Article about the Echelon system, which monitors worldwide communications

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http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1078614610093&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

<Every day, billions of telephone calls, e-mails, faxes, radio transmissions, even Internet downloads are captured by orbiting satellites monitoring signals on Earth, then processed by high-powered computers. A minute percentage of the traffic is "tagged" for transcription, translation if necessary, and analysis>

<The high-tech Echelon system is operated by five nations known as the UKUSA alliance: the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. >

<Though Echelon is by far the biggest monitoring network in the world, other nations have their own satellite-based listening systems. Russia, China, France, Israel, India and Pakistan all use "sigint" as a major source of intelligence.>

<"The terrorist act gave the CSE new powers. It now has carte blanche to intercept in Canada.">

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

1. Glad to see it getting some coverage

I was really hoping that the various UN spying claims (Kofi, weapons inspectors & security council members) would give some balls to the press over Echolon -- but no! The Australian journalist who broke the story on Blix being bugged said that the intelligence was shared between US,UK,NZ,Can & Aus which would surely indicate Echelon at work!

There's a book on Echelon from a few years back which is all but impossible to get hold of here & I would assume Stateside too. It's called "Secret Power - New Zealand's role in an intenational spying network" (or something v. similar). The author managed to get a heck of a lot of info via the NZ link in the chain & by all accounts the book is excellent (but sadly 'privished'!).

[CaptainClark23]

2. It doesn't exist!

That is to say that, to date, the US Federal Government has yet to acknowledge the existence of ECHELON.

Australia and New Zealand (to my knowledge) did so long ago.