The Echelon Electronic Surveillance System
Echelon is the name popularly used to describe the system in which the intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand spy on each other's respective country's citizens. Echelon is the codename for the satellite interception part of the program, but no one really knows what the entire program is called, so I’ll just keep calling it Echelon.
History
These countries coordinate their activities according to the UKUSA agreement, which dates back to 1947. The Echelon system dates as far back as 1971. Its capabilities and priorities have expanded exponentially since then. Reports suggest that the system is currently capable of intercepting about 90% of the data sent through the internet, along with phone calls, satellite transmissions, etc.
How does Echelon intercept information?
Echelon intercepts communications through several ground based radio stations in the echelon countries. Some believe that echelon even has its own satellites, used to catch “spillover” data transmissions and relay information to echelon processing centers. It is believed that these centers are in the United States (near Denver), England (Menwith Hill), Australia, and Germany. They also have “sniffer” hardware/software in key internet relay stations, which is how they catch 90% of our emails and porn. It also uses its own search program to scan websites for useful data (listen up 007; this is called google...) In 1982 it was reported that a tapping device (supposedly belonging to echelon) was discovered on the trans-Atlantic fiber optic lines. They most likely have more trans-Atlantic fiber taps yet undiscovered.
That’s a lot of data! How do they find whatever they are looking for?
Although no one really quite knows what echelon wants to know, we do have a general idea of how they find it. They use a program called DICTONARY. DICTONARY is a program which cross references certain keywords to narrow down the data. They then use more advanced AI routines to find whatever they are looking for. Due to legal barriers (think: Constitution) it is illegal for a government to spy on its citizens. The national branches of Echelon spies on other nations, then share the data. Example: USA spies on Canadian citizens, Canada spies on US citizens. Then the USA and Canada swap information, therefore getting information on its own citizens. So even though they can’t legally spy on you, they can, and most likely are.
Existence of Echelon
The US government refuses to confirm the existence of the echelon system, even though the entire program is headed by America’s NSA. Australia’s and New Zealand’s spy agencies have both admitted to the existence of the Echelon system, but claim it is used for the interests of national security only. The European parliament published a report in late 2001 in which it came to the conclusion that the echelon system existed. They noted that there is a number of satellite bases capable of intercepting civilian communications which are all run by the military. You are not entitled to visit them, which you would be if they were normal communications bases. That operatives and staff from different countries are also stationed at each station is a little weird too. Another clue is that many have normal satellite bases located very close to them - why would you need two stations for one satellite? Testimony of several former intelligence employees and reporters also convinced the European parliament of the existence of echelon.
Protecting yourself from Echelon
Because echelon monitors almost all internet, telephone and fax communications, plaintext is not safe. The only way to protect your communications from being read by the unfriendly folks at the NSA and co is to use unbreakable encryption. A great tool for this is PGP. PGP stands for pretty good privacy. Not only is it pretty good, it’s the best. No computer can crack PGP encrypted data, not in anyone’s lifetime anyway. It’s also free. If it’s October 21st and you want to do something besides encrypt all your communications, you can participate in Jam Echelon Day.
sources: The Register (www.theregister.co.uk), Echelon Watch (http://www.echelonwatch.org/), Jam Echelon Day (http://www.cipherwar.com/echelon/)