Former Fox News executive Dan Cooper has claimed that a special bunker, requiring security clearance for access was created at the company's headquarters to conduct “counterintelligence” including snooping on phone records:
After helping chairman Roger Ailes create the Fox News channel in 1996, Cooper was fired for doing an anonymous interview with New York Magazine:
”I'm frightened right now,” said a former Fox employee, noting the vast array of powerful connections Ailes maintains throughout the political and media worlds. “I've been told that if Ailes figures out I talked to you, he'll hunt me down and kill me.”
Negotiating the ground rules for an off-the-record meeting, Ailes came on like an Edward G. Robinson character in a B movie. “Three people in the world hate me,” he blustered. “You're not going to get to them, and everyone else is too scared.... Take your best shot at me, and I'll have the rest of my life to go after you.”
Cooper says that Ailes discovered he was the source by gaining access to his phone records through Fox's “brain room”.