November 7, 2007 (LPAC)--The AT&T technician who stumbled across a secret room in the company's San Francisco facility which was sending copies of all telephone and Internet communications to the NSA, is on Capitol Hill this week, urging Congress not to give immunity to the telecommunications companies for their illegal cooperation with the Administration's domestic surveillance program.

AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, whose affidavits form the basis for a major lawsuit against AT&T and the NSA which is now pending in federal court in San Francisco, says that the wiretapping program was much larger than anyone has acknowledged so far. "They're just copying the whole Internet," he told the Washington Post, without any distinction between international and domestic communications, or any effort to obtain only data from suspected terrorists. And he says that companies such as AT&T that participated in this, do not deserve legal protection.

"I think they committed a massive violation not only of the law, but of the Constitution," Klein told the New York Times.

Calling it "the most comprehensive illegal domestic spying program in history," Klein said that his job required him to arrange the physical connections between Internet communications flowing through AT&T "and the NSA's illegal, wholesale domestic copying machine for domestic emails, Internet phone conversations, web surfing, and all other Internet traffic."

Klein obtained wiring diagrams showing devices that split signals into two identical copies, with one copy going to the NSA. "This splitter was sweeping up everything, vacuum-cleaner style. The NSA is getting everything. These are major pipes that carry not just AT&T's customers, but everybody's."

Other sources have documented that the entire NSA surveillance program, which began prior to 9/11, was run under the direct control of Vice President Dick Cheney.