NSA memos suggest ECHELON exists

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By JDW
December 19, 2005 - 10:30 ET

NSA memos suggest ECHELON existsThomas C Greene in Washington
Published Wednesday 28th June 2000 08:26 GMT

Two confidential and one secret memo from the US National Security Agency (NSA) recently obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) imply that the Agency does gather an enormous amount of data, an observation which in turn suggests that the global surveillance network known as ECHELON really does exist. ...

...A third deals with Hillary Clinton, noting that since a US Court of Appeals ruled that she is a full-time government official, chatter naming her may be reported using any of her official titles, but not her name.

The good news here is that the NSA seems quite scrupulous about staying within its patch and avoiding compiling data on private US citizens as the law requires.

The bad news is that they seem to be swimming in data generated by virtually everyone with a telephone, a computer or a fax machine. Sceptics will be forgiven for holding onto suspicion, as it is impossible to forget that as recently as 1975 the NSA was scandalised for maintaining illegal surveillance records on numerous US citizens, as revealed during Senate Intelligence Committee hearings held that year.

An outraged Congress quickly voted itself oversight authority over the NSA, set guidelines, and has been keeping tabs ever since. The memos suggest that for now, at least, Congressional oversight is working as it should. ...

The NYT et al continues to report that Bush is spying on innocent people without regard to the law. These same publications ignore the history of previous administrations such as the 90's during which millions of calls were monitored.

JDW

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