EFF is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mark Klein, a bona fide hero who risked civil liability and criminal prosecution to help expose a massive spying program that violated the rights of millions of Americans.
Mark didn’t set out to change the world. For 22 years, he was a telecommunications technician for AT&T, most of that in San Francisco. But he always had a strong sense of right and wrong and a commitment to privacy.
Mark not only saw how it works, he had the documents to prove it.
When the New York Times reported in late 2005 that the NSA was engaging in spying inside the U.S., Mark realized that he had witnessed how it was happening. He also realized that the President was not telling Americans the truth about the program. And, though newly retired, he knew that he had to do something. He showed up at EFF’s front door in early 2006 with a simple question: “Do you folks care about privacy?”
We did. And what Mark told us changed everything. Through his work, Mark had learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) had installed a secret, secure room at AT&T’s central office in San Francisco, called Room 641A. Mark was assigned to connect circuits carrying Int
13 Comments
aio2
Damn.
I don't know if this started the whole movement or whatever you'd call it for this push towards privacy and the general public knowing about it, but it helped a lot. Before him releasing info about room 641A and whatever else, there really wasn't definitive evidence of any government spying and tampering, and either with the intention of starting this movement or simply letting people know, he was a big push in the right direction.
tldr: he's a w
DannyBee
RIP – truly someone who tried to make the world better.
madrox
Had the privilege of watching him receive an award from EFF years ago at ETech. Gave a brief speech. Struck me as a gentle man who really did what he thought was right and for no other purpose. It took moral strength to do what he did. I hope he rests easy.
kstrauser
Nooooooo! He was my next door neighbor a few years ago, and I knew him as a person before I realized that I knew him as a hero.
His dogs were fiercely protective of his house, which is perfectly understandable. One day I saw a "sewer cleaning" van behind his house, and I have a hard time believing that's what it really was: https://honeypot.net/2025/03/12/rip-mark-klein.html
toomuchtodo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Klein
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/interview…
https://www.eff.org/document/public-unredacted-klein-declara…
https://medium.com/@illicitpopsicle/mark-klein-the-nsa-whist… | https://archive.today/LlZSs
https://medium.com/@chelsealynnqueen94/mark-klein-whistleblo… | https://archive.today/7RlfJ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44edsh6_LUc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqeMkv5FHfU
(Senator Chris Dodd interviewed Mark, but the video is currently private unfortunately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9aeKF-rOGA)
roenxi
The tolerance for the US mass spying efforts remains weird. It undermines the credibility of many US politicians around Trump – yes the US public appears to be set to vote in Hitler-equivalents for the forseeable future. No, dismantling the insane spying apparatus is not a major agenda point.
Marry those two ideas together.
dang
Related. There were probably other relevant threads over the years—can anyone find some?
Room 641A – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41507188 – Sept 2024 (5 comments)
The secrets of Room 641A (2008) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38305501 – Nov 2023 (4 comments)
Room 641A – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32984515 – Sept 2022 (2 comments)
Room 641A – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23350120 – May 2020 (70 comments)
Room 641A – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12515724 – Sept 2016 (75 comments)
Room 641A – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5847166 – June 2013 (44 comments)
rosegroove
SHould've been us all.
neil_s_anderson
I find it odd how many people automatically assume that whatever the NSA is up to must be undesirable and therefore should be opposed.
I mean, where do you think analysis of plans by terrorists and nation state adversaries to attack our nation and its allies comes from? The raw intelligence data these are based on can only be gathered by surveillance of communications, both targeted and in bulk.
You should all be supporting this, as you benefit from it every day.
AtomBalm
He revealed unlawful surveillance years prior to and of the same gravity as Snowden, but only one became a celebrity. I would love to know the reason for that.
jmpman
I expect there were 10,000 who knew, and he’s the only one who spoke up. Now, the other 9,999 likely believed it was to thwart terrorism, as this was post 9/11. Maybe those who had visibility into who was being surveyed were checking to ensure the spying didn’t cross their ethical boundaries. Interesting to think of what each individual in the system was considering.
jypepin
Is his book "Wiring Up The Big Brother Machine…And Fighting It" worth a read?
xyst
NSA and AT&T (telecom in general?) caught with their pants down not just once, but twice.
All of this heavily publicized yet here we are today with privacy being an afterthought in everyone’s mind.
I hate to say it but the private corporations and state have really made most of the population complacent with wide net surveillance — cameras everywhere, privacy non-existent, “kyc”, “selfies”, social media, big tech creating profiles of users, and data brokerages selling and buying “anonymized” profiles.