posted on Dec, 23 2006 @ 06:18 AM
Yup, it is believed the ECHELON system can record and analyse radio and sat coms, distance telephone calls, emails, and a fair amount of other types
of data, although it's capabilities are played down a lot, of course.
Apparently, the system started a few decades ago to watch the Soviet Unions' in-house and local communication, but today it surely looks for all
sorts of things, such as criminal plots and the like, which probably means that a lot of general traffic is intercepted as well. But in all honestly,
I don't really think the government is spying on us. Most likely they just delete all irrelevant data after a certain amount of time, because there
is just so much of it. For example, if you took all the instant messaging services like MSN and AOL and added the traffic up, it is estimated that
more than 750 GB of text is sent
daily. And that's just one communication medium. Audio files take up a lot more space than text, as do
pictures, ie faxes.
I think a lot of the time the Echelon system is believed to be some sort of omnipresent monitoring system, which it probably is not.
A funny site, though, is the
Echelon's Trigger Words Generator. Compose fake
emails to set off the system!
btw, if you ever want to work with the Echelon system, go for a job with the monitoring station in New Zealand. They've got a pool; check it out on
GE