A security consultant's claim of a "Quantico circuit" that provided a third party -- presumably a federal agency -- with unfettered access to a cellular phone company's network has put the National Security Agency back under the microscope.

The consultant, Babak Pasdar, stated in an affidavit that during a job securing the network of a large, but unnamed, cellular telecommunications carrier in 2003, he came across evidence of a 45 Mbps network tap referred to as the "Quantico circuit" that had complete access to the company's network and on which the company did not want any monitoring. The third party, about whose identity Pasdar did not speculate, likely had access to the cellular providers fraud-detection system, text messaging system, Web applications and Internet communications coming from or going to any of the provider's mobile phones, Pasdar stated in the affidavit.

Pasdar stated that his attempts to secure access to the network ran afoul of executives at the telecommunications firm, who told him to leave the circuit alone.

The director of security "did not want to hear any of it and redoubled his emphatic message to move on. This was serious stuff," Pasdar stated. "He had let me know in no uncertain terms that I was treading above my pay grade."

A major training base for the U.S. Marines is based in Quantico, Va., as well as the FBI Academy and a large number of government contractors.

Pasdar's statements and a Monday Wall Street Journal article (subscription required) has refocused the wiretapping debate on the National Security Agency. The WSJ article found that, despite Congress's dismantling of a Bush Administration effort to collect data on U.S. citizens, known as the Total Information Awareness project, the National Security Agency's data mining has essentially reproduced the capabilities of the project.

The NSA became the focus in the wiretapping debate when the New York Times reported that the agency had eavesdropped on the Internet activities and phone calls of U.S. citizens as well as foreign terrorism targets without seeking the warrant required by law. Many telecommunications companies allegedly cooperated with the U.S. government and have faced lawsuits as a result.

In February, the House of Representatives refused to pass an amendment to FISA that would have give the U.S. government greater surveillance powers and disallowed any lawsuits against telecommunication companies for the past cooperation with the government program.

The Government Accountability Project (GAP) sent Pasdar's affidavit along with a summary of the claims to members of Congress currently debating the fate of an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, which limits surveillance activities of government agents. Wired News published details from the affidavit and accompanying summary last week.

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