Echelon 'Confirmation': Not

[Brian Basgen <brian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  A retort to the BBC article, in classic form.

Echelon 'Confirmation': Not
=====================
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,32302,00.html
November 3, 1999


Spy and security experts yawned at reported comments by an Australian
intelligence official that Project Echelon -- the name of a purported
international surveillance network -- exists.


But the statements by Australia's inspector general of intelligence,
Bill Blick, did fuel one US congressman's call for his government to
investigate the possible existence of the secret project.

"If these reports are accurate, the sheer power and potential for
abuse created by Project Echelon demands congressional attention,"
Representative Bob Barr (R-Georgia) said in a statement released by
his office early Wednesday.

Blick was quoted in a story published Tuesday by the British
Broadcasting Corporation and headlined "Global Spy Network Revealed"
as confirming the existence of a coordinated spy network.


The Americans and British have consistently denied that anything
called Echelon exists.

"As you would expect there are a large amount of radio communications
floating around in the atmosphere, and agencies such as the
[Defense Signals Directorate] collect those communications in
the interests of their national security," Blick told the BBC.

Blick said the DSD forms part of the Echelon network. Asked if
information is then passed on to the United States or Britain, Blick
said that "in certain circumstances" it was.


Others were not so impressed with the implications of Blick's quotes.

"That doesn't tell me anything I didn't know five years ago," said
Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists
Project on Government Secrecy. "What he is saying is that
intelligence agencies do 'signals intelligence' -- they intercept and
analyze communications and other signals. And secondly, [Blick
said that] Australia cooperates with its allies in intelligence
matters.

"Neither of those points is either new or shocking," Aftergood said.

Ditto for Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore.

"In this article, what's being quoted is already known -- that the
Australians have a Defense Signals Directorate that listens to
signals and that they might be passed onto other countries," Gilmore
said.

Similar reports came out of Australia a year ago that also suggested
such a network exists, he said.

"It doesn't look to me like news. The news is that the BBC is talking
about it."

_________________

"It is not enough to preach democracy, not enough to proclaim it and
decree it, not enough to entrust the people's "representatives" in
representative institutions with its implementation. Democracy must
be built at once, from below, through the initiative of the masses
themselves, through their effective participation in all fields of
state activity, without "supervision" from above, without the
bureaucracy."

Vladimir Lenin, Congress of Peasants Deputies
  http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/16.htm