating on whether to give Verizon and other telecoms immunity, even though their actions broke the law.


Babak Pasdar joins us here in our firehouse studio. He’s the CEO of the computer security firm Bat Blue Corporation. We’re also joined by Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a public interest law firm dedicated to helping whistleblowers. The Government Accountability Project is representing Babak Pasdar.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, both. Babak Pasdar, tell us what you found, when you found it and where you found it.

BABAK PASDAR: Well, I was at one of the company’s data centers, the carrier’s data centers, and I was there to implement a new security system for them. I was in the process of migrating all the various sites that the organization had, both their affiliate sites as well as their branch offices, and I found this circuit. When I tried to migrate this site to implement security and controls around it, I was vehemently denied. I was told I absolutely could not do that. When I tried to at the least get some logging around it so that there would be some record of the transactions that were going across that circuit, I was denied that as well.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, what was—did this happen in the middle of working hours? Was this at night that you were doing this work? And were there any other company employees that you asked about the circuit?

BABAK PASDAR: There were two other consultants there that were long-term consultants for the organization, and they were my sole point of contact within the organization. And we all reported up to the director of security for the carrier.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, what exactly does this Quantico Circuit mean? What happens and where does it all go, this information?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, that I don’t know. But what the Quantico Circuit was was a high-speed circuit, a pipeline into a third party that provided this third party unfettered access into the heart of the carrier’s network. It had access to the billing system, fraud detection system, all the internet access systems, text messaging—I mean, just everything you can think of. So, in essence, somebody could identify billing records, find out behavioral information about various customers, tap into both data and voice conversations, just have total access.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And what do you discern from the—as you were saying, you tried to get a log of interaction with it, but you could not produce a log? What does that mean in terms of what your sense is of what was being done by that?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, everything that security folks do, security experts do, needs to have some transaction around it. We need to know what happened, when it happened, and be able to go back and recreate a scenario from a forensic standpoint, from an evidentiary standpoint, from just knowing exactly what happened when. Logging is critical to that. So whenever we implement a security system, we collect logs, we feed information to a system that preserves log of exactly what the transaction and where, who talked to whom and, you know, with what types of services. When—it’s just unheard of to have an organization, especially at carrier, implement a security system and not log the information.

JUAN GONZALEZ: So, in other words, what was occurring was that someone was deliberately trying to hide whatever transactions or whatever data was going through that particular line?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, they were behaving very unusual and not up to industry standards.

AMY GOODMAN: What was the reaction of your coworkers, of the people you were asking questions of, of the company?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, they were very squirrelly about it. They didn’t want to answer the questions. I thought that the whole situation was very unusual and suspicious, and that’s what raised my suspicions with regard to what the purpose of this connection was. We—I tried to escalate it to the organization’s management, and the director of security came down to the data center—it was at 7:00 or 8:00, 9:00 at night, it was just after hours definitely—and started wagging his finger in my face, saying that if I—you know, I had to forget about it, I had to move on, and if I couldn’t, he would get somebody that would.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And what made you eventually decide to speak out about this?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, my concern is about the constitutionality and the legality of it. I mean, any type of a connectivity between a third-party organization and an organization like a carrier that’s part of critical American infrastructure has to adhere to very, very specific standards. Any kind of connectivity between governmental agencies and a carrier has to adhere to very specific standards. This did not adhere to industry standards or governmental standards with regard to exchange of evidence. You know, they call it CALEA. So I thought this was suspicious, I thought it was of concern, and I thought it should be investigated further.

AMY GOODMAN: So, how did you speak out, and what kind of risk are you taking in doing that?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, I’m taking some personal and professional risk in doing this, but I think it’s important that folks like myself speak out. It’s very important for us to not let this type of precedence be set, because once that’s set, it really has grave impact on the privacy of Americans, especially in an age where, you know, your credit card and your ATM card has a lot of information about your behavior and your location. There’s cameras all over the place, both by city and governmental agencies, as well as buildings and stores and ATMs. There’s RFID, radio frequency identifiers. They’ve become ubiquitous; they’re all over the place. You know, even things like E-Z Pass. It’s really, really important that Americans have some, some element of privacy and to have their phone records or phone conversations, their data, email, private messages—and these organizations, these carriers have now moved to request log-ins and passwords to people’s business systems and personal systems in order to send them their email. So that reach has extended. And if these guys are just willy-nilly providing this information to any third party or any governmental agency, that’s of grave concern to me.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, the Washington Post, in an article this week where it mentions your discovery, quotes the FBI as saying that “a circuit of the type described by Pasdar does not exist. All telecom circuits at Quantico are one-way, from the carrier,” according to Anthony Di Clemente, section chief of the FBI’s operational technology division. Your response to their claim?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, then they should have no concern about an investigation.

AMY GOODMAN: The Washington Post also says, “Since a 1994 law required telecoms to build electronic interception capabilities into their systems, the FBI has created a network of links between the nation’s largest telephone and Internet firms and about 40 FBI offices and Quantico, according to interviews and documents describing the agency’s Digital Collection System.” It seems to go along with what you’re saying. Why won’t you tell us the company that you were—that you found this at?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, I have a nondisclosure. What my focus is is to prompt an investigation. You know, on one side, they say the circuit doesn’t exist; on the other side, they say the circuit does exist and it adheres to legal standards. I’m aware of what the legal standards are, and the legal standards call for very, very specific logging and evidentiary chain of custody and privacy for all others, except the entity or person under investigation with a subpoena and with a warrant. None of that existed for this circuit. I was the person responsible for implementing it. So if I was not implementing it, then it didn’t exist.

AMY GOODMAN: You have filed an affidavit with Congress?

BABAK PASDAR: I have.

AMY GOODMAN: What is that process?

BABAK PASDAR: Well, I essentially documented everything that I know, tried to—no fluff, just the facts. And my focus is to have an investigation and find out exactly what the purpose and function of this circuit is, who paid for it, who operates it, and what kind of information is collected.

JUAN GONZALEZ: We’re also joined by Tom Devine, the legal director of the Government Accountability Project. Your response to his coming forward and how whistleblowers generally are faring under the Bush administration?

TOM DEVINE: Well, people like Mr. Pasdar are profiles in courage, and they’re the exception, rather than the rule, in telling what they’ve been eyewitnesses to. And when they do, it can really make a difference. We’re trying to change the fact that whistleblowing currently is professional suicide. That’s kind of the facts of life. Babak acted when he had no legal rights, and it was a little bit easier because his contract had expired. But people are going to lose their jobs. They oftentimes don’t dare to commit the truth.

There’s some legislation that’s approaching showdowns in Congress this spring to overhaul the discredited Whistleblower Protection Act, which is a rubber stamp for retaliation—over about a 98 percent rate ruling against whistleblowers. And your listeners should plug in and demand that Congress give some real rights to the people who defend freedom where it really counts, at home.

AMY GOODMAN: You are calling—the Government Accountability Project—for jury trials for whistleblowers. What do you mean?

TOM DEVINE: Well, right now their paper rights get enforced by administrative law hearings that have no political independence at all and are virtually rubber stamps for retaliation. They’re kangaroo courts. Since President Bush’s chairman came in at the Civil Service Agency, the record has been 1-in-44 against whistleblowers when they try to enforce their free speech rights. So the reality is, the laws supposedly protecting them are like the last nail in their professional coffin. That will change if we get past the politics and let juries of citizens, whom whistleblowers purport to defend when they stick their necks out, be the bottom line for deciding justice.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And don’t those whistleblowers—let’s say the agency, the government agency, the Merit Systems Protection Board, rules against them, they don’t have a recourse right now to go to court?

TOM DEVINE: Well, they can go to an appeals court, and that’s actually even worse. President Reagan appointed all of the initial judges to that, and they started a very dark tradition. They’re kind of like to free speech like FISA is to the right to privacy. Since October ’94, when Congress made the whistleblower law the strongest in history on paper for freedom of speech, the track record is 2-in-193 against whistleblowers when they appeal the administrative decision. So it’s a lose-lose scenario right now for anybody who wants to defend the public.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Babak Pasdar, why take this risk?

BABAK PASDAR: It’s the right thing to do. I believe it’s my obligation as an American to step forward and protect the Constitution. I think it’s critical that we not let this precedence be set, because as technology evolves—and, you know, as somebody very, very engaged in the security industry, I see how technology has evolved, how these technologies exist to be able to collect volumes of information and process it.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you taken a stand on whether these telecom companies should get immunity for spying on Americans?

BABAK PASDAR: I believe we should know what happened first. It really doesn’t make any sense to me to give someone immunity when you don’t know what they did.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there. Babak Pasdar, thanks so much for being with us, CEO of a computer security firm, Bat Blue Corporation. Tom Devine, legal director of Government Accountability Project in D.C.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/10/tele...uit_that_allows

There is no checks and balances for this. How will we know this is not being used to eliminate future Spitzers. How will we know if Spitzers hit was related to his commentaries on Bush and the Banks? Secrecy is growing deeper by the day. THIS IS WHAT CAUSES"CONSPIRACY THEORY": A lack of any checks and accountability on Corporate Power whatsoever.

How strange that many Foundation"Left" publications never point out this connection when they begin another article of pure name-calling against the Cow-catching,lushly ambiguous phrase "Conspiracy Theory".

It is a sick distortion to call what we have now democracy. When a corner of the state can get away with unchecked secrecy just by saying the words National Security-- well this is the corner where all real politics will occur. All others are for psychological operations against the population. That is what we need to be pointing out during our fake corporate elections.

A democracy simply cannot exist with this level of unchecked secrecy. You can pull all the levers in November you want.

Conspiracy FACT is everywhere now [always has been - but if you can't see it now, it is only because one is putting great psychic energy in creating a self-delusional 'force field' not to!]!

There are many parts to this article. First the fact that [surprise, surprise - the USG even admitted it was so!] major telecom companies were supplying the intelligence agencies with data on and of the customers without warrent or any other Constitutionally legal orders]. Next, that people who try to bring this up adminstrativly get warned - or punished [note the: 'Since October ’94, when Congress made the whistleblower law the strongest in history on paper for freedom of speech, the track record is 2-in-193 against whistleblowers when they appeal the administrative decision.']. This is just one of many such I've posted on this Forum. No one seems to care. You think they are spying and recording only someone ELSE's emails, internet browsing, calls and messaging, financial and other personal information? Ha! Yes, the levers no longer connect to anything on the other side of the panel, be they vote levers, congressional levers, 'levers' to the editor of the Corporate media. A full-blown Corporate Fascist State is either here already or just around the corner [depending only on minor differences in definition - I'd say here now.] This is the kind of thing the White Rose tried to warn their fellow citizens about.....and they were all captured and tortured and killed. That's coming. Wake up People. Stop grazing Sheeple! We are following [as a society] in the exact way the Germans did during the rise of the Reich...thinking they'll stop 'with this' and it can't get any worse...but they didn't stop and it did - as Fascism and Corporatism of this Cannabalistic type with no controls [they control the contollers and the government] never does until it is stopped with determined effort. Your TV controller won't turn this show off, nor change the channel!........this is no 'show' - this is real and coming to you live...and you are going to have to live with it getting a whole lot worse very quickly - or DO SOMETHING TO stop it! [and not just a phony vote every four years!]

I personally can only think that illegal detentions, lawyerless and chargeless detentions, as well as torture rank higher in their venality than the Government spying on everyone - yes EVERYONE! Don't be fooled, the vote [see below] does nothing to curb the spying, only is a minor step against Chaney/Bush granting immunity to telecom corporations for breaking the law on this. It is still going on and accelerating in its abuse and the combining of information into 'electronic SS files' with just about all information on everyone's every communication and purchase, history and personal details in 'Total Information Awareness' databases.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Telecom Whistleblower and GAP Praise House Vote Denying Immunity
March 14, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Tom Devine, Legal Director
Phone: 202.408.0034 ext 124, cell 240.888.4080
Email: whistle47@aol.com

Telecom Whistleblower and GAP Praise House Vote Denying Telecom Immunity

Whistleblower Babak Pasdar Available for Briefings and Interviews during Congressional Recess

(Washington, D.C.) – Telecommunications whistleblower Babak Pasdar praised today’s House of Representatives 214-195 vote denying corporate immunity in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorization. Pasdar, a computer expert, is a client of the Government Accountability Project (GAP). In 2003, he discovered a mysterious “Quantico Circuit” from a major telecommunications firm that provided unfettered access to all customer communications connected directly or indirectly to mobile phones.

Last week, Pasdar released a public affidavit to all 435 House members after years of frustration with anonymous disclosures to government offices. His disclosure is credited with helping reverse the outcome of a House showdown on corporate accountability when telecoms violate customers’ legal privacy rights at government request.

Pasdar commented on today’s vote, “I am glad the House looked beyond the propaganda and stayed true to the constitution. I know there is a better approach than asking Americans to trade in their liberties for perceived security.” His attorney, GAP Legal Director Tom Devine, added, “Today the House voted to defend freedom and the rule of law where it counts the most – at home.”

GAP credited civil liberties coalition leaders from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACLU and Center for National Security Studies with networking and distribution that meant Pasdar’s voice was heard and taken seriously, rather than drowned out by demagogic fear tactics. Devine also credited public solidarity by 35 good government and watchdog groups not previously connected with the legislation, but chose to rally behind Pasdar. Most significant was support from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mi), Telecommunications Subcommittee Chair Edward Markey (D-Ma) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chair Bart Stupak (D-Mi), who championed Pasdar’s dissent and cautioned against immunity before the facts are in a letter to all House Members.

The House vote creates a deadlock with the Senate, which already has passed a bill with blanket retroactive immunity for any government-directed surveillance by the telephone companies. Pasdar’s disclosure put an exclamation point next to a fundamental, unanswered question frustrating the House leadership: “Immunity for what?”

GAP illustrated questions that must be answered for Congress to make an informed decision: “Who was at the other end of the Quantico Circuit, and what information have they been obtaining? Does such access comport with long-standing federal law? Is the circuit legal? Is its apparent lack of security legal or wise? How long has it been in operation? Who paid for construction and operation of the Quantico Circuit? Was the telecom paid by its recipients for using the circuit? What were the terms?”

Pasdar is making himself available to brief any citizen organizations or journalists who would find it helpful during a two week recess, before Congress returns to attempt resolution of the impasse. He can be reached through the GAP contact listed above.