A cohort of national security advisers and other senior officials from the outgoing regime of President Biden met with top executives from major telecommunications companies this week to discuss what they described as "by far" the worst data breach in America's history.
In early November, the Beijing-linked hacking group "Salt Typhoon" grabbed hold of the surveillance data that telecoms like Verizon and AT&T record and store for the police in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The hack allegedly resulted in text messages and audio from an unknown number of calls making their way into Chinese data centers.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, is the one who called all this the "worst telecom hack in our nation's history – by far" following the recent hearing.
"The barn door is still wide open, or mostly open," he added.
(Related: Did you catch our report from back in July about the AT&T hack that resulted in "nearly all" customers getting hacked?)
Top secret meeting
The meeting in question was hosted by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger. It is unknown who else specifically was there.
"The meeting was an opportunity to hear from telecommunications sector executives about how the U.S. government can partner with and support the private sector in hardening against sophisticated nation-state attacks," the Biden White House said in a statement.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued their own joint statement as well, blaming China for the hack and claiming that the stolen information is stored as part of "legal" surveillance on Americans.
"Specifically, we have identified that PRC-affiliated actors have compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies to enable the theft of customer call record data, the compromise of private communications of a limited number of individuals primarily involved in government or political activity, and the copying of certain information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders," that statement reads.
There is, of course, no truly legal means through which the government is allowed to surveil Americans without a warrant. Such surveillance has been normalized ever since 9/11, but it is unconstitutional, just to be clear, though the government is saying that only "suspects" are being surveilled.
The FBI has notified less than 150 people who were affected by the breach that their data was stolen. Most of them are located in the Washington, D.C., area which suggests they might be people who work for the government or the deep state.
One of the people whose conversations were intercepted in the hack is an unnamed adviser to President-elect Donald Trump's campaign, this according to The Washington Post. It is unknown whether or not this adviser is "subject to U.S. law enforcement requests."
You will recall that back in 2016, the FBI used the fabricated Steele Dossier, a product of Hillary Clinton and other deep state players, to ask a court for permission to surveil then-candidate Trump's campaign and undermine his presidency.
Beijing says this latest hack was not conducted by Chinese hackers but rather by hackers in Washington who are trying to meddle with the most recent U.S. election results.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington also stated that it is unaware of any hacking activities by Salt Typhoon and likewise accused the U.S. of fabricating all this to "smear China" by blaming it for the attack, China being a common scapegoat of the U.S. establishment.
More related news can be found at CyberWar.news.
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