How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]
How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]
马克·克莱因（Mark Klein）是如何向电子前哨基金会（EFF）揭露 641A 机房的 [书摘]
The Whistleblower Who Uncovered the NSA’s ‘Big Brother Machine’ 揭露美国国家安全局“老大哥机器”的吹哨人
An unexpected visitor gave my team the evidence we needed to prove that the government was secretly wiretapping Americans. 一位不速之客为我的团队提供了我们所需的证据，证明政府一直在秘密监听美国公民。
On January 20, 2006, the front doorbell rang at the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s offices on Shotwell Street in the Mission District of San Francisco. At the time, Shotwell Street wasn’t the glamorous part of the Mission. Our offices sat between two auto repair shops, across the street from a utility substation. The sidewalk was often dotted with homeless people’s tents. At one point, San Francisco did a survey, and our block of Shotwell Street had the highest reported amount of human feces in the whole city. 2006年1月20日，位于旧金山教会区（Mission District）肖特韦尔街（Shotwell Street）的电子前哨基金会（EFF）办公室门铃响了。当时，肖特韦尔街并不是教会区繁华的地段。我们的办公室夹在两家汽车修理厂之间，街对面是一个公用事业变电站。人行道上经常散布着无家可归者的帐篷。有一次，旧金山市进行了一项调查，结果显示我们所在的肖特韦尔街街区是全市报告人类粪便数量最多的地方。
We had many people down on their luck ring that doorbell. Some were just lost. Others sought us out because they believed, quite sincerely, that the government or aliens had put a chip or magnet in their brains. We tried to be sympathetic and point them to other resources, but generally we had to turn them away. 经常有许多生活不如意的人按响我们的门铃。有些人只是迷路了；另一些人找上门来，是因为他们真诚地相信政府或外星人在他们的大脑里植入了芯片或磁铁。我们尽量表示同情并为他们指引其他资源，但通常我们不得不将他们拒之门外。
Because of this, it was with friendliness but some caution that our executive director, Shari Steele, answered the bell. 正因如此，我们的执行董事莎莉·斯蒂尔（Shari Steele）在开门时，虽然保持着友好，但也带着几分警惕。
“Do you folks care about privacy?” the guy asked. He was in a tan trench coat, looked to be in his early 60s, with gray hair, intense eyes, and a raspy voice. “你们这些人关心隐私吗？”那个人问道。他穿着一件棕褐色的风衣，看起来60岁出头，灰白的头发，眼神锐利，嗓音沙哑。
“Why yes, we do,” Shari answered. “当然，我们关心。”莎莉回答道。
“Then I have some information for you. I am a retired AT&T technician. I know how the NSA is tapping into the internet at an AT&T facility downtown.” “那我有信息要提供给你们。我是一名退休的AT&T技术员。我知道美国国家安全局（NSA）是如何在市中心的一处AT&T设施中接入互联网进行监听的。”
“Well, come on in.” “好吧，请进。”
Shari found EFF attorney Kevin Bankston in his tiny office. They talked for a long time. After the man left, Kevin and Lee Tien, another EFF attorney, burst into my office. 莎莉在狭小的办公室里找到了EFF律师凯文·班克斯顿（Kevin Bankston）。他们谈了很久。那个人离开后，凯文和另一位EFF律师李·田（Lee Tien）冲进了我的办公室。
“This guy named Mark Klein, who just came to the door, has something,” Kevin said, with more excitement than I had seen from him in a long time. I was immediately intrigued, but what they told me blew past my highest expectations. Mark had presented us with unequivocal evidence that the National Security Agency was engaged in mass, untargeted spying in the U.S. by tapping into the internet backbone. And it was doing this from an AT&T building just a short distance from our offices. “刚才来敲门的那个叫马克·克莱因（Mark Klein）的人，他手里有东西，”凯文说道，他表现出的兴奋是我很久没见过的。我立刻产生了浓厚的兴趣，但他们告诉我的内容远远超出了我的最高预期。马克向我们提供了确凿的证据，证明美国国家安全局正在通过接入互联网骨干网，在美国境内进行大规模、无差别的间谍活动。而且，他们正是从距离我们办公室不远的一栋AT&T大楼里进行这些操作的。
The backstory to Mark knocking on EFF’s door starts in 2001 with the government’s response to the horrific 9/11 attacks. The first of these was the Patriot Act. 马克敲开EFF大门背后的故事，始于2001年政府对恐怖的“9·11”袭击事件的反应。其中的第一项举措就是《爱国者法案》（Patriot Act）。
In the seven weeks between its introduction and passage in 2001, Lee and I stayed up countless nights trying to parse the three-inch-thick printout of the proposed legislation to identify the sections that affected the internet. We needed to understand what laws the government wanted to change, spot overreach and unconstitutionality, and marshal appropriate support or resistance where necessary. 在2001年该法案从提出到通过的七周时间里，李和我熬过了无数个夜晚，试图解析那份三英寸厚的立法草案打印件，以找出其中影响互联网的条款。我们需要了解政府想要修改哪些法律，识别其中的越权和违宪之处，并在必要时组织适当的支持或抵制。
The draft legislation had been rolled out so quickly that we had the impression it was just sitting in an envelope on someone’s desk, with a note that read, “Open at the next crisis.” Our theory was confirmed when we saw that a good chunk of the proposed law was nearly the same package of legal changes that the FBI had tried — and failed — to push after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. 这项立法草案出台得如此之快，以至于我们感觉它就像一直放在某人办公桌上的信封里，上面写着“下次危机时打开”。当看到拟议法律中的很大一部分几乎与联邦调查局（FBI）在1995年俄克拉荷马城爆炸案后试图推动却失败的法律修改方案如出一辙时，我们的推测得到了证实。
One big change impacting surveillance was clear: Prior to September 11, the U.S. had what could reasonably be called a “wall” separating foreign surveillance for national security purposes done by the NSA from domestic surveillance for law enforcement purposes done by the FBI. The theory was that those powers would never be turned on in the U.S. and used against its own people. The Patriot Act, however, helped erode that wall. 一项影响监控的重大变化显而易见：在9月11日之前，美国存在一道可以合理地称为“墙”的屏障，将NSA出于国家安全目的进行的外国监控与FBI出于执法目的进行的国内监控隔离开来。其理论基础是，这些权力绝不会在美国国内被开启并用于针对本国人民。然而，《爱国者法案》却帮助拆除了这道墙。
Soon, folks at EFF started to hear whispers of mass domestic surveillance programs. We were told confidentially that the NSA was gathering all the telephone records from America’s leading telecommunications companies. We separately heard that the NSA was now sitting on the wire in the U.S. We even heard that the agency was collecting metadata on our online activities from both telecommunications companies and some internet companies. Friends in the industry would say things like, “You wouldn’t believe what the NSA is doing in the United States now,” and “I can’t tell you anything without getting in trouble, but it’s massive.” 不久，EFF的工作人员开始听到关于大规模国内监控计划的传闻。我们被私下告知，NSA正在收集美国各大电信公司的所有电话记录。我们还分别听说，NSA现在已经在美国的通信线路上安插了监听设备。我们甚至听说该机构正在从电信公司和一些互联网公司收集我们在线活动的元数据。业内朋友会说诸如“你无法相信NSA现在在美国做的事情”以及“我不能告诉你细节，否则会有麻烦，但这规模太大了”之类的话。
All sounded wildly illegal under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Patriot Act. Several people reached out to us, and each time we sat down with them to see if we had enough provable facts to bring a case. But no one who reached out to talk to us was willing to go on the record, much less provide documentary evidence we could use in court. 根据《外国情报监视法》（FISA）和《爱国者法案》，这一切听起来都极其违法。几个人联系了我们，每次我们都坐下来与他们交谈，看看是否有足够的证据来提起诉讼。但没有一个联系我们的人愿意公开身份，更不用说提供我们可以在法庭上使用的书面证据了。
The information Mark gave us made the whispers we had heard over the years from our friends at telecommunication companies make more sense. By his account, mass spying involved the internet’s deepest layer, known as the “backbone.” A set of large providers — big companies, academic institutions, and governments — operate a series of powerful computers that provide the backbone’s main data routes. 马克提供给我们的信息，使我们多年来从电信公司朋友那里听到的传闻变得更加清晰。据他所述，大规模间谍活动涉及互联网的最深层，即所谓的“骨干网”。一批大型提供商——包括大公司、学术机构和政府——运营着一系列强大的计算机，为骨干网提供主要的数据路由。
AT&T operated part of the internet backbone from the Folsom Street facility. One component of Mark’s job was to maintain the section of the AT&T system that routed traffic from AT&T’s internal networks to the internet backbone via a set of connections called “peering links.” What Mark was telling us, and what his documents were showing, was that the NSA was now tapping in at these junctures. AT&T在福尔瑟姆街（Folsom Street）的设施中运营着互联网骨干网的一部分。马克的工作内容之一是维护AT&T系统的一部分，该系统通过一组称为“对等链路”（peering links）的连接，将流量从AT&T内部网络路由到互联网骨干网。马克告诉我们，且他的文件所显示的是，NSA现在正是在这些节点上进行监听。
Mark had been a technician at AT&T for many years. In mid-2003, he was transferred to the Folsom Street building and charged with maintaining the room where AT&T’s own fiber-optic network connected to the rest of the internet. 马克在AT&T担任技术员多年。2003年中期，他被调往福尔瑟姆街大楼，负责维护AT&T自有光纤网络连接到互联网其余部分的机房。