
NSA Said to Use Manhattan Tower as Listening Post - danso
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/nyregion/national-security-agency-said-to-use-manhattan-tower-as-listening-post.html
======
jackweirdy
In many ways the building is a monument to privacy - the kind of twisted
privacy where the state can keep whatever it wants secret, but a citizens life
is rigorously documented and explorable.

It's the kind of relationship you expect between a newly enrolled soldier and
their drill sergeant, not between a citizen and their government.

~~~
idlewords
Most of the privacy violation is done by private industry.

~~~
morganvachon
And? That doesn't change the fact that the government makes up the rest of it.
Besides, a not insignificant amount of the private sector's invasion of
privacy has been at the behest of the government:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/04/yahoo-
sec...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/04/yahoo-secret-email-
program-nsa-fbi)

------
freehunter
The pictures in this NYT article are worse than useless... the header image
I'm pretty sure is CGI, or heavily Photoshopped to the point where it looks
like it's CGI. We then go to a 1970's model of the entrance to the building
for some reason, and then finish it up with a picture of a security camera on
the outside of a concrete wall (part of the building? I guess?)

If you click through to The Intercept's article, you get two night-time
pictures of the building, the same 1970's model of the entrance (for whatever
reason), another night time shot that's too close to make out the building and
where the actual focus of the shot is the building _behind_ it, a picture of
the intercom (wtf), a blueprint of one of the floors, a fucking _sketch_ of
the lobby, a picture of the satellite dishes on top of the building, a Visio
document of their network diagram, a logo for one of their programs, another
night time picture of the entrance to the building, and then finally a picture
from nearly 30 years ago of a man sitting at a computer.

There are way too many pictures in this article that is about a _building_ yet
there are _zero_ pictures of the actual building itself! First of all, I
thought "Manhattan Tower" was the name of the building. Turns out it's just
some building in Manhattan. But for an article about a building, there's a
conspicuous lack of pictures of the _actual building itself_.

~~~
anamoulous
Here is a less dramatized photo:
[https://cryptome.org/eyeball/nytel/33-thomas-070802.jpg](https://cryptome.org/eyeball/nytel/33-thomas-070802.jpg)

It's still pretty dramatic, though. Personally I've always loved walking past
that building.

[edit]

Just to clarify, the NYT photo is certainly not CGI. It's just over saturated.
That's really what it looks like when you are standing at the base of the
building.

~~~
dogma1138
TBH they could not have selected a better building architecturally for their
uses if they want to be the ministry of truth ;)

~~~
type0
This actually looks like one of the buildings in Gilliam's Brazil, wasn't that
Ministry of Information!?

------
revelation
Actual source:

[https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-
new-...](https://theintercept.com/2016/11/16/the-nsas-spy-hub-in-new-york-
hidden-in-plain-sight/)

~~~
itcrowd
Excellent. I see it fit to change the URL to this one.

On a tangential note, the NYT article has no extra information and sources
this openly accessible link. I think it's outrageous the Times has the guts to
put this article behind a paywall (if you're over the 10 article limit per
month) given that there is so little extra to see.

Don't get me wrong -- I understand paywalls but semi-blatant copy/pasting and
then asking for money is not the way to go IMHO.

That said, go read the original if you haven't (not directed at _revelation_ )
it's much better and more detailed.

------
dmix
This building certainly looks like one that would be used by a secret all-
seeing totalitarian overlord
[http://i.imgur.com/KO0tKXS.png](http://i.imgur.com/KO0tKXS.png)

Reminds me of the Tyrell Corporation building in Blade Runner.

[http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=c&panoid=SCXuuNI7s_IMT2vxm...](http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=c&panoid=SCXuuNI7s_IMT2vxm7QA2Q&cbp=1%2C134.4058%2C%2C3.0%2C-43.983246)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
One of my personal favourites is the fancy bit of architecture hanging over
the entry to the Family Court of Australia, Adelaide.

[http://www.markforthandassociates.com.au/wp-
content/uploads/...](http://www.markforthandassociates.com.au/wp-
content/uploads/2013/07/Famil-Law-Courts-Adelaide-copy.jpg)

As if that thing doesn't make you feel like The Government is observing your
family life. Which, I guess, if you have reason to go there, it is.

~~~
stordoff
Little off-topic, but I don't think I've seen a JPG that loads initially as
low-res grayscale before the colour loads in before.

~~~
trentmb
Thank you- I honestly thought I had (temporarily) lost my sanity for a split
second when it flipped.

------
strictnein
The NSA has a spy hub in NYC? You don't say. They've only been there since
before the NSA was even a thing. You know what they did out of New York, prior
to becoming the NSA? Spied on international telegrams. Except in that case the
three major telegram companies would bring them copies of all the
international telegrams every single day.

But, cool, we have their new address now. At a building that was obviously a
telecom hub to anyone technically minded.

~~~
azernik
I'm more interested in the architecture, honestly - we already knew the NSA
had telco cooperation and (I think I'd already heard?) access to their
facilities. But that one of those facilities is an honest-to-god skyscraper
that someone tried to make nuclear-bomb-proof? That's fantastic.

~~~
j1vms
> ...skyscraper that someone tried to make nuclear-bomb-proof (...) That's
> fantastic.

Given the state-of-art nuclear weapons in the early 70s, it's fantastic in the
unbelievable sense as the thing would stick out like a sore thumb from the sky
for just about any missile. And if zero point had been chosen somewhere above
the structure, there very likely would really be no building left. Whatever
was so important within would have to be to be dug down deep far, far below --
makes the whole thing pointless unless as a _diversion_ from something else.
And anyway if it was the real deal, then as of at least a couple years now,
probably no longer.

~~~
azernik
Well, in midtown Manhattan it wouldn't stand out that will. I'm equally
skeptical of its durability against a close hit.

Although in any case, I think Cold War ICBM accuracy (CEPs on the order of
half a mile to several miles, depending on period) would be more of an issue
than target identification.

------
morgante
I feel like evil institutions don't even _bother_ trying to hide their evil
any more.

If you look at a photo of the building, it's pretty much exactly what you
would expect a dystopian secret police to operate out of. [0]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street)

~~~
closeparen
AT&T Long Lines sites look menacing because they were designed to keep humming
while we retaliated against the USSR at the end of the world.

There are former Long Lines sites around the country, from urban high-rises to
lonely fenced-in microwave horn antennas atop bunkers, miles from the nearest
towns and sometimes accessible only by helicopter. A good few are next to
highways and train tracks, which is how I came to start reading about them.

They provided rural telephony for civilians, but were also part of the Cold
War-era continuity-of-government system connecting SAC bases and missile
silos.

There's a fairly dedicated hobbyist community cataloguing the sites [0]. A
remote Long Lines site also played a role in the Death Valley Germans story,
which got some pretty good discussion on HN a while ago [1].

[0] [http://long-lines.net/places-routes/](http://long-lines.net/places-
routes/)

[1] [http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-
hun...](http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-
death-valley-germans/)

~~~
riffic
There are similar AT&T buildings scattered throughout the country built to
similar specification. Here's one in West Palm Beach -
[https://goo.gl/maps/VD42JWpnp8P2](https://goo.gl/maps/VD42JWpnp8P2)

~~~
Sgt_Apone
Yes, it's a very common design that many switching building incorporated in
that era. They're all over Canada as well.

------
h1fra
It's interesting to point that it was at the center of Mr Robot season 2 !
Maybe they knew

~~~
astrodust
I looked up that location based on the street signage there, some business
that has apparently gone under, and got to see a street view of where they
were. It looked like some interesting CGI but there it was, in the real world.

Life is stranger than fiction sometimes.

------
ginko
How can anyone seeing that building not think that there's some shifty
surveillance stuff going on there?

~~~
drvdevd
To me, it very much looks like a giant telco Central Office... where shifty
surveillance stuff has been happening since at least 1885
[[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Corporation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Corporation)]
Note that The Intercept's article compared it in that manner.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
It is basically a big CO. It only has 29 floors, each 18 ft high for the
equipment racks.

------
Steeeve
Having worked at many similar facilities and plenty in the telecom space, this
seems like a lot of speculation. Nondescript buildings owned by telecoms are
literally all over the place and the telecom requirements in that area - while
a fraction of what they used to be - are still quite large. It would be
surprising if a large CO was not present in that area.

------
snowwrestler
Meanwhile, all the other nations on Earth are tuning into the unsecured calls
to and from a different Manhattan tower:

[http://www.trumptowerny.com](http://www.trumptowerny.com)

------
jgalt212
Not to be flip, but if you've ever walked by this building this news has to be
amongst the least surprising things I've ever read.

------
gragas
>The article and film say that Titanpointe was one of the facilities used to
collect communications — with permission granted by judges — from
international entities that have at least some operations in New York, such as
the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and 38
countries.

It's good to know that we're spying on the IMF and the World Bank. To me, it
shows that we can easily position ourselves and cannot be held hostage by
either of those organizations.

------
vintageseltzer
I have lost hope in the future.

Guantanamo is still open, the NSA is as powerful as ever, a partisan puppet
has been installed at the CIA, and Trump has all of these tools at his
disposable.

The UK just codified all of their past illegal surveillance activities.

I don't think I will have children.

~~~
exo762
> Guantanamo is still open, the NSA is as powerful as ever, a partisan puppet
> has been installed at the CIA, and Trump has all of these tools at his
> disposable.

So, corrupted insiders installed all those tools. Now an outsider gets elected
into White House. You know what are the requirements for the post, right? At
least 35 years old, American. All parts of that corrupted clique, from Hillary
to Jon Stewart, fought tooth and nail to prevent him from being elected.
Hillary was known evil. Trump is basically a big unknown. Why can't you give
this man a chance?

EDIT. I guess I'm judging American politics by European standards. America are
so deep in superficial fluff that it can't see what really happened. Left has
lost everything because of bullshit of its progressive wing. Outsider has won
White House. And you people are talking about Trump being racist - a "fact"
discovered during the most vicious presidential campaign of last 50? years.

~~~
yolesaber
>Why can't you give this man a chance?

I did. Then he immediately brought on a white nationalist as his closest
advisor and is apparently going to name a southern good ol' boy who thinks
marijuana is straight up the devil as his Attorney General. Chance thoroughly
blown.

~~~
cylinder
What is a white nationalist? Is it just a nationalist who happens to be white?
Is nationalist on its own supposed to be a negative descriptor? If so then it
follows that logically internationalists are the preferred people by default?

Also is it possible to be in favor of limited controlled immigration programs
and not be called a racist? What happens if the person isn't white, like me,
am I also a racist? Can I be a white nationalist who isn't white?

~~~
eternalban
> What is a white nationalist?

Curious, isn't it?

I first saw this term in the establishment press -- White Nationalist -- last
week. To me, it seems to be an attempt to conflate White Supremacists with
_Nationalists_. It is possibly an amusing pastime to substitute various
candidate Xs into "<X> Nationalist" and consider the possibilities.

As for Bannon, that guy looks like he walked out of CIA central casting, with
patrons in Goldman Sachs. Such wonderful straw(wo)men to co-opt genuine
grievances of people.

