-Caveat Lector- From: "Hilary A. Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Bomb Congress With Calls To Stop 'Spy Network' - Barr 06 Apr 1999, 4:34 PM CST By Robert MacMillan, Newsbytes. WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., today told Newsbytes he has called for hearings in the House of Representatives to examine the possibility that the greater part of our country's -- and world's -- population is being watched by the global "Echelon" network, as well as other spying systems. Speaking at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy 1999 conference today, Barr said while Congress may end up holding hearings on the issue, the only way to get members in both houses to take notice of -- and take a stand against -- Echelon and other threats to personal freedoms is to bombard them with "phone calls, faxes, e-mails, postcards, letters, you name it." A variety of international speakers at today's panel spoke of the threat to freedom of privacy in daily lives and communications not only through Echelon, a satellite-based UK/US-stewarded spy network, but the proposed Enfopol system. Enfopol is a purported FBI/European Union-led initiative to conduct surveillance on phone conversations and Internet access. Most of the participants in today's session railed against the possibility that any communications all over the world easily could be intercepted because of Enfopol. Steven Wright of the UK's Omega Foundation said these spy networks are not just used to halt criminal activity, but to keep watch on groups like Amnesty International and to look over the shoulder of business deals. "It's a transatlantic agenda for making the telephone system transparent," Wright said. He added that now-former European Commissioner Martin Bangemann told the EU's European Parliament that he had no knowledge of Echelon. However, the European Parliament is expected to receive and publish a report from inside the European Commission on the state of the Echelon Network in about three weeks. Barr said many members in Congress need to be prodded into addressing the illegal use of wiretapping in the name of national security because the issue currently is not a "headline-grabber." "It's going to take hitting these issues any way you can, over and over and over again... so they cannot be ignored," Barr said. "It will require even more than legislation... it will require oversight." Barr also said that the issue of protecting US citizens' privacy rights must not degenerate into partisan issues, saying that proponents of increased wiretapping capabilities (such as the FBI with Enfopol and its CALEA proposals) will try to introduce partisan splits into Congress to try to take away from initiatives to preserve personal freedoms. Erich Moechel, an Austrian journalist following the Enfopol developments, said that his country already is laying the groundwork for allowing Enfopol to thrive, having recently given conditional approval to a law that allows wiretapping without court orders. Barr said the entire international cooperation process exists partially so that countries seeking criminals who evade law enforcement's ability to catch them within one set of borders can go outside their own orders to ask for international cooperation -- because they use a shared network. This, he said, amounts to law enforcement going out of bounds legally to do its job. Scott Charney of the US Justice Department said that the US does not conduct surveillance activities for no reason, adding that he doubted that a huge majority of phone calls all over the world are being tapped. "I don't know who you would find to process that information," he said. "We do indict people for illegal wiretapping." He added, however, that the increasing globalization of information makes law enforcement's job difficult because it "still recognizes borders." "If I download data on a legal search, what if that data is stored in Germany?" Charney said. "All countries don't work to the same standard, everybody is not everybody else's friend." Charney added that approximately 1,000 wiretaps on the combined federal, state and local levels are conducted each year in the US. Reported by Newsbytes News Network, http://www.newsbytes.com . 16:34 CST Reposted 16:54 CST (19990406 /WIRES ONLINE, LEGAL, TELECOM, BUSINESS, GOVT/ECHELON/PHOTO) Copyright (c) Post-Newsweek Business Information, Inc. 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