Inside Echelon

kris writes "German magazine Telepolis has an article by Duncan Campbell about Inside Echelon. The article gives a nice overview about what Echelon is and how it came to be. This article is available in a German Version as well." Somewhat lengthy, and written with an agenda, but very interesting. Although I have to say it's wierd seeing banner ads in german ;)

Comments

Great analogy

[11223]

I saw a great analogy in the paper in an article about Carnivore (yes, the paper in meatspace) saying that communicating by email is like two corporations in buildings surrounded by barbed wire and machine guns communicating over postcards.

The moral of the story is that you're using a public network when you use email. While it's certainly immoral and usually illegal to snoop, governments will always do whatever it takes to insure their power. We've seen it time and time again with the US's relationships with other countries.

Knowing that, we know that in general they will be watching for all threats. If a coalition decides to form to watch these threats, like Echelon, it will happen. If you insist on using these postcards, at least encrypt your data.

Keep in mind - it's your choice to live in a National Security State. (The US is no longer a democracy, because we no longer control our security democratically). There are other nations that handle things differently. You do have the choice to leave.