D
DaveW
Guest
VERY bothersome article from Australian newspaper 'The Age':
www.theage.com.au/daily/990523/news/news3.html
Some excerpts:
"Together with the giant American National Security Agency (NSA) and its Canadian, British, and New Zealand counterparts, DSD operates a network of giant, highly automated tracking stations that illicitly pick up commercial satellite communications and examine every fax, telex, e-mail, phone call, or computer data message that the satellites carry.
The five signals intelligence agencies form the UKUSA pact. They are bound together by a secret agreement signed in 1947 or 1948. Although its precise terms have never been revealed, the UKUSA agreement provides for sharing facilities, staff, methods, tasks and product between the participating governments.
Now, due to a fast-growing UKUSA system called Echelon, millions of messages are automatically intercepted every hour, and checked according to criteria supplied by intelligence agencies and governments in all five UKUSA countries. The intercepted signals are passed through a computer system called the Dictionary, which checks each new message or call against thousands of ``collection'' requirements. The Dictionaries then send the messages into the spy agencies' equivalent of the Internet, making them accessible all over the world. "
"Until this year, the US Government has tried to ignore the row over Echelon by refusing to admit its existence. The Australian disclosures today make this position untenable. US intelligence writer Dr Jeff Richelson has also obtained documents under the US Freedom of Information Act, showing that a US Navy-run satellite receiving station at Sugar Grove, West Virginia, is an Echelon site, and that it collects intelligence from civilian satellites."
"Information is also fed into the Echelon system from taps on the Internet, and by means of monitoring pods which are placed on undersea cables. Since 1971, the US has used specially converted nuclear submarines to attach tapping pods to deep underwater cables around the world. "
The full report can be downloaded here:
http://jya.com/ic2000.zip
Also read:
www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990518S0004
search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib-site+71+0+wAAA+echelon
[This message has been edited by DaveW (edited May 28, 1999).]
www.theage.com.au/daily/990523/news/news3.html
Some excerpts:
"Together with the giant American National Security Agency (NSA) and its Canadian, British, and New Zealand counterparts, DSD operates a network of giant, highly automated tracking stations that illicitly pick up commercial satellite communications and examine every fax, telex, e-mail, phone call, or computer data message that the satellites carry.
The five signals intelligence agencies form the UKUSA pact. They are bound together by a secret agreement signed in 1947 or 1948. Although its precise terms have never been revealed, the UKUSA agreement provides for sharing facilities, staff, methods, tasks and product between the participating governments.
Now, due to a fast-growing UKUSA system called Echelon, millions of messages are automatically intercepted every hour, and checked according to criteria supplied by intelligence agencies and governments in all five UKUSA countries. The intercepted signals are passed through a computer system called the Dictionary, which checks each new message or call against thousands of ``collection'' requirements. The Dictionaries then send the messages into the spy agencies' equivalent of the Internet, making them accessible all over the world. "
"Until this year, the US Government has tried to ignore the row over Echelon by refusing to admit its existence. The Australian disclosures today make this position untenable. US intelligence writer Dr Jeff Richelson has also obtained documents under the US Freedom of Information Act, showing that a US Navy-run satellite receiving station at Sugar Grove, West Virginia, is an Echelon site, and that it collects intelligence from civilian satellites."
"Information is also fed into the Echelon system from taps on the Internet, and by means of monitoring pods which are placed on undersea cables. Since 1971, the US has used specially converted nuclear submarines to attach tapping pods to deep underwater cables around the world. "
The full report can be downloaded here:
http://jya.com/ic2000.zip
Also read:
www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990518S0004
search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib-site+71+0+wAAA+echelon
[This message has been edited by DaveW (edited May 28, 1999).]