Post by Watchman on Dec 30, 2005 20:52:13 GMT -5
NEWS BRIEF: "Worldwide Conversations Being Received By Echelon System May Fall Into Wrong Hands and Innocent People May Be Tagged As Spies", 60 MINUTES Transcript, Television Broadcast February 27, 2000
"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency and four English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The mission is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world ... How does it work, and what happens to all the information that's gathered? A lot of people have begun to ask that question, and some suspect that the information is being used for more than just catching bad guys."
NOTE: From now on in this segment, the conversation occurs between the moderator, Kroft, and Mr. MIKE FROST (Former Spy)!
KROFT: (Voiceover) We can't see them, but the air around us is filled with invisible electronic signals, everything from cell phone conversations to fax transmissions to ATM transfers. What most people don't realize is that virtually every signal radiated across the electromagnetic spectrum is being collected and analyzed. How much of the world is covered by them?
Mr. MIKE FROST (Former Spy): The entire world, the whole planet--covers everything. Echelon covers everything that's radiated worldwide at any given instant.
KROFT: Every square inch is covered.
Mr. FROST: Every square inch is covered.
KROFT: (Voiceover) Mike Frost spent 20 years as a spy for the CSE, the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, and he is the only high-ranking former intelligence agent to speak publicly about the Echelon program. Frost even showed us one of the installations where he says operators can listen in to just about anything.
Mr. FROST: Everything from--from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs......
KROFT: (Voiceover) Inside each globe are huge dishes which intercept and download satellite communications from around the world. The information is then sent on to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, where acres of supercomputers scan millions of transmissions word by word, looking for key phrases and, some say, specific voices that may be of major significance.
Mr. FROST: Everything is looked at. The entire take is looked at. And the computer sorts out what it is told to sort out, be it, say, by key words such as 'bomb' or 'terrorist' or 'blow up,' to telephone numbers -- or a person's name. And people are getting caught, and that's great ....
KROFT: (Voiceover) ... Is it possible for people like you and I, innocent civilians, to be targeted by Echelon?
Mr. FROST: Not only possible, not only probable, but factual. While I was at CSE, a classic example: A lady had been to a school play the night before, and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a lousy job. Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she said to her friend something like this, 'Oh, Danny really bombed last night,' just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation was referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and her phone number in the database as a possible terrorist.
KROFT: This is not urban legend you're talking about. This actually happened?
Mr. FROST: Factual. Absolutely fact. No legend here.
KROFT: (Voiceover) Back in the 1970s, the NSA was caught red-handed spying on anti-war protesters like Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock, and it turns out they had been recording the conversations of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King in the 1960s. When Congress found out, it drafted strict, new laws prohibiting the NSA from spying on Americans, but today, there's enough renewed concern about potential abuses that Congress is revisiting the issue."
Can you imagine that a completely innocent lady is now listed in a database as a terrorist because she innocently used the word, "bombed" in a conversation the day after her son performed badly in a school play? This lady may have trouble one day flying on a commercial airliner or getting credit, especially as controls are tightened as we move into the New World Order.
On the Cutting Edge Daily News Updates for November 23, 2001, we had posted an article reporting that Europeans were outraged over revelations of the capabilities of this system and of the key people being targeted.
NEWS BRIEF: "Europeans Enraged Over Echelon Orbital Surveillance", Rense.com, By Alex Canizares, Special to SPACE.com, 11-21-2001
"WASHINGTON (States News Service) - Fearing that governments are misusing a global surveillance system to eavesdrop on millions of people, Europeans are protesting a massive Cold War security network known as Echelon. The government-operated security system -- meant to target terrorists, drug-traffickers and money-launderers by intercepting communications between satellites and ground stations -- is now drawing protests by activist groups .... Shrouded in secrecy, Echelon is said to be able to scan millions of phone conversations, e-mails, faxes and pages a day, searching for particular words or phrases ... "
"The European Parliament, which held hearings on Echelon, is claiming that the United States and Britain already are spying on European companies and sharing corporate details with companies in their own countries ... The frenzy reached a crescendo last week when British newspapers reported that both Britain and the United States have eavesdropped on the late Princess Diana, as well as Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. While none of the allegations have been proven, experts say the ability for ground-based stations to scan satellite communications for key words is very real."
From now on, innocent, law-abiding citizens are going to have to be most careful in what they say, lest they be listed in the government's database as a "terrorist". And, the most unbelievable thing in all this is that this entire effort at intrusion into our private affairs is being justified by the attacks of 9/11 -- attacks which have been proven to any reasonable person as having been "Agent Provocateur" operation, i.e., action carried out by government operatives in order to blame someone else so a government goal can be realized.
"If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency and four English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The mission is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world ... How does it work, and what happens to all the information that's gathered? A lot of people have begun to ask that question, and some suspect that the information is being used for more than just catching bad guys."
NOTE: From now on in this segment, the conversation occurs between the moderator, Kroft, and Mr. MIKE FROST (Former Spy)!
KROFT: (Voiceover) We can't see them, but the air around us is filled with invisible electronic signals, everything from cell phone conversations to fax transmissions to ATM transfers. What most people don't realize is that virtually every signal radiated across the electromagnetic spectrum is being collected and analyzed. How much of the world is covered by them?
Mr. MIKE FROST (Former Spy): The entire world, the whole planet--covers everything. Echelon covers everything that's radiated worldwide at any given instant.
KROFT: Every square inch is covered.
Mr. FROST: Every square inch is covered.
KROFT: (Voiceover) Mike Frost spent 20 years as a spy for the CSE, the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, and he is the only high-ranking former intelligence agent to speak publicly about the Echelon program. Frost even showed us one of the installations where he says operators can listen in to just about anything.
Mr. FROST: Everything from--from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs......
KROFT: (Voiceover) Inside each globe are huge dishes which intercept and download satellite communications from around the world. The information is then sent on to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, where acres of supercomputers scan millions of transmissions word by word, looking for key phrases and, some say, specific voices that may be of major significance.
Mr. FROST: Everything is looked at. The entire take is looked at. And the computer sorts out what it is told to sort out, be it, say, by key words such as 'bomb' or 'terrorist' or 'blow up,' to telephone numbers -- or a person's name. And people are getting caught, and that's great ....
KROFT: (Voiceover) ... Is it possible for people like you and I, innocent civilians, to be targeted by Echelon?
Mr. FROST: Not only possible, not only probable, but factual. While I was at CSE, a classic example: A lady had been to a school play the night before, and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a lousy job. Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she said to her friend something like this, 'Oh, Danny really bombed last night,' just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation was referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and her phone number in the database as a possible terrorist.
KROFT: This is not urban legend you're talking about. This actually happened?
Mr. FROST: Factual. Absolutely fact. No legend here.
KROFT: (Voiceover) Back in the 1970s, the NSA was caught red-handed spying on anti-war protesters like Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock, and it turns out they had been recording the conversations of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King in the 1960s. When Congress found out, it drafted strict, new laws prohibiting the NSA from spying on Americans, but today, there's enough renewed concern about potential abuses that Congress is revisiting the issue."
Can you imagine that a completely innocent lady is now listed in a database as a terrorist because she innocently used the word, "bombed" in a conversation the day after her son performed badly in a school play? This lady may have trouble one day flying on a commercial airliner or getting credit, especially as controls are tightened as we move into the New World Order.
On the Cutting Edge Daily News Updates for November 23, 2001, we had posted an article reporting that Europeans were outraged over revelations of the capabilities of this system and of the key people being targeted.
NEWS BRIEF: "Europeans Enraged Over Echelon Orbital Surveillance", Rense.com, By Alex Canizares, Special to SPACE.com, 11-21-2001
"WASHINGTON (States News Service) - Fearing that governments are misusing a global surveillance system to eavesdrop on millions of people, Europeans are protesting a massive Cold War security network known as Echelon. The government-operated security system -- meant to target terrorists, drug-traffickers and money-launderers by intercepting communications between satellites and ground stations -- is now drawing protests by activist groups .... Shrouded in secrecy, Echelon is said to be able to scan millions of phone conversations, e-mails, faxes and pages a day, searching for particular words or phrases ... "
"The European Parliament, which held hearings on Echelon, is claiming that the United States and Britain already are spying on European companies and sharing corporate details with companies in their own countries ... The frenzy reached a crescendo last week when British newspapers reported that both Britain and the United States have eavesdropped on the late Princess Diana, as well as Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. While none of the allegations have been proven, experts say the ability for ground-based stations to scan satellite communications for key words is very real."
From now on, innocent, law-abiding citizens are going to have to be most careful in what they say, lest they be listed in the government's database as a "terrorist". And, the most unbelievable thing in all this is that this entire effort at intrusion into our private affairs is being justified by the attacks of 9/11 -- attacks which have been proven to any reasonable person as having been "Agent Provocateur" operation, i.e., action carried out by government operatives in order to blame someone else so a government goal can be realized.