While Google is attempting to fight government interference in its business by refusing to give in to government subpoenas for its search results, other companies are bowing readily to the government. One of these companies is AT&T.

Wired magazine reports:

AT&T built a secret room in its San Francisco switching station that funnels internet traffic data from AT&T Worldnet dialup customers and traffic from AT&T's massive internet backbone to the NSA, according to a statement from [former AT&T technician Mark] Klein.

Wired magazine also reports that the company, Narus, that manufactures the NSA's data-mining software boasts that "ts equipment can scan billions of bits of internet traffic per second, including analyzing the contents of e-mails and e-mail attachments and even allowing playback of internet phone calls."

Klein, an AT&T technician for 22 years, leaked confidential AT&T documents to the Electronic Frontier Foundation last week, causing EFF to file a lawsuit against AT&T for violating state and federal law by voluntarily aiding the NSA in its illegal, poorly justified, warrantless wiretapping program. (For more information, please read EFF's amended complaint against AT&T.)

Things get troubling here because customers have no say in whether or not AT&T transmits their personal data to the NSA. Also troubling is the fact that, after many mergers and acquisitions (most recently in November by SBC), AT&T is on its way to becoming a telecommunications monopoly ... again! In 1984, the government broke up the subsidiary Bell operating companies of AT&T, creating a variety of smaller companies: Lucent, Verizon, Sprint, MCI, and so on. Now, the companies are buying each other, creating a monopoly again. At what point will you no longer be able to obtain telephone service from any company but AT&T, with the knowledge that AT&T can and will give up personal information about you? It's not like you would be able to choose a phone company that didn't narc on you; there would be no "other" phone companies!

Pro-business Republicans, do you see why monopolies are bad for civil liberties?