gosh I can't believe democrats never said a word about echelon and the clinton admin.
Under Clinton, NY Times called surveillance "a necessity"
January 12th, 2006
The controversy following revelations that U.S. intelligence agencies have monitored suspected terrorist related communications since 9/11 reflects a severe case of selective amnesia by the New York Times and other media opponents of President Bush. They certainly didn’t show the same outrage when a much more invasive and indiscriminate domestic surveillance program came to light during the Clinton administration in the 1990’s. At that time, the Times called the surveillance “a necessity.”
“If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there’s a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country’s largest intelligence agency.” (Steve Kroft, CBS’ 60 Minutes)
Those words were aired on February 27, 2000 to describe the National Security Agency and an electronic surveillance program called Echelon whose mission, according to Kroft,
“is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon’s computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world.”
Echelon was, or is (its existence has been under-reported in the American media), an electronic eavesdropping program conducted by the United States and a few select allies such as the United Kingdom.
Tellingly, the existence of the program was confirmed not by the New York Times or the Washington Post or by any other American media outlet – these were the Clinton years, after all, and the American media generally treats Democrat administrations far more gently than Republican administrations – but by an Australian government official in a statement made to an Australian television news show.
The Times actually defended the existence of Echelon when it reported on the program following the Australians’ revelations.
“Few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers and terrorists….”
And the Times article quoted an N.S.A. official in assuring readers
“...that all Agency activities are conducted in accordance with the highest cons utional, legal and ethical standards.”
Of course, that was on May 27, 1999 and Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush, was president.
Even so, the article did admit that
“...many are concerned that the system could be abused to collect economic and political information.”
I think that as a matter of law, any telephone surveillance that is done for more than 72 hours without warrant is uncons utional.
Doesn't matter who the President is, doesn't matter what the program is called, doesn't matter who reports on it or who doesn't.
72 hours is actually the amount of time you have to get a warrant after the wiretap has been executed. It's not the amount of time you have to wait.
just get a warrant..jesus christ how hard is that?
where in the article does it say clinton did this without warrants?
Rule # 1 in Republican debating points: If you have no argument, smear Bill Clinton.
You're kidding.
Are you suggesting that the Clinton Administration might actually have gotten warrants for every electronic conversation and transaction in the US?
Because that's what the article says Echelon was collecting.
And the Times article quoted an N.S.A. official in assuring readers
“...that all Agency activities are conducted in accordance with the highest cons utional, legal and ethical standards.”
Bush and the boys have flaunted the fact that they interperet the president's powers in the time of war to not be bound by the consitutional safeguards.
this is a power grab and you know it..
Well, Clinton's NSA said it...it must be true. After all, his was the most ethical, legal, and cons utional presidency in the history of the country.
So, wait -- are you then arguing that the Bush Administration should get a pass here because, well, Clinton got away with it?
I think the two programs are fundamentally different.
The NSA program is surveilling international calls from known or suspected terrorists to wherever they may be calling -- including the United States.
Echelon recorded electronic transmissions indiscriminately.
And while both administrations are on record as claiming the programs are legal and cons utional, not to mention the obligatory ethical, I was more referring to the Clinton administration's NSA statement not being entirely consistent with the reputation of the Clinton administration.
I don't recall raising much of a fuss over Echelon.
Or so they say..........
Without accountability, all we have is his word and that of whoever is President in the future.
Opponents of the NSA program say put the wiretaps on, just be sure to get a warrant from the FISA court.
from the 60 minutes transcripts....
If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency and four English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
The mission is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world.
How does it work, and what happens to all the information that's gathered? A lot of people have begun to ask that question, and some suspect that the information is being used for more than just catching bad guys.
(Footage of satellite; person talking on cell phone; fax machine; ATM being used; telephone pole and wires; radio towers)
KROFT: (Voiceover) We can't see them, but the air around us is filled with invisible electronic signals, everything from cell phone conversations to fax transmissions to ATM transfers. What most people don't realize is that virtually every signal radiated across the electromagnetic spectrum is being collected and analyzed.
How much of the world is covered by them?
Mr. MIKE FROST (Former Spy): The entire world, the whole planet--covers everything. Echelon covers everything that's radiated worldwide at any given instant.
KROFT: Every square inch is covered.
Mr. FROST: Every square inch is covered.
isn't that warrantless surveillance...
Clinton has been out of office since 2001. I can't hop into a time machine and go back and demand an end to the program.
But as the old saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right.....
Actually, I think Echelon continues.
Both programs -- though, just like any other surveillance tool, is subject to abuse -- are cons utional, legal, and ethical (if used properly). There is no evidence to the contrary.
Clinton haters believed he was using Echelon illegally and Bush haters believe he is using the NSA Program illegally.
Funny thing is, Clinton didn't prevent with Echelon...so, what was he doing with the intelligence.
Why not use such as system to catch sexual predators then?
Or theives.
Because when you get away from foreign intelligence, it is a violation of the fourth amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
That's part of the problem with the opponents to the NSA Program and Echelon, they thing terrorists are a law enforcement issue and not a national security issue.
We are not at war.
The last formal declaration of war was over 50 years ago.
We were and are fighting a "war" on drugs that has killed more people than Osama has ever dreamed of, and somehow we managed to not shred the bill of rights.
I googled ECHELON.
Anybody care to take a guess about whether this op-ed peice fits the "cherry-picking" "clinton bashing" modus operendi of 95% of conservative diatribes?
ECHELON was around looooong before Clinton and was a relic of the cold war.
Clinton didn't initiate it, nor did he extend what was in essense a FOREIGN intelligence gathering operation to include DOMESTIC traffic without a warrant.
Your weak-ass opinion peice didn't bother with that, did it?
It was either a f***ing lazy-ass article or a deliberately misleading article, and somehow THAT is supposed to justify Bush's machtergreifung?
Year UKUSA treaty starting Echelon was drafted: 1947
Clinton's birth year: 1947
This is no coincidence.
Nope!!!! Only has a 26 gal. tank.
ahhh random... yes 60 minutes is a such a right wing rag.... lol
another echelon article from CBS ....
random guy needs google lessons ..
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/...in164651.shtml
(CBS) Everywhere in the world, every day, people's phone calls, emails and faxes are monitored by Echelon, a secret government surveillance network. No, it's not fiction straight out of George Orwell's 1984. It's reality, says former spy Mike Frost in an interview broadcast on 60 Minutes on Sunday, Feb. 27.
"It's not the world of fiction. That's the way it works. I've been there," Frost tells CBS News 60 Minutes Correspondent Steve Kroft. "I was trained by you guys," says the former Canadian intelligence agent, referring to the United States' National Security Agency.
The NSA runs Echelon with Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand as a series of listening posts around the world that eavesdrop on terrorists, drug lords and hostile foreign governments.
But to find out what the bad guys are up to, all electronic communications, including those of the good guys, must be captured and analyzed for key words by super computers.
That is a fact that makes Frost uncomfortable, even though he believes the world needs intelligence gathering capabilities like Echelon. "My concern is no accountability and nothing, no safety net in place for the innocent people who fall through the cracks," he tells Kroft.
As an example of those innocent people, Frost cites a woman whose name and telephone number went into the Echelon database as a possible terrorist because she told a friend on the phone that her son had "bombed" in a school play. "The computer spit that conversation out. The analystwas not too sure what the conversation was referring to, so, erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady," Frost recalls.
Democracies usually have laws against spying on citizens. But Frost says Echelon members could ask another member to spy for them in an end run around those laws.
For example, Frost tells Kroft that his Canadian intelligence boss spied on British government officials for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. "(Thatcher) had two ministers that she said, quote, 'they weren't on side,' unquote...So my boss...went to McDonald House in London and did intercept traffic from these two ministers," claims Frost. |"The British Parliament now have total deniability. They didn't do anythingWe did it for them."
America politicians may also have been eavesdropped on, says Margaret Newsham, a woman who worked at Menwith Hill in England, the NSA's largest spy station. She says she was shocked to hear the voice of U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.) on a surveillance headset about 20 years ago. "To my knowledge, all (the intercepted voices)...would be...Russian, Chinese... foreign," she tells Kroft.
The exposing of such possible abuses of Echelon will surely add to the growing firestorm in Europe over the system.
On Feb. 23, the European Parliament issued a report accusing the U.S. of using Echelon for commercial spying on two separate occasions, to help American companies win lucrative contracts over European compe ors. The U.S. State Department denies such spying took place and will not even acknowledge the existence of the top secret Echelon project.
Rep. Porter Goss (R.-Fla), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which has oversight of the NSA, does acknowledge that the U.S. has the capability to pick up any phone call, and that even his own conversations could have been monitored.
But Goss says there are methods to prevent the abuse of that information. "I cannot stop the dust in the ether...but what I can make sure, is that...the capability is not abused," he tells Kroft.
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