"Echelon is perhaps the most powerful intelligence gathering organization in the world. Reports suggest that this network is being used to spy on private citizens everywhere, including on the Internet. This site is designed to encourage public discussion of this potential threat to civil liberties, and to urge the governments of the world to protect our rights." With those sober words, the American Civil Liberties Union has launched www.echelonwatch.org to "shed light" on what it calls this "black box which operates without the oversight of Congress or the courts."
Echelon - said to be led by the U.S. National Security Agency, with its counterparts in England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - became an international issue, the ACLU says in a press release, when the European Parliament received two reports detailing its operations and after Australia's government confirmed its participation in the operation. The report charged Echelon was used in the U.K. to spy on such groups as Amnesty International and Christian Aid.
"Echelon," the ACLU says, "reportedly attempts to capture all satellite, microwave, cellular, and fiber-optic communications worldwide, including communications to and from North America." From there, computers filter through conversations, faxes, and e-mails, searching for keywords or other flags, the ACLU says, with communications including the flags sent on to intelligence agencies which ask for them.
"(This) can no longer be dismissed as an X-Files fantasy," says ACLU associate director Barry Steinhardt. "The reports…make it quite clear that Echelon exists and that its operation raises profound civil liberties issues."
The ACLU says the NSA won't share the legal guidelines for the project with Congress or with the American public, prompting passage of a bill requiring intelligence agencies to prepare a report on legal standards for monitoring communications. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee is said to be planning hearing within the next few months on Echelon.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Omega Foundation of Great Britain are participating in the ACLU's Echelon Web site.
