Web it covered email and chat rooms too; with the ending of the Cold War, the focus of ECHELON turned to terrorism and crime. The centrepiece of ECHELON is a “virtual dictionary”, a vast resource of keywords, names and telephone numbers. The billions of daily communications around the world are automatically scanned by ECHELON, and matches are referred to a human analyst. Estimates suggest that ECHELON can sift through a billion emails an hour. Although the US and UK are barred from spying on their respective citizens without court warrants, ECHELON cleverly avoids national law by enabling each country to monitor each other’s citizens. Then swap the information.
Countries excluded from ECHELON have alleged that the system is used in commercial and industrial espionage. The French press have claimed that Boeing was provided with information by ECHELON to deprive Airbus, Boeing’s European competitor, of contracts. A 1998 report prepared by the European Parliament cited “wide ranging” evidence that ECHELON information was used to provide certain companies with “commercial advantages”. The French press named names, claiming that Boeing was prioritized in contracts over Airbus, its European rival. Similarly, the US Raytheon company was able to muscle in on a radar deal between a French company and Brazil courtesy of ECHELON intercepts. Meanwhile, journalist Patrick Poole speculated that AT & T took a cut of a $200 million deal between Indonesia and Nipponese satellite-manufacturer NEC due to ECHELON-obtained intelligence.
Manifestly, InfraGard and ECHELON have a role to play in fighting crime and terror; ECHELON is said to have played a “key role” in nabbing 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. But the state’s invasion of privacy, the use of citizens as spies, the misuse of information for financial ends are perils to citizens. Big Brother is watching you. You need to watch big brother.
Further Reading
Nicky Hagar, Secret Power , 1996
OSAMA BIN LADEN
“Got Him!” trumpeted the New York Post. “Rot in Hell!” urged the Daily News.
Relief, revenge and jubilation came to New York in equal measures on Monday, 2 May 2011, following the announcement that a US Navy SEAL team had just killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. However, the circumstances surrounding bin Laden’s death raised the big question: Had the US really got its man? Although US officials said DNA testing proved the al-Qaeda leader was killed in the villa in Pakistan, as did a facial recognition test, they refused to release photographs of his corpse. This contrasted absolutely with US policy when Uday and Qusay Hussein – the sons of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein – were killed in a firefight with US troops, after which the US relied on photographs of their bodies to convince people they were dead. And when Saddam himself was executed, video footage of his death and subsequent photographs were offered up as final proof of the tyrant’s demise.
The lack of documentation offered by the White House was pure fodder for a conspiracy that bin Laden wasn’t offed on the morning of 2 May 2011. The conspiracy was only pumped by the US Government’s choice of burial site for bin Laden: the middle of the trackless ocean.
Two main conspiracies centre on bin Laden’s death:
1) bin Laden died years before in the Tora Bora mountains (either from a US bomb or kidney disease), but the US and Allies hushed this up to justify the continuance of the War on Terror. Barack Obama announced bin Laden’s death for the bragging rights, and as a poll boost. Against this, most al-Qaeda websites have since claimed that their leader is now fish food. Also, the files seized by the SEALS during the mission suggest that the man in the compound was top of the organizational pyramid, and the information gleaned has allowed the “neutralization” of subordinates.
2) The SEAL raid was a fake op, bin Laden wasn’t there, and is alive and well
Countries excluded from ECHELON have alleged that the system is used in commercial and industrial espionage. The French press have claimed that Boeing was provided with information by ECHELON to deprive Airbus, Boeing’s European competitor, of contracts. A 1998 report prepared by the European Parliament cited “wide ranging” evidence that ECHELON information was used to provide certain companies with “commercial advantages”. The French press named names, claiming that Boeing was prioritized in contracts over Airbus, its European rival. Similarly, the US Raytheon company was able to muscle in on a radar deal between a French company and Brazil courtesy of ECHELON intercepts. Meanwhile, journalist Patrick Poole speculated that AT & T took a cut of a $200 million deal between Indonesia and Nipponese satellite-manufacturer NEC due to ECHELON-obtained intelligence.
Manifestly, InfraGard and ECHELON have a role to play in fighting crime and terror; ECHELON is said to have played a “key role” in nabbing 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. But the state’s invasion of privacy, the use of citizens as spies, the misuse of information for financial ends are perils to citizens. Big Brother is watching you. You need to watch big brother.
Further Reading
Nicky Hagar, Secret Power , 1996
OSAMA BIN LADEN
“Got Him!” trumpeted the New York Post. “Rot in Hell!” urged the Daily News.
Relief, revenge and jubilation came to New York in equal measures on Monday, 2 May 2011, following the announcement that a US Navy SEAL team had just killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. However, the circumstances surrounding bin Laden’s death raised the big question: Had the US really got its man? Although US officials said DNA testing proved the al-Qaeda leader was killed in the villa in Pakistan, as did a facial recognition test, they refused to release photographs of his corpse. This contrasted absolutely with US policy when Uday and Qusay Hussein – the sons of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein – were killed in a firefight with US troops, after which the US relied on photographs of their bodies to convince people they were dead. And when Saddam himself was executed, video footage of his death and subsequent photographs were offered up as final proof of the tyrant’s demise.
The lack of documentation offered by the White House was pure fodder for a conspiracy that bin Laden wasn’t offed on the morning of 2 May 2011. The conspiracy was only pumped by the US Government’s choice of burial site for bin Laden: the middle of the trackless ocean.
Two main conspiracies centre on bin Laden’s death:
1) bin Laden died years before in the Tora Bora mountains (either from a US bomb or kidney disease), but the US and Allies hushed this up to justify the continuance of the War on Terror. Barack Obama announced bin Laden’s death for the bragging rights, and as a poll boost. Against this, most al-Qaeda websites have since claimed that their leader is now fish food. Also, the files seized by the SEALS during the mission suggest that the man in the compound was top of the organizational pyramid, and the information gleaned has allowed the “neutralization” of subordinates.
2) The SEAL raid was a fake op, bin Laden wasn’t there, and is alive and well
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