In 2006, a retired AT&T tech walked in with the blueprints showing that Room 641A had been splitting every fiber in San Francisco and handing a live copy to the NSA since 2003.
A judge refused to bury the case under state secrets, so Congress stepped in, gave the phone companies retroactive immunity, and the lawsuits died.
Klein spent the next 20 years watching that program beat every challenge, then died of cancer in 2025.
A year later the FISA court recertified the authority through 2027.
The closet may be gone but the collection never stopped.
Here’s another example why the government will NOT abuse Flock cameras.
Starting in 1945, Western Union, RCA and ITT handed over every international telegram Americans sent with no warrant and no law for 30 years because the attorney general just promised them immunity.
Army intel asked for the traffic as a wartime favor but as is common with “temporary” programs and measures, it didn’t stop.
When Church exposed it, NSA was reading 150,000 messages a month.
Congress wrote FISA to require warrants, then added 702 so they could collect Americans’ communications without one, but the House let 702 lapse in June 2026.
First time since 2008, but it doesn’t mean they will bring it back like they back then.
So rest assured, it will totally NOT happen.