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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.
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.
Did you know that they can track the location of a mobile phone even if it is turned off, as long as there is some charge left in the battery?
I just read "Killing Pablo", about the hunt for Pablo Escobar, which says that Pablo stopped using his mobile phone because he knew it could be tracked. The book mentions how it was possible to turn it on at night when Pablo was asleep, so it's location could be tracked.
So if you find your mobile suddenly turning itself on in the middle of the night, it's time to get paranoid...
To me, if they were tracking him, that tells that they knew where he was. So, why didn't they just use the tracking from Echelon to capture Mohammed, instead of paying out 27 million to someone else also?
To quote Bill Maher:
Khalid Sheikh Sheikh Sheikh, Sheikh Sheikh Sheikh, Sheikh Mohammed!
Ah am not a crook! (\(-__-)/)
This guy is a fair and legitimate target for electronic surveilance. He's a know leader of a network of individuals who are dedicated to causing harm to untold millions of people whose biggest crime is living in a country whose ideals he disagrees with. If Echelon is used fairly and honestly in these types of situations, then I will not complain one bit about the extraordinary secrecy of its network.
-Shadow
Looks like mr Mohammed wasn't wearing his tinfoil hat...
Considering This and This, He may already be dead.
I find the entire thing suspect personally.
You say you want a revolution....
$25M and a legal visa... terrorism seems to pay well.
If they stuck with the sticks and clubs, no one would be after them. Running a camel into the WTC would not have caused much damage.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
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.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
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.
Something I've always wondered...
Quite a few years ago, there was a spate of embarrassing phone calls by members of the Royal family that found there way into the press. The phone calls were "acidentally" overhead and taped by amateur radio enthusiasts. There was reported evidence that the phone calls had actually been played repeatedly near the homes of these amateur radio enthusiasts - presumably as a way of leaking the calls without it being traceable back to the leakers.
What has never been explained (or at least I've never come across any explanation in the mainstream press) is who did or might have done this, and why.
In a similar vein, it was never explained how Colin Powell had a transcript of Bin Laden's last taped message, before the al-Jazeera station even had the tape. To me that means either:
1) It was a fabrication or
2) They know where Bin Laden is.
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.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
If they "had been tracking him for some time", I wonder why they waiting so long to do anything. I suspect that the human intelligence had more to do with it than the alleged use of Echelon. The last person I would believe is some anonymous, talking-head Echelon apologist. I think there is some FUD involved. Exactly how do you provide oversight over a project like Echelon? I think that the system is probably used more to spy on people whose whereabouts are known than to track down some people in some sort of Hollywood "Bourne Identity" drama. If Echelon was designed to be a lost-and-found device that actually found Mohammed, I think you would hear a lot more chest-thumping from the intelligence community. The rest of the article is the real story. The NSA/CIA/EIEIO paid off some guy who sold his boss down the river.
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.
Ah am not a crook! (\(-__-)/)
Trying to protect your ass by continuously 'inspecting' it is not was most people want....
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
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.
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
...any tool can be a weapon, if you just hold it right.
It seems that a lot of people are saying that it's good that the terrorist was caught, but that the goverment should be able to spy like that on us? Shouldn't the government be able to spy on terrorists? If you have dealings with a terrorist (either on purpose or by mistake) you can get caught by a LOT of other means, and then you'll have a bunch of things to explain.
Some weeks ago, the store that my parents own was robbed. They put a gun to my father and mother. They even put a gun to my 4 year old sister. Luckily no one was hurt. They also stole my father's cell phone, and even answered when we called. Do you think that I would be happy to be "tracked" by my phone's location, just so those assholes could have been caught? I sure will.
please excuse my apathy
"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.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."