In current American society the majority of the population lives in fear of government surveillance. This has become more of a relevant topic ever since it was revealed three years ago that the National Security Agency was peering into the private lives of American citizens by monitoring their private telephone calls and text messages. However, there is another large domineering force in America that has just admitted to assisting the N.S.A. in their spying: AT&T.

According to an article published by Frontline, “a joint investigation by The New York Times and ProPublica provided striking new detail on the extraordinary cooperation provided to the National Security Agency in the surveillance of Americans’ communications records by the second-largest wireless carrier in the country, AT&T.” Specifically, it has surfaced that AT&T has been allowing the N.S.A. access to millions of different communication records for the users of that company. This is not limited to phone calls, text messages and emails.

It has also surfaced that in addition to monitoring their users phone conversations and emails, AT&T is also responsible for “installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its Internet hubs on U.S. soil, had its engineers test surveillance technology invented by the NSA, and even aided the organization in carrying out a court order permitting the wiretapping of online communications at United Nations headquarters in New York.”

The article further discusses how the scandal has been going on since the early two thousands, when Mark Klein, a retired worker for the company, had discovered a secret room in an AT&T building where they were revealing user information to the N.S.A.

Although AT&T and the N.S.A. claim that their relationship with each other is purely to protect citizens from those who wish to do harm in society, what they have enacted upon the AT&T users is actually called peering. “AT&T not only provided the spy agency with data that travels over its own networks, but data transmitted by AT&T on behalf of other telecom companies.”

This is just another case in surveillance America where it has come to surface that the government will go to any lengths necessary in order to monitor the public. However, it is more conniving this time, as a popular company that millions of Americans use has been used for government spying. The worst part about the scandal is that AT&T has the audacity to make a public statement that the monitoring is beneficial where, in all actuality, the only thing AT&T and the N.S.A. actually want to find out about their users is the details of their private life.