Echelon Architect Interviewed

ploog writes "Echelon has been surrounded by controversy since rumors of it first popped up on the net. The US Government has never admitted to it, although various other governments have. Now, a lead architect for Echelon and its "big brother," Echelon II, has been discovered and interviewed. This is fascinating stuff. He is able to give some details about how Echelon works, although he doesn't come divulge everything, for obvious reasons. Trying to deny Echelon just got that much harder. Link found via Megarad.com."

Comments

Considering the Echelon project is surrounded...

[Scoria]

... by secrecy, I wouldn't instantly arrive at the conclusion that any of this interview (with a somewhat elusive subject) is valid. :p

I wonder...

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Why arn't senators\congressmen worried about being blackmailed by this thing?
What if there was a watergate-esque break in to echelon?

Re:I wonder...

[ajs]

A good point.

Realistically, Echelon likely had no indications of what was going to occur (after all, Echelon is a fairly well known tool of the US government, so if you're going to attack us you don't use cell phones and faxes to coordinate it... duh).

However, as an accedemic question the disposition of such information would be interesting and troubling. The parallels to WWII England are rather obvious, but let's stay with the current example. Let's say that the NSA got wind of a an attempt like 9/11. Well, they'd probably only have some details, so let's say that they knew there would be a hijacking attempt during September and it might involve using the hijacked planes as weapons.

Clearly your first urge is to stop this terrible thing, but that would come at great cost... even if you see the planes deviating from their courses and heading toward Manhatten and D.C., simply shooting them down is a pretty big indicator that you knew exactly what was going to happen, which in turn lets your enemy (in what is sure to be a coming retaliatory strike) know that there is a leak in their organization... critical data indeed!

You could take action sooner and let airports know or station more guards at airports, but again it's a clear signal of what you know.

This is the scary, messy part of intellegence gathering. You have to be willing, going into the game, to accept that short-term knowledge that you gather may not be usable, even when failing to use it may mean you never sleep well again.

In World War II, there was a city that was bombed in England by the Germans. Churchill knew, and did nothing in order to preserve the secret that the allies had broken Enigma. In the end, this lead to (or at least contributed mightily to) the defeat of the Germans. If, say, Bush knew about what was going to happen in Manhatten... I don't think the information would have been used directly. If the NSA knew and didn't tell Bush, that's another story entirely, and I would classify that as treason pure and simple. A decision of that magnitude must be made by an elected official, not a political appointee.

Echelon and Issues of Trust

[Alien54]

Looking back over time, it is interesting to look at the history of electronic intelligence and survellience.

I seem to remember that when the US was the only one with surveillance satellites, countries like Ruissia got very very nervous and upset about it, claiming the violation of airspace, etc.

With the advent of the first Russian spy satellites, things got a lot easier. and dealing with the Russians was easier, because they could verify things with their own spy satellites. They didn't have to take the US word on things.

You didn't have a situation of someone saying "Trust Us"

I wonder if a similar situation will exist with other forms of surverlliance as they develop. Countries tend to get nervous when there are a lot of secrets involved, especially their own. While countries probably can justify secrets, I imagine that life will be easier when there is some sort of parity.

This would be especially interesting in seeing about the average citizen getting some parity with his/her/its government.

if you believe that

[gobelijn]

Well, I don't know what to think of this article. Actually, I do: I don't believe any of it.

I've somewhat followed the entire echelon story, and you quickly end up with a lot of speculation, conspiracy theories etc., which is of course exactly what THEY want :-)

Anyway, more reliable information can be found in the official reports of the european union, in their investigation of the echelon system. Look on google for Duncan Campbell and his first reports for the european parliament. Scary stuff, and definitely more trustworthy than some interview with the supposed creator of echelon, containing no evidence of anything whatsoever.

Here's a link to get you started:
http://www.europarl.eu.int/tempcom/echel on/prechel on_en.htm

Re:if you believe that

[guttentag]

I agree the story seems pretty sketchy... it has the pretentious tone of a 15-year-old's tale of his latest StarCraft conquest mixed with the ambiguity of fiction written for people who want to believe. And no, it doesn't tell us anything new.

On the other hand, The New York Times seems to confirm McIndoe knows something about Echelon (though it doesn't call him the architect): "...Mr. McIndoe, who previously helped develop the National Security Agency's Echelon II program and also founded a company that develops computer intelligence-gathering systems." That seems to me like a pretty major claim (in light of the insistence that Echelon doesn't exist) and the reporter should qualify the source of his info, but he doesn't.

The Washington Post ran one of its standard "check out this company" profiles on iJet, though it makes no mention of Echelon or McIndoe's intelligence background. It's still an interesting read.

Echelon == SkyNet????

[binaryDigit]

Think about it, it listens in on everything we say and type. I know it must be automatically programmed into the SAC/NORAD so it can automatically launch offsenives if it monitors a phone call or email warning of an impending attack. With all this "human", "unfiltered" knowledge going through it, it shouldn't be long before it becomes self aware and after listening to umpteen gazillion phone calls that are so incredibly mundane and banal, it realizes that humans are hardly worth the carbon they're based on, then decides to take over the planet.

Mirror...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a mirror site.

Echelon admitted by U.S. Senator

[dmccarty]

I'm kicking myself for not having written down the name of the station, the time and the Senator being interviewed, but I'll post from what I do remember.

The evening of Sept. 11 I was watching the news--ABC, probably--and some senator from such and such intelligence committee was on for a few minutes. The anchor was asking him about the plane crash in Pennsylvania, which we all knew very little about at the time.

The anchor said, "There are reports that some phone calls were made on mobile phones from the airplane shortly before it went down. Do you have any more information about this?"

Senator XYZ [matter-of-factly]: "Well there were several calls made and I can't comment on that right now, but we should't have any problem getting the recordings on those."

The anchor moved on to the next question without realizing the impact of what had just been said. But if that wasn't an admission of clandestine listening of routine telephone traffic in the U.S., I don't know what is.

The Real Consequence of Echelon

[donnacha]

Echelon is the largest contributor to the exasperation that Europe feels towards America. Essentially, Europe is happy to back the US line on everything as they, too, stand to gain from the promoting the fantasy of a free market that puts the rest of the world at a permanent disadvantage.

What stuns European leaders is the fact the US is just as enthusiastic about screwing them: using this incredibly sophisticated spy network, lavishly funded by the American people, to undermine European companies, all the while evangelistically talking up the idea of Free Markets.

And the kicker is that, in order not to rock the boat, the European leaders have to pretend they don't know that Echelon exists! So far only the Netherlands government has officially acknowledged what everyone already knows.

Here's an article describing the growing concerns of America's most important partner. The main problem is that the contradiction between the Free Market talk and actual actions such as Echelon threaten to stoke a widespread antipathy towards America.

BTW, I'm so tired of the way in which any post that in any way examines American foreign policy gets modded down. If we're discussing Echelon, of all things, we should be able to discuss it's real implications without feeling that someone is attacking the American Way of Life.

Echelon

[surfcow]

I wrote to my congressmen about Echelon, only one replied. He said that he was on a congressional committee charged with investigating Echelon which repeatedly questioned the military and has repeatedly been stonewalled, publically told that it does not exist. He was genuinely pissed about it. This is positive proof that parts of the military are no longer responsive to government. (I wonder what happens when all of it is unresponsive?)

The European Parliment is also upset about Echelon. Germany has strong evidence that german Echelon stations have been used for industrial espionage. I recall that Japan was upset when it was learned that their private calls between negotiators were being spied on during high-level trade-talks.

I have no doubt that the information yeilded from the system has been used for good purposes, like preventing terrorist attacks and such. It ihas also been misused. It is my opinion that you can not use fascist tactics in defense of democracy.

A good source of information on Echelon is the ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/echelonwatch/faq.html The ACLU even have a simple way to send your congressmen a fax about it. http://www.aclu.org/action/echelon107.html

Let them know. Use your vote or you may lose it.

=brian (a coward, but not an anonymous coward)