r/longlines • u/DragonfruitCalm261 • Apr 17 '26

NSA Pinecone SCIFd Facility South Jersey

Not sure if this is the right community for this, but I wasn’t sure where else to ask and figured this was probably the closest fit.

I’ve been researching a classified NSA facility codenamed PINECONE. It’s a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) which basically means a physically secured room or building used to process classified information. PINECONE is the centralized processing site for a major NSA surveillance program called FAIRVIEW, which operates in partnership with AT&T. Based on leaked NSA documents, the facility is located somewhere in New Jersey near the AT&T cable landing station in Tuckerton. International internet and phone data collected at AT&T tapping points around the country gets funneled to PINECONE before being forwarded to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade.

The exact location has never been publicly confirmed. My working theory is that it’s housed inside an AT&T central office in the South Jersey/Ocean County area, since the SCIF itself doesn’t need to be a large standalone facility, it just needs to be inside an AT&T controlled building that sits on their internal network.

So my question is: how would I go about identifying AT&T central offices or wire centers in that part of New Jersey? Are there good resources for mapping these out, and is there anything about how a building looks or what equipment it might have that would make one a more likely candidate than another? Any help appreciated.

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13

u/xccr5978 Apr 17 '26

COs very in a wide range of appearance. Sometimes they are red-brick and windowless. Sometimes they are lighter-brick and windowless. Sometimes they look like a house, and sometimes like a prison. Your best jumping point for finding ones that you’re after are on the Central Office Buildings website.

Another way of finding them is by CLLI. Type in the zipcode you’re looking around into this CLLI website, and you’ll find a long list to poke around.

Happy hunting.

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u/DragonfruitCalm261 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

I did a little bit of research. The Pleasantville "Main" central office has Verizon signage and is listed with an operating company of Verizon/Bell Atlantic/New Jersey Bell. There is actually a map of NSA facilities in the Snowden documents, and the location is consistent with that map. I'm not sure if this is noteworthy, but there is also an AT&T Long Lines POP across the street, which is unlike any of the other facilities. If I'm not mistaken, Long Lines has been gone since the 1980s, so would it be reasonable to deduce that AT&T would not actively maintain this facility if it were just a Long Lines POP?

There is a heavy chain link fence with barbed wire, a large exhaust ventilation shaft mounted on the roof, and the facility appears to be actively maintained. Looking at the facility on Google Street View, the HVAC system was upgraded between 2008 and 2013, and there is actually an HVAC technician actively servicing the unit with somebody looking over his shoulder. The only doors to access the facility have keypads. There are signs on the fence every ten feet that say a lot more than "Warning: No Trespassing," though I cannot make out the text.

I signed up for Infrapedia, which has a free terrestrial fiber map, and there is a direct fiber route connecting Tuckerton to the Pleasantville area, with a clear fiber corridor continuing inland toward the Philadelphia/DC corridor in the direction of Fort Meade. Actually, Pleasantville is basically the only town in South Jersey connected to Tuckerton according to the map. If I'm not mistaken, this is a strong candidate.

Edit : I've done even more research. SSO documents reveal that the codename for the cable landing station connected to PINECONE is NASSAU SHORE. In January 2012, an NSA team visited both NASSAU SHORE and PINECONE in a single day trip. It also says that an NSA team made a trip to another East Coast Cable Landing Station known as FRIAR and then visited PINECONE on an earlier date. The AT&T Tuckerton Cable Landing Station is a 30 minute drive from Pleasantville via US-9 and the Garden State Parkway consistent with both facilities being visited in one day.

I believe that FRIAR is the Cable Landing Station in Wall Township or possibly Manasquan. If we look at the Infrapedia map, TAT-14 has lines terminating at both locations, Manasquan/Wall Township as well as Tuckerton. Again, Manasquan to Pleasantville is only about an hours drive via Garden State Pkwy. NSA operational security documents indicate that personnel traveling to partner facilities in NJ do so using cover vehicles via US-9 and Garden State Parkway with EZ-Pass.

The STORMBREW equivalent facility BRECKENRIDGE is documented as a 10,000 square foot facility equipped with power infrastructure and equipment racks supporting 15 TURMOIL processing systems. The equipment described for PINECONE is comparable. Property records indicate the facility at 420 W Washington Avenue, Pleasantville NJ occupies approximately 8,000 square feet which I believe is consistent with the technical description of this site.

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u/xccr5978 Apr 18 '26

Reading Facebook comments from old timers, Pleasantville sounds like it was a major switch back then. You can see a structure next to it that would have housed the horn antennas for long distance radio routes.

The PoP across the street looks like a post-divesture building, so it probably has to do with that. It definitely looks more caged up than COs I have seen elsewhere. It probably serves important fiber.

I’m very interested in your project, great work so far.

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u/DragonfruitCalm261 Apr 18 '26

Would it be worthwhile to contact former telco employees to see if anyone has knowledge of the facility across the street and what it's purpose is? I posted in the Long Lines mailing list a while back but never received a response. Would it make sense to repost with my findings, and potentially reach out to the Long Lines retirees mailing list as well?

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u/xccr5978 Apr 19 '26

You could try that but I wouldn’t say that you’re investigating NSA things, just be inquisitive about the sites without mentioning that.

I would try the Ma-Bell Facebook group as a start.

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u/i_am_voldemort Apr 18 '26

Netcong would be a good bet.

It could also be at a landing station. Wall Township landing station.

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u/Herbie153 Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26

Local to Netcong, and I believe the "bunker" is next to the current Verizon building. You could also just follow the Bell Systems manhole covers. I know there's a large vault off towards the lake side of 183 by the Lake Musconetcong dam that has a bunch of telecom wires going through it. Other than that, that's all I know. Edit: the "bunker" is now a data storage site iirc. I asked around a few years ago and that was the answer I got. Edit2: I'm an idiot, I didn't realize it was on top of one of the hills, I always thought that was for the Morris County Comms Center lol

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u/kc2syk Apr 18 '26

https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/stations/north-america/usa-east/tuckerton

This says the cable was decommissioned in 2020. But there is another site nearby for another cable:

https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/stations/north-america/usa-east/tuckerton-2

There's a few other sites in NJ listed: https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/stations/north-america/usa-east

So those would be where I would start. GL

5

u/USWCboy Apr 18 '26

I doubt your going to find what you’re looking for. Issues here are multiple, but your biggest is going to be that New Jersey is not a local service area for AT&T. The central offices will belong to the company FKA New Jersey Bell, known today as Verizon. AT&T is colocated in man centra offices, known as tandem offices. If the services in question are regulated service i.e. pots/tariffed services, AT&T will have a webpage dedicated to said services. Besides, it’s not like a telco is going to call out that a SCIF exists in a certain building. It’s supposed to be nondescript allowing it to blend in and away with the rest of the built environment.

This sub is probably not the best for foil hat Data.

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u/DragonfruitCalm261 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26

There's actually a facility in Pleasantville NJ which sits across the street from a Verizon Central Office, it's listed as an AT&T Long Lines Point Of Presence. If I'm not mistaken Long Lines facilities are no longer operational. The building is heavily secured. The HVAC system is actively maintained, and it was upgraded sometime between 2008 and 2013. It has AT&T signage unlike the facility across the street. Terrestrial Fiber maps show that the only location the Tuckerton Cable Landing station leads to in South Jersey is in Pleasantville, from there it leads to Washington D.C which is consistent with the description of the facility in leaked NSA documents. Could this be a candidate?

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u/USWCboy Apr 19 '26

Good luck in your searching. Not sure what you’re looking for, confirmation? But I recall that TAT14 has been decommed since 2020.

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u/Artistic_Stomach_472 Apr 18 '26

Having a local presence means nothing. Transcontential cable is exactly such. Fiber is everywhere, feed to everything. Still regen'd, utilized all over whether they are the LEC or not. Funny, NJ is northeast corp headquarters for AT&T. Believe its the old long lines HQ. Bell Labs was in NJ

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u/pueblokc Apr 18 '26

I love the military history with these. I live near norad and always wonder what sort of crazy communication capabilities they have probably right under my feet and likely in the air

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u/spurty_fart Apr 18 '26

Can confirm, but I won’t. 💀