These press releases come out with the intended interpretation being that this type of "surveillence" is new, and hasn't already been happening.

Well, it has.

One word.

Echelon. NSA's favorite sattelite and telemetry bird. Not to mention the wide network of sattelites known as "MILSTAR", which have been reported to have been used for domestic surveillance on more then one occasion. Also, there are number of other satelites out there, some possesing technologies such as syntel (synthetic telepathy), biological process control (applied from space!!), and a very sophisticated energy transduction system and closed circuit video that can literally "see" through walls and structures.

Venue: Any search Engine
Keywords: "Echelon; Locust; Lacrosse; satellite" "Milstar" "Onyx Radar" "Improved Crystal" "Key Hole"

It has been prophecized that they will slowly release the truth, bit by bit at a time. I am not suprised to see the manifestation of such.

More reference:

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ECHELON

facts and legend about the global surveillance network

The European Union has recently risen the issue of privacy in communications.
Earlier, in May, European Parliament members investigating a suspected U.S.-led global electronic eavesdropping system had abruptly cut short their fact-finding mission to Washington. They were in town to meet with various officials about reported U.S. spying on the European Echelon surveillance network for the benefit of U.S. companies, but left in protest over the Bush administration's apparent unwillingness to meet with them.

Carlos Coelho of Portugal, chairman of a temporary committee investigating the issue, said his team was "concerned and dismayed" that scheduled meetings at the U.S. State and Commerce departments "were canceled at the last minute without a satisfactory explanation." He also said the committee was "very disappointed' that the CIA and National Security Agency refused to meet with it "in spite of the advanced preparations that had been made.

Apart from the allegations, how would that be possible ? Of course most of this type of technology is classified, but needless to say on the Web several hypothesis circulate. This article reviews some of the most popular online.

Imagine a global eavesdropping network capable of intercepting most of the world's telephone calls, faxes and emails, making them available for computer search (eg by keywords) by agencies of the five member UKUSA intelligence alliance. This is what (probably) is Echelon, the supersecret organization created in the 1947 by the secret UKUSA agreement.

It is however very hard to separate the facts from the legend, both because the project is secret and because several fantastic rumors circulate - mostly on the interet - about it.

ECHELON is the term popularly used for an automated global interception and relay system operated by the intelligence agencies in five nations: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (it is believed that ECHELON is the code name for the portion of the system that intercepts satellite-based communications).

While the United States National Security Agency (NSA) takes the lead, ECHELON works in conjunction with other intelligence agencies, including the Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD). It is believed that ECHELON also works with Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the agencies of other allies of the United States, pursuant to various treaties.

According to reports, ECHELON attempts to capture staggering volumes of satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic traffic, including communications to and from North America. This vast quantity of voice and data communications are then processed through sophisticated filtering technologies.

These countries coordinate their activities pursuant to the UKUSA agreement, which dates back to 1947. The original ECHELON dates back to 1971. However, its capabilities and priorities have expanded greatly since its formation.

About its workings, there are only speculations.
It apparently collects data in several ways.
Two steps are crucial: capture of raw data and filtering of data in search of relevant information. See boxes on left column.

According to reports, it is capable of intercepting and processing many types of transmissions, throughout the globe. In fact, it has been suggested that ECHELON may intercept as many as 3 billion communications everyday, including phone calls, e-mail messages, Internet downloads, satellite transmissions, and so on.

The ECHELON system gathers all of these transmissions indiscriminately, then distills the information that is most heavily desired through artificial intelligence programs. Some sources have claimed that ECHELON sifts through an estimated 90 percent of all traffic that flows through the Internet.

The U.S. Intelligence Community
by Jeffrey T. Richelson

or go to the actual page here

definitive and lucid

P.S. Echelon will pick up this particular HTML page as there are numerous "red flags" terms.

[Edited 8 times, lastly by Alpha-Theta on 05-30-2002]

Dear FLKook, here is one of the news stories about John P. O'Neill, an FBI agent who was thwarted by OUR GOVERNMENT in his dogged pursuit of OBL. "New York FBI counter-terrorism chief John O'Neill quit his job in protest of Bush's obstructionism, only to die in his new job as chief of security at the WTC, probably the only man to die that day that understood the context of his death." He was the Man Who Knew Too Much.

The rest of the story:

The Man Who Knew Too Much - Who Killed John O'Neill?
From Jerry Politex
politex@bushwatch.com
© The Daily Brew Bushwatch.com
1-9-2

quote:

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If you believe the media, John P. O'Neill was simply another innocent victim killed in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. But you don't need much imagination to suspect something deeper was at work.

Clearly, O'Neill was a man Osama bin Laden wanted dead. O'Neill had been a Deputy Director of the FBI, and Osama bin Laden's main pursuer in the US government. O'Neill had investigated the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, a US base in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam in 1998, and the USS Cole last year.

But once the first plane hit the North Tower, Osama bin Laden wouldn't be the only man to profit from O'Neill's death. At the moment of impact, O'Neill became the man who knew too much.

Just two weeks, TWO WEEKS, prior to the attack, O'Neill had left his job with the FBI. O'Neill had quit because he believed that the Bush administration had stymied the intelligence agency's investigations on terrorism. O'Neill charged that it had done so even as it bargained with the Taliban on handing over of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. In the ultimate irony, O'Neill had gone public with these charges at the same time that he was leaving the FBI to become the head of security at the World Trade Center.

"The main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it," O'Neill reportedly told the authors of an explosive new book, Hidden Truth, by intelligence analysts Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Brisard met O'Neill several times last summer and reports that O'Neill complained bitterly that the US State Department - and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's entourage - blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt.

Released just last November, Brisard and Dasquie's book was mostly ignored by the US media. But it is beginning to cause a stir. Just two days ago, the story aired for the first time on US television when CNN's Paula Zahn interviewed former Iraqi chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Bulter. "The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan" Butler said.

Maybe part of the reason Paula left Faux news is because she knew her right wing bosses would never let her run a story like this one. But what Paula didn't explore, or even mention, was that O'Neill was not alive to confirm or refute those charges. What CNN didn't find interesting was the fact that John P. O'Neill was in his 34th-floor office in the World Trade Tower when the first of two hijacked planes hit the building, or that he phoned a son and a friend to reassure them he was fine.

What the US media have apparently found less interesting than the death of Clinton's dog is that we have only the government's version of what happened next. O'Neill is reported to have called FBI headquarters, and then re-entered one of the towers to help others. The official story is that O'Neill was inside when the buildings collapsed.

How convenient for the Bush administration that Mr. O'Neill would not only die in the attack, but also that he would make such a call. Not only was the Bush administration's most dangerous critic forever silenced, but he also provided the administration the perfect story to explain his death.

Can you imagine how the events of the past four months would have differed had John P. O'Neill, former Deputy Director of the FBI and head of security at the World Trade Tower at the time of the attacks, had been alive to tell this story?

Can you imagine the uproar this story would be causing if Bill Clinton were still president?

As things stand, only time will tell if O'Neill's story is investigated by the US press that found Monica Lewinsky worthy of two years of our lives. Certainly, the authors who have reported it are credible. Till the late 1990s, Brisard was the director of economic analysis and strategy for Vivendi, the giant French conglomerate that owns Universal Studios and effective control of USA Networks. He also worked for French secret services (DST), and wrote for them in 1997 a report on the now famous Al Qaeda network, headed by bin Laden. Dasquie is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence Online, a respected newsletter on diplomacy, economic analysis and strategy. And Richard Bulter, who put the story in play on the US cable networks, is hardly an excitable conspiracy nut.

Perhaps the CIA will investigate. But I wouldn't expect much from them. After all, they were apparently unable to penetrate the same Al Qaeda network that welcomed in John Walker, a confused 20 year old kid from California, who is reported to have met bin Laden himself.

Note: See also, a reprint of a recent Bush Watch letter, directly below.
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TODAY'S LETTER AT BUSH WATCH

There's really only one thing that needs to be known about the culpability for 9/11 - during the Clinton administration, no requests for a FISA warrant were denied. (Foreign Intelligence Security Act) Under the Bush administration, previous to 9/11, all such requests were denied, because the Bush administration shut down all intelligence inquiries that would expose Saudi complicity with terrorism. The Minneapolis FBI office, with its 20th hijacker in custody since August, asked for a FISA warrant and was denied. New York FBI counter-terrorism chief John O'Neill quit his job in protest of Bush's obstructionism, only to die in his new job as chief of security at the WTC, probably the only man to die that day that understood the context of his death.... --Kent Southard

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http://www.rense.com/general18/neil.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/05/30/congress.guidelines/index.html

Top Democrat slams DOJ terror guidelines

From Kate Snow
CNN Washington Bureau

quote:

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WASHINGTON (CNN) --Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, issued a scathing statement Thursday in response to new Justice Department guidelines on terrorism investigations.

"The administration's continued defiance of constitutional safeguards seems to have no end in sight," Conyers said in a written statement. "This decision decimates the Fourth Amendment."

Conyers went on to criticize the Justice Department's handling of information related to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"The Justice Department is intent on another power grab when it has become clear that a lack of competence -- not law enforcement authorities-- prevented the administration from connecting the dots before September 11," he said.

Conyers, a longtime proponent of civil rights causes, said the Bush administration should "immediately halt any efforts to unilaterally expand surveillance authority" and that Congress should be consulted "before implementing further intrusions on our civil liberties."

The Democrat from Michigan called the changes made by Attorney General John Ashcroft a "step backwards for civil liberties in this country."

"Threatening the private practice of religion constitutes a war on freedom, not a war on terror," Conyers said in conclusion.

He took direct aim at Ashcroft in saying: "I hope it is clear to all that taking it upon himself to institute new rules to wiretap religious organizations, including places of worship, the attorney general will do little to help us battle terrorism. Instead, it will simply further alienate the American-Muslim community, a crucial ally in our efforts."

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