John Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> responded:
>Your points are valid for the AIA document. However, in the
>Navy document, Number 9, image 3, there is the phrase,
>"Maintain and operate an ECHELON site."
I had missed that reference. A agree that the capitalization here is
consistent with a code name. On the other hand, the sentence
"Maintain and operate an ECHELON site." is the first item in a list
of specific functions and tasks that the commander of Sugar Grove is
being ordered to carry out. The dictionary meaning of "echelon" fits
well in this context, i.e. the commander is instructed to operate a
facility subordinate to headquarters in the overall Navel Security
Group hierarchy. While a few items on the list are blacked out, most
seem to be boilerplate. The main mission of Sugar Grove appears to be
detailed in a classified "Enclosure 1."
I did a search on "echelon" at www.navsup.navy.mil (they had a search
engine that actually worked) and found a number of examples of the
word's ordinary usage in the Navy:
"Multi-echelon modeling optimizes spares requirements across the
wholesale and consumer echelons, and provides the ability to compute
wholesale requirement on a readiness-to-response time basis. "
http://www.navsup.navy.mil/flash/1096.html
"All naval commanders will report through their immediate superior
via the chain of command (ISIC) to second echelon commanders when
this action has been complete. All second echelon commanders will
report to DON CIO upon completion of this tasking by their claimancy
NLT 15NOV98. "
http://www.navsup.navy.mil/corpinfo/net-policy/alnav.html
"Equal Opportunity Assistants provide equal opportunity/sexual
harassment subject matter expertise to second and third echelon
commands." http://www.navsup.navy.mil/flash/1996.html
In light of these examples, the appearance of the term "Echelon 2" in
the document fragment at http://jya.com/xechelon.jpg could also be
interpreted as telling the recipient that he is responsible for
documents coming from the second echelon level in the chain of
command.
The ACLU Echelon watch page http://www.aclu.org/echelonwatch/ says
"ECHELON is a code word for an automated global interception and
relay system operated by the intelligence agencies in five nations:
the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand (it is rumored that different nations have different code
words for the project)." I have no doubt that NSA runs automated
global interception and relay systems and has cooperative agreements
with the nations listed and many others. Interception is the
essential first step in signals intelligence (SIGINT) which is a
major mission of NSA. "Today, SIGINT continues to play an important
role in maintaining the superpower status of the United States."
http://www.nsa.gov:8080/about_nsa/
Do these interception capabilities include the monitoring and
recording of individual phone calls? I am sure they do. I even
remember press reports decades ago about whether NSA was restricted
from monitoring intercepted down links from Soviet SIGINT satellites
that were capturing the phone conversations of US citizens over
microwave relays.
But I am not convinced that ECHELON is the overarching code word for
this activity or even a major component.
I wonder why the code word question attracts so much interest.
SIGINT is such a large part of NSA mission that it must have spawned
dozens or hundred of code words. ECHELON might be better viewed as
press moniker for an important story a la Watergate or Whitewater.
The activities are real enough. Why does the code name matter so much?
Arnold Reinhold
