ETCHLON - they are listening.

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Imagine a global spying network that can eavesdrop on every single phone call, fax or e-mail, anywhere on the planet. It sounds like science fiction, but it's true.

Two of the chief protagonists - Britain and America - officially deny its existence. But the BBC has confirmation from the Australian Government that such a network really does exist and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are calling for an inquiry.

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This is what the BBC reported back in 1999, it may not be news but it is still going on. Seven years later and there has been little done about it.

Echelon is perhaps the most powerful intelligence gathering organization in the world. Several credible reports suggest that this global electronic communications surveillance system presents an extreme threat to the privacy of people all over the world. According to these reports, ECHELON attempts to capture staggering volumes of satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic traffic, including communications to and from North America. This vast quantity of voice and data communications are then processed through sophisticated filtering technologies.
http://www.echelonwatch.org/

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Computer users across Europe should encrypt all their e-mails, to avoid being spied on by a UK-US eavesdropping network, say Euro-MPs.

The tentacles of the Echelon network stretch so far that the UK's involvement could constitute a breach of human rights, they say.

...the system, which also eavesdrops on telephone calls, was set up after World War II and was used to glean vital information in the Cold War.

But the committee says ordinary individuals and companies are now being spied on, and they should routinely encode their e-mails and faxes if they want them to remain private.

BBC, 2001

See here for a summary of the EU reports on the subject.

The only question I have to ask is how the hell the UKUSA managed to miss both the twin towers and the underground attacks with all that "quality filtering". We have to face the fact that ETCHLON does not work or that it is not being used as a counter terrorist technique. I wonder what history will show to be the facts?