From: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: Congress to Get Echelon Briefing Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 11:10:30 -0600 To: believer@telepath.com Source: Wired http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/15864.html Spying on the Spies by Niall McKay 12:55 p.m.27.Oct.98.PST A Washington DC civil liberties organization will send a detailed report on the National Security Agency's top-secret spying network to members of Congress later this week. The report, Echelon: America's Spy in the Sky, details the known history and workings of the agency's global electronic surveillance system. The system is reportedly able to intercept, record, and translate any electronic communication -- such as telephone, data, cellular, fax, email, telex -- sent throughout the world. "There is a real and present threat to the security of the US from its enemies," said Patrick Poole, author of the report and deputy director of the Free Congress Foundation. "But there needs to be some democratic and constitutional oversight of how and against who the [Echelon] system is being used." The Free Congress Foundation is hoping that Congress will scrutinize Echelon as carefully as the European Parliament has. The parliament commissioned several reports on Echelon earlier this year and the issue has been hotly debated ever since. The NSA neither confirms nor denies Echelon's existence, but investigative journalists and civil liberties activists have turned up a number of details in recent years. Glyn Ford, a British member of the European Parliament, said he sees the necessity of Echelon but, like Poole, he worries about the NSA's apparent lack of accountability. "If we are going to leave the electronic key under the doormat, then we want an assurance that the people who pick up that key are not going to steal the family silver," said Ford. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************