Room 641A

Room 641A, located within the building at 611 Folsom Street, functioned as a critical intersection for global digital surveillance. Inside this windowless, secure facility, specialized equipment mirrored vast amounts of internet traffic as it traveled through the fiber optic backbone of the United States. This setup allowed the National Security Agency to capture and analyze data on a massive scale, moving beyond targeted wiretaps to include the communications of countless ordinary citizens. The space, measuring approximately twenty-four by forty-eight feet, became the physical embodiment of the debate over domestic surveillance programs in the twenty-first century.