The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 28: NY's Windowless Skyscraper actually a NSA Spy Hub called TITANPOINTE

Episode Date: June 26, 2022

TITANPOINTE.  New York City has skyscrapers of all shapes and sizes. But why does this 500 foot tall, 29-story building have no windows, no lights and no markings at all?  Because it's a top-secret NSA spy station built to withstand nuclear war.   Officially, this is an AT&T telecommunications building. But thanks to leaked documents, we now know that 33 Thomas Street is actually a top secret NSA mass surveillance hub.  It's code name is: TitanPointe. And right now, as we speak, TitanPointe is listening.   The gray, granite tower is located at 33 Thomas Street in Lower Manhattan. Locals know the building as the "Long Lines Building" and it's been a source of mystery for years. What jumps out is that the building has no windows and no exterior lighting. During the day, it fades into the background of the New York City skyline. And at night, it becomes an invisible shadow.   Thanks to NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden, we now know that creating an invisible building wasn't an accident. It was absolutely by design.   33 Thomas Street operates under NSA codename TITANPOINTE. And Titanpointe is a core location used for a controversial, and possibly illegal, NSA-sponsored mass surveillance program. According to leaked documents, this program has targeted the communications of the UN, the World Bank, the IMF. It's been used to spy on at least 38 countries, including US allies like France, Germany and Japan.   It's common knowledge that AT&T is very cooperative with the NSA. Using an AT&T cell phone? Eh, you might want to rethink that.    Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. Hey, it's your buddy AJ from the Y-Files. And Hecklefish.

Right, and Hecklefish. We just wanted to tell you that if you want to start a podcast, Spotify makes it easy. It'd have to be easy for humans to understand it. Will you stop that? I'm just saying. Spotify for Podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts from your computer. I don't have a computer.

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I need you to hurry up with this stupid commercial. I got a packed calendar today. I'm sorry about him. Anyway, check out Spotify for Podcasters. It's free, no catch, and a packed calendar today. I'm sorry about him. Anyway, check out Spotify for podcasters. It's free, no catch, and you could start today. Are we done? We're done, but you need to check your attitude. Excuse me, but I don't have all day to sit here and talk about Spotify. This would go a lot faster if you would just let me get through it. New York City has skyscrapers of all shapes and sizes.

But why does this 500 foot tall, 29 story building have no windows, no lights and no markings at all? Well, because it's a top secret NSA spy station built to withstand nuclear war. Well, let's find out why. New York City architecture covers everything. Art Deco, Gothic, Art Nouveau, Renaissance Revival. In the 1950s, a style emerged called brutalism and brutalist architecture is known for focusing on function over form and minimalism. But there's one brutalist building in New York that's so minimalist that it's been called the most mysterious building in New York. It's 33 Thomas Street, and it's a 500 foot tall skyscraper with no exterior lighting and

has no windows. What 33 Thomas Street does have is secrets. Officially, this is an AT&T telecommunications building, but thanks to leaked documents, we now know that 33 Thomas Street is actually a top-secret NSA mass surveillance hub. Its codename is Titan Point. And right now, as we speak, Titan Point is listening. The 1960s was the height of the Cold War. Everyone thought nuclear war was imminent. So the U.S., desperate to protect its infrastructure, launched a secret project called Project X. Project X? You're kidding, right?

No, that's what it was called. They're usually more creative. The goal of Project X was to build a skyscraper in the middle of New York City capable of withstanding a nuclear blast. The building would be 29 floors, have no windows, three basement levels and enough food to last 1500 people two weeks. But its primary purpose was not to protect humans. This would be a fortress designed to protect computers and telecommunications equipment operated by AT&T. For two years, secret documents leaked by former national security contractor Edward Snowden have yielded a steady stream of news reports about US government spying on terrorism suspects, foreign leaders, and American citizens. Now another chapter has been revealed how telecommunications giant AT&T

demonstrated a, quote, extreme willingness to help the NSA. The building was designed by John Carl Warnicke and construction began in 1969 and was completed in 1974. The gray granite tower is located at 33 Thomas Street in Lower Manhattan. Locals know the building as the Long Lines Building, and it's been a source of mystery for years. What jumps out is that the building has no windows and no exterior lighting.

So during the day, it kind of fades into the background of the New York City skyline, and at night, it becomes an invisible shadow. Now, thanks to NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden, we now know that creating an invisible building wasn't an accident. It was absolutely by design. It's not unusual to keep locations containing vital telecommunications equipment a secret.

Hundreds of millions of phone calls and faxes go through 33 Thomas Street every day. But 33 Thomas Street has another level of secrecy. It also appears to be one of the most important national security agency surveillance sites on U.S. soil, a secret monitoring hub that is used to tap into phone calls, faxes and Internet data. 33 Thomas Street operates under NSA codename Titan Point. And Titan Point is a core location used for controversial and possibly illegal NSA-sponsored mass surveillance.

Now, according to leaked documents, this program has targeted the communications of the UN, the World Bank, the IMF. It's been used to spy on at least 38 countries, including US allies like France, Germany and Japan. Now, it's common knowledge that AT&T is very cooperative with the NSA. If you're using an AT&T cell phone, you might want to rethink that. The depth of cooperation between the agency and telecommunications company AT&T.

The documents reveal the company allowed the NSA access to billions of client emails as well as phone call metadata. The emails were accessible to analysts on a keyword search basis. I use a burner. Nice. But because of the Snowden documents, we can now see just how much the NSA and AT&T have been integrated. Any phone call, fax, or piece of data that comes through the network, the NSA can easily capture it. The government knows who you're calling and when. They know how long you talk and what keywords you say.

Now, legally, the NSA can only target the communications of foreign nationals. But all the equipment is there. It's already working. So do you think the NSA really stops listening when it determines that you're a U.S. citizen? Exactly. If you could give me a yes or no answer to the question, does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

No, sir. It does not? Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly. The codename Titan Point is all over the NSA documents, usually found in classified reports about surveillance ops. NSA uses codenames to conceal information that it considers especially sensitive.

And there are secret NSA travel guides that reveal that Titan Point is actually 33 Thomas Street. You have to kind of piece it together. One guide was written to help NSA employees visiting facilities around the country. And this guide discloses that Titan Point is in New York City. Another travel guide, written a little later, states that an NSA corporate partner codenamed Lithium supervises the site. And Lithium, we know now, is NSA's codename for AT&T. Another document reveals that Titan Point is a short walk away from the FBI field office.

In fact, from the front steps of 33 Thomas, you can see the FBI building. It's about two blocks away. So yeah, this is the place. Now, when visiting Titan Point, protocol is to arrange your visit through the FBI field office. You should then hire a cover vehicle through the FBI, especially if you're bringing in equipment. The NSA would like you to remain in cover during your visit, so please do not display any NSA badge or insignia. Simply ring the buzzer, sign in, have a seat and wait. Someone will be right down. But what's actually going on inside? Well, if you're a fan of privacy, freedom and the Constitution,

you're not going to like it. Oh, no. In 1975, just a year after 33 Thomas Street was completed, the NSA found themselves in hot water. A congressional inquiry showed that the NSA was spying on anti-Vietnam War activists. That's not legal, is it? It's not. According to the Fourth Amendment, the government can't gather data on you without a warrant signed by a judge. A judge isn't going to sign a warrant without the suspicion of a crime.

Being against a war isn by a judge. A judge isn't going to sign a warrant without the suspicion of a crime. Being against a war isn't a crime. So rather than bother a judge, they just started collecting data on all kinds of people, like prominent leaders of the civil rights movement, like Dr. King. Muhammad Ali was targeted. Anti-war journalists and columnists working at the Washington Post and New York Times were targeted. Surveilled, spied on. After this scandal, Congress created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which you might have heard referred to as FISA. Now, FISA limits surveillance to foreign nationals and agents of foreign powers. And under FISA, the executive branch must request warrants from a newly formed FISA

court. I bet the NSA hated these new rules. They did. Did they at least follow the rules? Oh, man. Law didn't seem to have stopped the NSA, according to an annual report released recently, despite having FISA warns to spy on only 42 specific terrorism suspects. Last year, the National Security Agency managed to collect 151 million American phone call records.

What is the NSA doing and does it justify the massive violation of your privacy? The leaked NSA documents exposed an NSA surveillance program codenamed Blarney. Blarney was established in the early 1970s, and as far as we know, it's still operating. Blarney specifically leverages commercial partnerships like the one with AT&T that allows the NSA to gain access to global networks. And Blarney is what's called a full take surveillance program, meaning it collects not just metadata like who you're calling and when, but full content like what you're saying and what you're doing online.

Now, as of the time of the leak, the NSA had obtained at least 45 court orders for spying under Project Blarney. The targets were major banks around the world, all kinds of companies and 38 countries. They also targeted the United Nations. Did the UN find out? Of course they did. And they weren't pleased about it. But what's the U.S. going to say? The data coming from Blarney was landing in the president's daily briefing, both Republicans and Democrats. And it's not much of a difference between those two.

There's not. But if there's one thing all presidents can agree on, is that they love spying on their enemies, both foreign and domestic. No more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. So instead, let's track every citizen. Project Blarney, running out of Titan Point in New York, is one of three key NSA locations that actually captures data from software like Skype and Zoom.

And 33 Thomas Street is one of only a few AT&T buildings with an FCC satellite license. So the NSA not only captures data coming through landlines, but also vacuums up data from space. This type of expansive surveillance creates a ton of data that has to go somewhere. So enter Project Skid Row. Skid Row is a program that allows NSA employees to search through huge quantities of user data like actual emails, online chat, message boards, texts, passwords, even people's browser history. This data is all being collected right now. And how much of that data is legally collected?

Well, there's no way to know for sure. There's really not a lot of oversight. But an agency like the NSA needs to be watched. I mean, remember how the NSA hacked Google and Yahoo and were secretly capturing all the data inside those private clouds? Wait, wait, wait, what? Oh, you don't know that one. Well, that's another video.

But always assume that if you're online, you're being watched. Any intelligence service in the world can own that phone the minute it connects to their network. As soon as you turn it on, it can be theirs. They can turn it into be theirs. They can turn it into a microphone. They can take pictures from it. They can take the data off. Now, AT&T is far from the only corporate relationship the NSA has. The agency has established at least 80 corporate partnerships that we're aware of, but some companies are more cooperative than others.

AT&T is notorious for being on very friendly terms with the government. The New York Times and others have reported that AT&T has given billions of emails to the NSA. A range of evidence, including technical terms specific to AT&T, points to the company being the NSA's partner. The documents refer to the company being highly collaborative and commend its extreme willingness to help. And this has been corroborated by a whistleblower who's part of a class action lawsuit against the NSA. But George Bush simply disregarded the FISA law and approved it all on his own signature, which was totally illegal. I might add that while there are a few dissidents in both parties, like Rand Paul in the Republican

side and Ron Wyden on the Democratic side, is that both parties approved this when they passed the immunity bill for the phone companies in 2008 with the help of Barack Obama, I might add. And that killed the lawsuit. The case is Juul v. NSA, which was filed almost 15 years ago, and it's still going on. Now, in 2017, a judge ordered the NSA to provide evidence proving or denying that it spied on AT&T customers. Did they provide it? Nah, they appealed. Still in court. Still? Well, it's taking so long.

Ah, you know, COVID. I'm getting tired of that as an excuse. Titan Point is just one location. According to the Snowden documents, AT&T has installed surveillance equipment in at least 59 U.S. locations. And on any given day, NSA employees are on site gathering data. Now, what's crazy is that until this leak, most AT&T employees probably weren't aware of the NSA's presence. NSA operatives are instructed to blend in with other workers. They would simply show up, go into an office or a server room and go to work, just like everybody else.

All of this should be pretty chilling. America's secret agencies firmly subscribe to it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. And the NSA, CIA, the FBI and others are very willing to bend the rules, interpret, and even break laws to suit their purposes, all in the name of national security. Now, to paraphrase Ben Franklin, when you trade liberty for security, you end up with neither. And there are many other companies like AT&T, Google, Facebook, that cooperate with the government with such a lack of friction that any American citizen should be concerned. Those long agreements that you sign online without reading them, every once in a while, read one. Take note of how many of your rights

you're surrendering for the convenience of being able to post pictures of your cat or leave a mean comment on a video. As we willingly surrender more of our privacy to digital conglomerates, we're also surrendering freedoms like the freedom from illegal searches and spying, like the freedom to criticize the government, the freedom to publicly disagree with popular ideas. We are guilty of being complicit in this erosion of our freedoms. And once freedoms are fully eroded, well, that's called slavery. I can't promise we're not already there. Thanks for hanging out with us today. My name is AJ. That's Hecklefish. This has been the Y-Files. If you had fun or learned anything today, do me a favor and like, subscribe, comment, and share.

The algorithm is probably part of an NSA surveillance program, but with your help, we can defeat it. But can we though? Probably not. But until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated. you