-Caveat Lector- .............................................................. Forwarded from the New Paradigms Project [Not Necessarily Endorsed]: From: Book Search Co-ordinator <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Fw: [endsecrecy] Echelon in New York Post Date: Friday, October 22, 1999 8:26 PM From: Remy C. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: http://www.nypost.com/102199/commentary/16529.htm Thursday, October 21st 1999 New York Post IS BIG BROTHER READING YOUR E-MAIL? By ROD DREHER Want to give a big, fat finger to Big Brother today? Fax or e-mail this column to a friend. Be sure to include the following words: Unabomber. Anthrax. Fissionable plutonium. North Korea. Militia. Delta Force. Ruby Ridge. If the suspicions of Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), the American Civil Liberties Union and cyber-libertarian "hacktivists" are correct, your fax or e-mail containing those words will have been intercepted by a sophisticated official electronic monitoring system called "Echelon." Echelon is a supersecret global surveillance network, run by the U.S. National Security Agency, in conjunction with the governments of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Echelon is said to intercept and sift through countless electronic transmissions daily, filtering out those with particular "keywords" that could signal a security threat. The purloined posts are later analyzed. Hacktivists around the world have scheduled today as "Jam Echelon Day." They're encouraging computer users to flood the Internet with e-mails containing suspected keywords, hoping the deluge will short-circuit Echelon's computers and satellites. The public will never know if they succeed, but crashing Echelon is not really the point. The protest is meant to raise public awareness about the threat to privacy and civil liberties purportedly posed by the security network, which sounds like something out of the movie "Enemy of the State." Although the NSA will neither confirm nor deny Echelon's existence, too much information has leaked out (through official statements and partially declassified government documents) or has been uncovered by journalists and investigators to allow for plausible deniability. If reports, including a study by the European Parliament, are correct, Echelon was organized after World War II, chiefly as a way for participating countries to intercept Soviet communications. With the Russian threat gone, there is growing evidence and concern that Echelon is being used around the world for commercial espionage and keeping tabs on non-military targets - such as me and thee. Groups on both sides of the American political debate, from the ACLU on the left to the Free Congress Foundation on the right, allege that Echelon's technology and structure makes the unregulated monitoring of e-mails, faxes and phone calls possible - this despite laws requiring court permission to eavesdrop on private citizens. "The NSA does not have jurisdiction in the U.S., but the way the electronic-communications system is set up, I could send an e-mail to you, and it could be routed through Canada," explains Free Congress' Lisa Dean. "This puts the e-mail under NSA's jurisdiction." The potential for Echelon's abuse has so bothered Barr, a former CIA analyst, that he's pushing for congressional hearings. "My concern is that they are sweeping far too broadly," Barr tells me. "I believe that the rights of American citizens are being infringed. "The danger is that we have no privacy whatsoever. Whenever you pick up an instrument of communication, you run the risk of the government listening in to you." That claim is too far out for Steve Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists' government-secrecy research project. However overblown he considers the claims of Echelon alarmists, Aftergood supports Barr's call for hearings to establish oversight. "Unchecked monitoring and surveillance by the government poses a threat to freedom of dissent," he said. "Even if the whole Echelon story is a hallucination or a hoax, it is nevertheless the responsibility of Congress to get to the bottom of it." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Java or juggling?. Everybody learns something at Learn2.com. Where you'll find thousands of free 2torials, affordable online courses, and useful tips for everyday life. http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/1246 eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/endsecrecy http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications Forwarded for info and discussion from the New Paradigms Discussion List, not necessarily endorsed by: *********************************** Lloyd Miller, Research Director for A-albionic Research (POB 20273, Ferndale, MI 48220), a ruling class/conspiracy research resource for the entire political-ideological spectrum. 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