Echelon Used to Capture Terrorist

An anonymous reader writes "Echelon was used to track and capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed." Ahh, bitter sweet victories. The article kind of explains what Echelon is, and pretty much says that those disposable phones really don't have much security at all.

Comments

So, is Echelon good now?

[rearl]

I wasn't even aware that it was acknowledged as existing by most countries, and now the UK is talking about it openly?

I'm still undecided about good vs. evil on Echelon.

Re:So, is Echelon good now?

[gmuslera]

Well, if arsenic is used to kill a killer, is good?

Tools not have moral, only the ones that use them. But give a tool like that to someone paranoic and it will be bad, very bad.

Re:So, is Echelon good now?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Everybody tries to monitor as many communications as possible. We know how the anglo- types do it. We don't know how the han- and slav- types do it. That doesn't mean the anglos are any worse than anyone else, necessarily. The question, simply, is whether it serves the purposes outlined in the US constitution. If so, it's perfectly acceptable to me. If that shit ever gets used to monitor someone that is neither a foreign spy nor a foreign soldier, we'll have every reason to go nuts.

Re:So, is Echelon good now?

[mangu]

However, there are some tools (nukes, Echelon?) that stretch this limit

Echelon, maybe, but not nukes. Nuclear weapons have been used for good for the last 58 years. Or do you think such a potentially unstable situation as the cold war would have lasted long without mutual assured destruction?

If nukes didnt exist, we would continue to have a major war in Europe every few decades, as we had in the last couple of millennia. Nuclear weapons held the balance long enough for the European Union to be created and the Soviet Union to disappear. Considering the amount of destruction and suffering they avoided, few tools can be considered as "moral" as nuclear weapons.

Re:So, is Echelon good now?

[Mr.Happy3050]

I'm not saying that nukes are evil. I merely stated that tools are not inherently good or bad. I did give nukes as an example that "stretched" this line of thinking. MAD worked. But, the primary purpose of nuclear weapons was to destroy, that is why they stetched the line of thinking. Also, you state that the creation of the EU was a good thing. This is debatable. Nation-States giving up parts of their soverignty so Chirac can belittle/bully them later, in my eyes, not completely a good thing.

Don't believe everything you read

[tkrotchko]

Just because it on the internet doesn't make it so.

Just because a government spokesman says it doesn't make it so.

If your mother tells you that the stork brought you, it doesn't make it so.

Always remain skeptical and ask yourself why they want everyone to have this information.

Re:Don't believe everything you read

[tkrotchko]

I usually hate typos myself, but every time I spent 20 minutes crafting a post here, I suspect no one reads it. So I put together a 60 second note, re-read it and it has typos. Like this one will, but hey.

My intention was just to point out that authorities may oversell what they have for a whole variety of reasons... they may want more funding from congress...they may want the enemy to feel insecure and stop using all electronic communications. They may just be boasting.

But think of Enigma during WWII. US & GB really could read all the intercepts from Germany & Japan. But they didn't tell anybody; in fact they went out of their way to make sure the Axis powers didn't suspect (check out Cryptonomicon by Stephenson for a fictional account). Now all of the sudden they're telling everybody that not only they know what the enemy is saying, but where they're located? But then they pay informants anyway?

Seems hard to believe on the surface.

Not Echelon. COLD, HARD CASH.

[MightyTribble]

It seems it was a tip-off, not Echelon, that ultimately led to Mohammed's capture. Read the article, and you'll see that some lucky Al-Quayda grunt turned coat and pocketed a cool $25 million dollars.

It's in the US's interests to hype Echelon ("Woooo! We can seeeeeee you!") rather than admit they really got their man through good old fashioned bribery and traitors. Sure, Exchelon helped once they KNEW THE GUY'S STREET ADDRESS. But it was pretty much useless until they were told where to look.

Still, good catch. Here's hoping there's another footsoldier of god out there who'll take $25mil in small bills in exchange for Osama's current location.

Re:Not Echelon. COLD, HARD CASH.

[glesga_kiss]

The suicide bombers don't do it for the money. Most of them have lost familly to whoever they are attacking, and they feel it is the last resort to stike back. Of course, our propaganda makes them look like raving religious zealots, when in fact they are just very pissed off people.

It doesn't excuse what they do, but it doesn't help the problem by the media lying about their motives.

Our media presents a very disgraceful bias on these affairs. May I recommend that you take a look at this article, which is an analysis of the fairness of the media reporting.

It is a new world we live in

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I remember when stories like this were science fiction fodder.

People, we live in a new world. The same technology that allows us to expose the dirty laundry inside of corrupt organizations can also be used to expose and dirty laundry in your hamper.

The rules of the game have changed. You can no longer sit back and wonder if someone can see what you are doing, good or bad. They either can observe your actions directly, or they can retrieve the records to reconstruct the event. Political parties now have databases of everything someone has said in public, and can quickly cross reference even the most obscure quote. Sportscaster have massive databases of player statistics and can call up on a whim every dropped ball or missed catch.

What begs the question in my mind, is what are the rules of courtesy? When do you draw the line between what can be retrieved and what should be retreived. Too many people assume that just because you can do something you are compelled to do it. That is a fallicy that was first recognized by the greeks.

Re:It is a new world we live in

[Moofie]

Hey, as long as I can monitor the cell phone conversations of the top FBI brass, the Legislature, the intelligence community, that's just fine. If we're going to have a transparent society, that's groovy baby.

But we're not. The people making these decisions want THEIR privacy, they just find MINE inconvenient.

Re:Hate the tech, love the results

[Alcohol Fueled]

Think of it this way. Would you want the government to be pulling something like this on innocent little grandma, or a terrorist who can be a serious threat to people's safety? If he really is the mastermind of September 11th, I'm glad they caught him, no matter how they did it. Remember, even if the government is fucked up and Bush is a moron, they're still trying to protect your ass.

Re:Hate the tech, love the results

[pe1rxq]

Trying to protect your ass by continuously 'inspecting' it is not was most people want....

Jeroen

Re:If Echelon is that good...

[mithras the prophet]

Because (legally, anyway) Echelon can't be used to intercept purely domestic conversations. And the evidence suggests that the anthrax killer is an American, not an international terrorist.

Also, the anthrax killer is probably just one guy, working alone. He probably isn't making cell phone calls to his network of financiers and associates.

In the words of Ani DiFranco...

[rfischer]

...any tool can be a weapon, if you just hold it right.

Re:We can quibble,

[Loki_1929]

"All I know is if I hear one word from the ACLU about this guy's civil liberties or privacy being violated, I'm going to start hoping they turn into cactus fertilizer."

So long as the Geneva convention and international treaties are followed, you'll not hear a word from the ACLU. I doubt you'd hear much anyway, so long as he's not an American citizen.

The ACLU is an organization dedicated to the defense of the United States Constitution. In effect, they do nothing more than live by the oath that every President swears to. If you have a problem with the defense of the US Constitution, then perhaps another nation (such as China) would be more to your liking.

Now, I've heard plenty of junk blasting the ACLU as a bunch of liberal hippies, but when they're willing to stand up and defend the rights of those such as the KKK, I think it pretty much blows that argument out of the water.

What you say and what you believe may go against every principle and belief that the members of the ACLU stand for, but we will stand up next to you and fight to ensure that you have the right to express those beliefs. I think it's great that we have an organization in this country willing to stand up for the people no one else will, because I believe, as our forefathers did, that when the rights of one are violated, the rights of all are endangered.