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Speaker 1: Okay, so imagine this for a second. You're strolling through

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Lower Manhattan, right, busy streets, glass, steel, brownstones, you know,

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classic New York. But then you see it something well,

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something totally different. It doesn't just stand out, It almost

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feels like it's pulling back from everything around. It's huge tower,

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like a monolith, and the kicker, no windows at all,

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just sheer concrete and granite going straight up. And at

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night it's just this massive black shape absorbs all the light. Honestly,

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it feels a bit spooky. Maybe you've walked past it,

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gland stop, I know, I have. You just get this

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feeling like what is that thing? It feels like it's

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keeping secrets.

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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, You're definitely not alone in feeling that way.

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It's often been called a twentieth century fortress. And get this,

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it was originally designed to would stand a nuclear blast.

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Think about that for a moment. A skyscraper built for

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machines really not people function over form to the extreme.

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And yeah, for decades, what really went on inside was

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kept under wraps, you know, like the building itself very

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sealed off until well until whistleblowers started to kind of

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peel back the layers. Yeah, and the story it's fascinating, complex,

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and yeah, honestly.

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Speaker 1: A bit chilling, And that's exactly what we're going to

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do today. We are diving deep, really deep into the

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story of this building, thirty three Thomas Street. We're going

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to explore its architecture, which is frankly kind of amazing

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in its own weird way, and its absolutely critical role

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in connecting the country back when telecommunications were just exploding.

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But then, yeah, we have to get into the really

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shocking claims, the allegations at this place right here in

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Manhattan secretly became one of the NSA's biggest spy hubs,

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supposedly monitoring communications from well pretty much everywhere.

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Speaker 2: Right, And it's so much more than just a building,

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isn't It's really a story about how communication itself evolved,

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about the incredible, often invisible infrastructure that makes it all possible.

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And you know, it forces us to ask some pretty

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deep questions about privacy and power and control in this

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digital world we all live in now. So, yeah, we're

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going to unpack a lot today, surprising facts, incredible technology,

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and some really serious implications. Get ready, because once you

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know the story of thirty three Thomas Street. You might

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start looking at a lot of other buildings differently.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's really picture this. You're in Trindeca, cobblestone streets,

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cool offs, art galleries, you know the vibe, and then bam,

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there it is thirty three Thomas Street, just this colossal

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gray block. What is it like, one hundred and seventy

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meters tall?

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Speaker 2: About that? Yeah, twenty nine floors above ground and three

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floors deep.

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Speaker 1: Underground right, three floors below. But the first thing, the

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thing that just hits you. No windows, I mean literally

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zero windows. It's just so weird, almost intimidating, and like

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I said, at night, definitely spooky. It just looms there.

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Speaker 2: It really does loom and that visual impact, that darkness,

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it's entirely deliberate. It's a classic example of brutalism.

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Speaker 1: Brutalism. Okay, tell us about that.

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Speaker 2: Well. The architect was John Carl Warnick. He was known

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for bold designs. Brutalism came about after World War Two.

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Orn out of this NEBU for practical affordable buildings, fast construction.

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It emphasizes raw materials baton brute French for raw concrete

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is where the name comes from. Stark shapes function over

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everything else. It was almost a statement against fussy ornamentation.

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Speaker 1: So function first got it exactly.

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Speaker 2: And Warnick, even though he sometimes talked about fitting buildings

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into their surroundings contextualism, this one it does the opposite.

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It doesn't blend in. It dominates. It demands you look

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at it. It practically screams I'm here to do a job.

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It challenges what you even think a skyscraper should be.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So it's not just strange looking. It's also built

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like a well, a fortress. Right you mentioned with standing

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a nuclear blast. I mean seriously, a building in down

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on Manhattan needing that kind of protection back then? What

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was going on?

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Speaker 2: Oh that's the million dollar question, isn't it? And the

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answer lies in its original function, which we'll get to.

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But the resilience astounding the facade isn't just concrete. It's

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sealed with flame treated Swedish granite, super durable stuff chosen

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specifically for resistance to extreme heat, pressure, even radiation.

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Speaker 1: And treated granite.

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Speaker 2: Okay, And if the power grid goes down disaster scenario,

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it's designed to operate completely independently off grid for two

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full weeks. Ooh, backup, generators, massive ones. Yeah, and they

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have almost a million liters of fuel stored underground to

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power them.

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Speaker 1: A million leaders. That's insane.

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Speaker 2: Seriously, seriously think about that capacity, enough fuel to keep

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everything running for potentially weeks. It's like a self contained world. Wow,

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and goes beyond just power. They thought about people too,

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even if it was built for machines. There are food

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and water reserves enough for fifteen hundred people.

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Speaker 1: Fifteen hundred people inside a windowless building.

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Speaker 2: Right, plus its own waste water systems, sanitation, even decontamination showers,

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all designed to keep occupants safe and functional, shielded from.

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Speaker 1: Fallout, decontamination showers.

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Speaker 2: The whole design screams impenetrable, self sufficient hub, pure cold

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war thinking, you know, building infrastructure that could survive the

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absolute worst case scenario. It's a physical manifestation of that

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era's anxieties, building for survival, even in the heart of

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the city.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: When you hear those details, food for fifteen hundred, decontamination showers,

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and million liters of fuel, you realize, Okay, this is

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not your average building, not even close. It's like it

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has its own personality, silent, powerful, maybe a bit paranoid.

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It really makes you think about what they were trying

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to protect. So the big question, if it's built like

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a nuclear bunker, what was it actually for? What needed

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that level of protection. Back in the late sixties, we have.

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Speaker 2: To remember what was happening then. The world was connecting

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like crazy. Phones were becoming essential, not luxuries, and demand

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for long distance calls was just skyrocketing. But the existing systems,

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the analog ones, they were creaking under.

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Speaker 1: The strain, right, like old switchboards and tangled wires.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much you needed physical connections for everything. It

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was becoming a bottleneck. There was this huge urgent need

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for something faster, more efficient, something digital. Enter at and

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T exactly AT and T was the giant back then,

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pretty much the phone company. They had this division called

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the Long Lines Department. Their job was basically to hook

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up all the local phone companies into one big national

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network coast to coast. As this network grew, they desperately

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needed new switching centers, new data hubs to handle the

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millions and millions of calls pouring through every day. And

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that's where thirty three Thomas Street comes in. It was

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conceived under the code name Project X.

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Speaker 1: Project X sounds suitably mysterious.

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Speaker 2: Doesn't it. It was meant to be this monument to

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the new era, a totally modern facility designed crucially for

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the machines doing the switching, not for people. Hence no windows.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense now if it's for machines, who

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needs a view? But machines generate tons of heat, right.

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Speaker 2: A massive amount, which is why instead of windows you

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have those huge ventilation lovers you can see on the

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outside on floors ten and twenty nine. Powerful cooling was essential.

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Speaker 1: So what kind of machines? What was the tech inside

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that needed a nuclear proof Well, the few.

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Speaker 2: Photos that exist show you'd expect kind of racks and

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racks of electronics, rooms overflowing with telephone gear, rows of

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backup batteries. But the real heart of the operation, the

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revolutionary part, was three enormous switches. They were called four

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ESS switches for ESS when they were installed in the

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early seventies. These things were unprecedented, the biggest digital switches

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ever built, and critically, they were the very first system

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designed to route phone calls ye completely digitally.

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Speaker 1: The first digital routing. That sounds like a big deal.

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Speaker 2: It was monumental, a total game changer for telecommunications. It

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was the beginning of the digital communication age we take

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for granted.

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Speaker 1: Now, Okay, so break it down for us. How did

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it work. Let's say I'm in New York in like

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nineteen seventy five calling my aunt in California. What happens, right, So.

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Speaker 2: You pick up your phone, dial the number your local

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exchange sends the call information out. Your voice gets digitized,

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turned into computer code essentially, and routed to a hub

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like thirty three Thomas Street. Inside your digitized call hits

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one of those massive four ESS switches. And these weren't

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just dumb switches. They were intelligent. They'd instantly analyze the

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network traffic across the country and figure out the absolute best,

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fastest path to send your call data to California. No

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more crackly analog lines tied up.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so it finds the best route digitally than.

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Speaker 2: What Then your call data, that stream of ones and

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zeros would likely jump across the country via microwave relay towers.

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Speaker 1: Ah. Those towers are used to see everywhere.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, spaced about thirty miles apart, forming this invisible highway

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in the sky. Your call would hop from tower to

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tower hundreds or thousands of miles until it reached another

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hub in California, probably with another four ess switch. That

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switch would convert the signal back, so your ant's phone would.

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Speaker 1: Ring and it would sound much clearer.

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Speaker 2: Presumably significantly clearer and faster to connect. Now, eventually fiber

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optic cables take over from many of the microwave towers,

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offering way more capacity, but those central switching hubs still

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absolutely essential, and the vultvolume just kept growing. By the nineties,

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thirty three Thomas Street was handling something like one hundred

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and seventy five million calls a day.

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Speaker 1: One hundred and seventy five million a day. Wow, it

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really was. The nerve center absolutely.

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Speaker 2: A critical piece of national infrastructure.

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Speaker 1: Which means it had to be secure, reliable, no room

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for error, right with millions depending on it, and I

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guess its importance was really driven home on September seventeenth,

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nineteen ninety one.

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Speaker 2: That sounds ominous, Yeah, that day was a real wake

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up call. It really showed what happens when that nerve

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center fails. What happened in the middle of the night

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there was a major power failure inside thirty three Thomas Street.

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And despite all that planning. All the redundancy, a mix

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of technical issues and frankly human era, meant the backup

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generators didn't start up properly.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, So the whole place went dark pretty much.

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Speaker 2: And the immediate result, half the phone traffic in and

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out of New York City just stopped dead.

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Speaker 1: Half the city's calls. Yeiit yeis.

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Speaker 2: And it wasn't just people chatting. Air traffic control systems

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at JFK, Laguardi and Newark Airports went down simultaneously.

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Speaker 1: Wait, the airport control towers lost communication.

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Speaker 2: They did. It caused absolute chaos. Flights were delayed for hours,

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up to four hours in some cases, right across the Northeast.

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Emergency services were impacted. Businesses couldn't function. Over five million

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calls were blocked that day. Communication to almost four hundred

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airports nationwide was disrupted. It was a massive failure.

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Speaker 1: Wow, so even the Fortress wasn't fear approof exactly.

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Speaker 2: It proved just how vital that single building was and

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maybe how fragile our reliance on that technology had become.

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It underscored its critical role in a really dramatic, painful way.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so fast forward about a decade nine to eleven happens,

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and everything changes, right, the whole focus shifts to counter

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terrorism national security.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, it was a watershed moment. In response, the US

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government really doubled down on preventing future attacks, and almost

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immediately within days, Congress passed the Patriot Act. This gave

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intelligence agencies, especially the NSA, really broad new powers powers

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to expand surveillance, collect more data, all in the name

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of security.

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Speaker 1: And this is where the story of thirty three Thomas

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Street takes that darker turn, right, from connecting calls to

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potentially listening in.

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Speaker 2: That's the allegation. Yes, and if you think about it,

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the NSA's main job is foreign intelligence. But to do

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that effectively, especially after nine to eleven, they needed cooperation.

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They needed access to the infrastructure where communications flowed, and

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that line between foreign targets and domestic communication it started

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getting really really blurry. The Patriot Act kind of enabled

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that blurriness.

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Speaker 1: So how did this connection, this alleged shift, first start

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coming to light.

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Speaker 2: Well, one of the first key moments involves a guy

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named Mark Klein. Back in two thousand and three, he

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was an AT and T technician working in their San

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Francisco office and insider right, and he noticed something weird.

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A door, just a plane door, no handles, only a

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label six forty one.

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Speaker 1: A, room six forty one AA.

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Speaker 2: It was located right below a big server room handling

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tons of Internet for millions of people. Klein got curious,

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maybe a little suspicious now with two so he did

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some digging, looked at building plans, saw unusual equipment being installed,

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and he slowly figured it out.

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Speaker 1: What did he figure out?

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Speaker 2: He found out that room six forty one A contained

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something called a splitter, basically devites that makes an exact

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copy of all the Internet data flowing past it.

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Speaker 1: So emails, websites, calls over the Internet.

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Speaker 2: Everything, everything all duplicated silently and piped into this secret room.

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He realized this was massive, but you know, he was scared.

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He kept quiet for a couple.

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Speaker 1: Of years, understandable.

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Speaker 2: But then in two thousand and five, the story broke

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about President Bush authorizing warrantless wiretapping by the NSA. That's

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when Klein decided he had to speak up. He went public,

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followed a lawsuit against AT and T. Now, ultimately Congress

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stepped in, changed the law retroactively and gave AT and

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T immunity.

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Speaker 1: So the lawsuit didn't go far legally, no.

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Speaker 2: But Klein's actions were huge. He exposed Room six forty

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one A and crucially at and t's co operation with

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government surveillance. It really set the stage.

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Speaker 1: Wow, so one technician's curiosity cracks open this secret. But

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that was just the beginning, wasn't it. Klein was like

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the first tremor before the earthquake.

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Speaker 2: A really good way to put it. The earth cope,

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of course, was Edward Snowden in twenty thirty.

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Speaker 1: Noden right, the NSA analysts who leaked thousands and thousands

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of classified documents.

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Speaker 2: An unprecedented leak. He flew to Hong Kong, met with

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journalists and started revealing the sheer scale of NSA surveillance.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't just about US citizens anymore, was it.

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Speaker 2: Not even close. That was the truly shocking part revealed

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by the Snowden files. The NSA was spying on well

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pretty much everyone, Allied governments, politicians, world leaders. Remember the

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outcry when Germany found out Angela Merkel's phone was monitor.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was huge, diplomatic fallout.

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Speaker 2: Huge, It sparked a global scandal, and it kicked out

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this massive effort by journalists around the world to sift

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through all those leaked documents, understand the programs, the code names,

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piece it all together.

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Speaker 1: Which leads us back to thirty three Thomas Street. Right.

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How did the Snowden files connected that specific building.

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Speaker 2: It took a few years until twenty sixteen reporters at

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the Intercept, who are meticulously analyzing the Snowden cash, started

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noticing recurring code names. There was Blarney, a program intercepting

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foreign communications Fairview, which documents described as a partnership with

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a major US telecom company. Okay, but then there was

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Titan Point. The documents specifically identified Titan Point as a

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secret NSA surveillance site located right in New York City.

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Speaker 3: Titan Point in New York getting warmer exactly, So, the

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Intercept dug deeper into the files related to Titan Point

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and they found mentions of specialized equipment there, specifically foreign

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gateway switches with Rimrock access.

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Speaker 1: Rimrock access that was the key.

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Speaker 2: Through more digging, they discovered Rimrock was the internal NSA

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code name for those very same four YSS switches, the

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big digital foam switches at the heart of thirty three

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Thomas Street.

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Speaker 1: No way, the same switches.

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Speaker 2: The very same, and there was more. The files named

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the part company supervising Titan Point as Lithium and who

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was Lysium. Earlier reporting based on the snowed and docks

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had already identified lithium as the code name for AT

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and T.

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Speaker 1: AT and T of course the company that built and

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ran the building precisely.

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Speaker 2: So you connect the dots location New York City Technology

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Rimrock for ESS switches partner Lithium, AT and T. The

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intercept concluded Titan Point was thirty three Thomas Strait It

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was the code name for the NSA surveillance operation inside

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that building.

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Speaker 1: That's incredible investigative work connecting all those code names, and

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it gets even wilder, right. There was like a travel

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guide for NSA agents.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that was another detail that came out of the leaks,

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a kind of handbook for agents visiting sites like Titan Point.

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They told them things like, prepare cover stories for your visit,

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even for your colleagues, use specific unmarked cover vehicles.

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Speaker 1: Don't draw attention standard spy stuff, I guess pretty much.

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Speaker 2: And it even mentioned almost casually that security for the

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site was handled by the FBI, whose New York Field

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office is conveniently located right next door to thirty three

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Thomas Street.

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Speaker 1: Right next door. You can't make this stuff up. You

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just ring the buzzer.

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Speaker 2: Apparently it seems like it. But okay, the big question,

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what were they supposedly doing inside Titan Point? What kind

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of spying? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: What was the tech?

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Speaker 2: Well, according to the intercepts analysis of the files, there's

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likely another hidden room inside thirty three Thomas Street, much

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like Klein's Room six forty one, a SCIF sensitive compartmented

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information facility CURE room, highly secure where the NSA could

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basically tap into the communications flowing through the building. And

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it wasn't just the phone calls going through the for ess,

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which is remember the roof those big satellite dishes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned eighteen and t has a license for

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satellite stuff there.

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Speaker 2: Right, the only place in NYC they do. Those dishes

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are believed to be part of another NSA program code

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named Skidrow. Skidrow is designed to intercept communications like Internet

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data video calls VoIP as it travels between satellites having

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signals out of the sky.

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Speaker 1: So they're getting phone calls through the switches and satellite

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data through the dishes covering all bases.

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Speaker 2: That seems to be the idea, intercepting vast amounts of data,

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both domestic and international, passing through that crucial.

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Speaker 1: Hub, and all that data they collect, where does it go?

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What do they do with it?

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Speaker 2: It's allegedly channeled through an EIGHTE and T controlled interface

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within the building and then sent directly to NSA headquarters

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at Fort Meade and Maryland. And once it's there, NSA

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analysts can access it using a really powerful search tool

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called x keyscore.

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Speaker 1: X key score sounds ominous too.

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Speaker 2: It's been described as the NSA's version of Google, but

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for surveillance data, a Google for spies.

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Speaker 1: What can it do?

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Speaker 2: Apparently it allows analysts to search through enormous databases of

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collected communications metadata and content. They could potentially put in

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an email address, a phone number, even just keywords, and

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search across everything collected from sites like Titan Point and

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other sensors worldwide.

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Speaker 1: So they could potentially pull up someone's entire digital history, emails, chats, browsing.

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Speaker 2: That's the capability described in the documents. Yes, accessing emails, chats, browsing, history,

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social media activity potentially a huge amount of personal data.

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It's a pretty staggering vision of surveillance power.

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Speaker 1: And AT and T was okay with this helping them.

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Speaker 2: The leaked documents suggest more than just okay. Some internal

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NSA memos actually praised AT and T for its extreme

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willingness to assist the agency's operations.

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Speaker 1: Extreme willingness. Wow.

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Speaker 2: There was even a specific instance revealed where back in

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two thousand and three, a secret court order reportedly allowed

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AT and T to help the NSA tap all Internet

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communications coming from the United Nations Headquarters, which is also

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in New York.

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Speaker 1: A UN headquarters.

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Speaker 2: Seriously, that's what the reporting, based on the documents indicated,

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And to this day, AT and T hasn't confirmed or

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denied any of us publicly. They've maintained complete silence about

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Titan Point and their alleged role.

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Speaker 1: Just silence. And is thirty three Thomas Street the only

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place like this?

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Speaker 2: Probably not? That same twenty eighteen intercept report suggested there

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could be at least eight other AT and T facilities

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across the US Chicago, La, San Francisco, DC, Seattle that

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might be operating as similar surveillance sights for the NSA.

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Speaker 1: Eight other buildings do they look similar often.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of the striking things. Many of them

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share that same kind of windowless fortress like brutalist architecture,

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buildings designed for machines, not people, machines processing and potentially

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collecting the data of millions. It suggests a whole hidden

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network embedded within our national communication infrastructure hashtag tag tag nowtrack.

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Speaker 1: So, wrapping this up, we've really gone down the rabbit

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hole with thirty three Thomas Street. It started life as

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this marvel of engineering, right the long lines building connecting

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the world.

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Speaker 2: A symbol of progress connection.

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Speaker 1: But then the story shifts. It allegedly becomes Titan Point,

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this silent, windowless giant in Manhattan secretly helping a global

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surveillance system collect unimaginable amounts of data.

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Speaker 2: This is just stark paradox, isn't it. A building designed

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to facilitate communication potentially being used to intercept that very

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same communication on a massive scale. It really highlights that

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tension between technologies promise security demands and our fundamental right

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to privacy. It's a difficult balance.

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Speaker 1: It really is, And you know, it just makes you

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wonder how many other buildings like this are out there,

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standing right in front of us, hiding their true purpose

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in plain sight.

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Speaker 2: That's the lingering question, isn't it. As our world gets

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more and more connected, as literally everything we do creates

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data that flows through these hidden channels, who really controls

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that flow, who gets to look at it? And what

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does that mean for us? For our freedom, for our future?

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What other secrets are built into the concrete and steel

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of our cities. Maybe next time you walk past a

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strange windowless building, you'll pause and wonder what's really going

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on inside.

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Speaker 1: Definitely something to think about. Thanks for joining us on

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this step dive. Until next time, Keep digging, keep questioning,

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and stay curious.