Knowledge is power. In the information age this is more and more true every minute of every day. I believe it is inevitable that we would have the super secret parts of government would begin to collude to monitor all telephone, data and fax communications. It seems equally inevitable that very powerful individuals will challenge that same system.
Human nature being what it is, such a system is guaranteed to be abused for the power and positioning a dominate minority. My panic and indignation on such things is slowly supplemented by an acceptance and humor of human behavior that is self centered, greedy and in constant state of fear, loathing and self gratification. The funny part is that the behavior continues even though it proves to implode over time. Again and again Rome rises only to crash on the shores of reality. Caesar conquers, assimilates and raises taxes then fades out.
It frustrated me because I know that humanity has the capacity to do better. Better for the planet, better for itself and better for every species. We are capable of doing great, great things but we choose to live in a state of fear, self gratification an loathing.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ECHELON/echelon.html
ECHELON
Main article: ECHELON
NSA/CSS, in combination with the equivalent agencies in the United Kingdom (Government Communications Headquarters), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Defence Signals Directorate), and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), otherwise known as the UKUSA group[16], is widely reported to be in command of the operation of the so-called ECHELON system. Its capabilities are suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world’s transmitted civilian telephone, fax and data traffic, according to a December 16, 2005 article in the New York Times.[17]
Technically, almost all modern telephone, internet, fax and satellite communications are exploitable due to recent advances in technology and the ‘open air’ nature of much of the radio communications around the world. The NSA’s presumed collection operations have generated much criticism, possibly stemming from the assumption that the NSA/CSS represents an infringement of Americans’ privacy. However, the NSA’s United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibits the interception or collection of information about “…US persons, entities, corporations or organizations…” without explicit written legal permission from the Attorney General of the United States [18] The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that intelligence agencies cannot conduct surveillance against American citizens. There are a few extreme circumstances where collecting on a U.S. entity is allowed without a USSID 18 waiver, such as with civilian distress signals, or sudden emergencies such as the September 11, 2001 attacks; however, the USA PATRIOT Act has significantly changed privacy legality.
There have been alleged violations of USSID 18 that occurred in violation of the NSA’s strict charter prohibiting such acts.[citation needed] In addition, ECHELON is considered with indignation by citizens of countries outside the UKUSA alliance, with numerous allegations that the United States government uses it for motives other than its national security, including political and industrial espionage.[19][20] Examples include the gear-less wind turbine technology designed by the German firm Enercon[21][22] and the speech technology developed by the Belgian firm Lernout & Hauspie. An article in the Baltimore Sun reported in 1995 that aerospace company Airbus lost a $6 billion contract with Saudi Arabia in 1994 after the NSA reported that Airbus officials had been bribing Saudi officials to secure the contract.[23][24] The chartered purpose of the NSA/CSS is solely to acquire significant foreign intelligence information pertaining to National Security or ongoing military intelligence operations.
In his book Firewall, Andy McNab speculates that the UKUSA agreement is designed to enable the NSA, GCHQ, and other equivalent organizations to gather intelligence on each other’s citizens. For example, the NSA cannot legally conduct surveillance on American citizens, but GCHQ might do it for them.
— http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency
Document 13: NAVSECGRU Instruction C5450.48A, Subj: Mission, Functions and Tasks of Naval Security Group Activity (NAVSECGRUACT) Sugar Grove, West Virginia, September 3, 1991
While NSA directs and manages U.S. SIGINT activities, almost all collection activity is actually carried out by the military service SIGINT units—including the Naval Security Group Command. The role of the unit at Sugar Grove in intercepting the international leased carrier (ILC) communications passing through INTELSAT satellites was first revealed in James Bamford’s The Puzzle Palace. (Note 12)
The regulation reveals that Sugar Grove is associated with what has become a highly controversial program in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The program, codenamed ECHELON, has been described as a global surveillance network that intercepts and processes the world’s communications and distributes it among the primary partners in the decades-old UKUSA alliance—the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. (Note 13)
In reality, ECHELON is a more limited program, allowing the UKUSA allies to specify intelligence requirements and automatically receive relevant intercepts obtained by the UKUSA facilities which intercept satellite communications (but not the U.S. facilities that receive data from SIGINT satellites). It is also limited by both technological barriers (the inability to develop word-spotting software so as to allow for the automatic processing of intercepted conversations) and the limitations imposed on collection activities by the UKUSA allies—at least as regards the citizens of those countries. (Note 14) Thus, the NAVSECGRU instruction also specifies that one of the responsibilities of the commander of the Sugar Grove site is to “ensure the privacy of U.S. citizens are properly safeguarded pursuant to the provisions of USSID 18.”
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB24/nsa13.pdf