Revisiting Echelon: The NSA’s Clandestine Data Mining Program

[nadinbrzezinski]

A clandestine National Security Agency spy program code-named Echelon was likely one of the programs the Bush administration used to tap into the emails, telephone calls and facsimiles of thousands of average American citizens, according to half-a-dozen current and former intelligence officials from the NSA.

The existence of the program has been publicly known for years. Echelon was developed in the 1970s primarily as an American-British intelligence sharing system to monitor foreigners – specifically, during the Cold War, to catch Soviet spies. But sources said the spyware, operated by satellite, is the means by which the NSA eavesdropped on Americans when President Bush secretly authorized the agency to do so in 2002.

http://pubrecord.org/nation/2290/revisiting-echelon-nsas/

[Electric Monk]

1. Let's not forget Carnivore, NarusInsight, and Room 641A as well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_%28software%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NarusInsight#NarusInsight

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. You do not want to see my notes on this for the moment

I have gone swimming in that toxic pool

[hrmjustin]

2. Was Able Danger also along these lines?

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Yes, to a point

and this is how progressively we have gotten to this point. It is bipartisan, period, end of discussion, full stop.

That does not make it right.

[hrmjustin]

6. Morality has never stopped the government.

But no I do not like it either.

[KansDem]

3. Developed in the 1970s...

The existence of the program has been publicly known for years. Echelon was developed in the 1970s primarily as an American-British intelligence sharing system to monitor foreigners – specifically, during the Cold War, to catch Soviet spies. But sources said the spyware, operated by satellite, is the means by which the NSA eavesdropped on Americans when President Bush secretly authorized the agency to do so in 2002.

Another top-secret program code-named Tempest, also operated by satellite, is capable of reading computer monitors, cash registers and automatic teller machines from as far away as a half-mile and is being used to keep a close eye on an untold number of American citizens, the sources said, pointing to a little known declassified document that sheds light on the program.

Echelon has been shrouded in secrecy for years. A special report prepared by the European Parliament in the late 1990s disclosed explosive details about the covert program when it alleged that Echelon was being used to spy on two foreign defense contractors – the European companies Airbus Industrie and Thomson-CSF – as well as sifting through private emails, industrial files and cell phones of foreigners.

The program is part of a multinational spy effort that includes intelligence agencies in Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia, also known as the Echelon Alliance, which is responsible for monitoring different parts of the world.

The NSA has never publicly admitted that Echelon exists, but the program has been identified in declassified government documents. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have long criticized the program and have, in the past, engaged in fierce debate with the intelligence community over Echelon because of the ease with which it can spy on Americans without any oversight from the federal government.

However, it did not detect the 9/11 attack...yeah, right...

[QC]

7. I remember how people here were angry as hell about Echelon.

Amazing what a difference a change in administrations can make.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Yup, and while I am tryng to get a time line

damn, I completely had forgotten about it, until I read about it on another blog.

Carnivore, it's internal brother, I remembered.

[Savannahmann]

9. So many programs

So little privacy.