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This is an archive of past discussions about ECHELON. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Removed bogus fact about "The Farm" being the nickname of a Canadian signals intelligence facility. In the intelligence community, "The Farm" is first and foremost the nickname of a classified CIA training facility at Camp Peary, VA, though this is officially a Dept of Defense experimental training facility.
FYI, for those asking how satellites can sniff Fiber Optics, they can't and don't need to. The US navy has submarines that can tap undersea cables, namely the USS Jimmy Carter, which is part of yhe ECHELON network.
In the article it is stated that The Netherlands is NOT a participant in ECHELON, but there is a facility at the town of Zoutkamp in The Netherlands. See http://niburu.nl/index.php?showarticle.php?articleID=2532 and http://www.2vandaag.nl/index.php?module=PX_Story&func=view&cid=2&sid=28203 . I can not confirm that this facility is connected to ECHELON, but maybe you can.
The link to the PDF from the European Commission seems to be dead 193.30.60.194 21:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)ste
What about Noreena Hertz, and all her claims in her book Italic textThe Silent TakeoverItalic text? (chapter four) Among other things, unfortunately not supported by named sources, she claims that an agent in 1996 should have claimed the existence of Echelon (for the first time officially).
I've removed the following text from the article: A search of CIA documents contained on the CIA website as a result of Freedom Of Information Act request returns many matches for the keyword "ECHELON", further confirming the existence of the system. The CIA search, I believe, is letter-by-letter, and results often do not contain the search term as a word. Either way, the evidence of a word in FOIA files is in no way a validation of Echelon's existence. --User:Prospero
This article contains what sounds to me like some very fantastical claims. How, exactly, is this supposed to work?
I don't doubt the existence of Echelon, mind you. I'm just questioning whether it is really possible for it to be intercepting everything in the way that is claimed. The sheer bandwidth required inside the system would be staggering.
And how, exactly, are these deep space satellites supposed to be sniffing fiber optic packets?
How much of this article is actually confirmed, and how much is just sheer slashdot-style fear mongering?
Note well! I am opposed to the existence of anything even remotely like this. I'm just asking in my role as an encyclopedist whether or not this information has been validated! I'm not advocating on behalf of echelon I just thought I'd say that. --Jimbo Wales
I know that the information seems controversial. Here are some links on the subject:
WojPob (BTW: if you don't like it - delete it! you're the boss)
I'm only the boss in a very limited sense. This is wikipedia, everyone is the boss. :-) I may do some research and tone it down a bit. The ACLU has a site about it, with more reserved claims. --Jimbo Wales
I actually drove past GCHQ in Cheltenham (I'd got lost!) a few weeks back - this is the UK headquarters for this snooping - and I was amazed at the scale of new building work going on there...it looks to be equal in size to all the existing buildings (so far as could been seen from the road) British Telecom is one of the contractors, according to the builders notice board, so it looks like they'll soon have a lot of extra bandwidth to feed to the extra gear in all that new space. After all, if you want to sniff fiber optic packets, it's simpler to just get the major telcoms provider to run their cables through a government installation than mess about with satellites....
I paraphrased it myself, but I think it sort of stuck in my head from somewhere, might have been the "Usual Suspects" - I dont know. WojPob.
Yes, that's The Usual Suspects: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist." --KQ
Apparently one major misunderstanding is the sentence with the deep space satellites. I didn't mind because there are more installations mentioned than te satellites in this sentence, so I arranged the means to the sniffed pathways myself. But it's true, this sentence probably needs to be written in two separate ones.
This article presents Echelon as a secret spy network. Due to its nature, the information presented here cannot be confirmed by independent sources. It may be the result of a desinformation campaign. Echelon should be refered as an hipotetical network. As it is now, the article violates the NPOV.
Check out the report by the European Union's parliament that's linked at the bottom of the page. Eschelon is pretty much confirmed to exist now, the only details that are still uncertain are its exact capabilities and uses.
This is a controversial issue with no possible independent confirmation. European Union's parliament is not an independent source, bet an intereted part. Being a controversial and unverifieable issue, information must be atributed to sources. Joao
Regarding the phrase "drugs and thugs" -- in the interest of neutrality, I'd recommend choosing a different word than "thugs." A nice rhyme, but it doesn't seem to fit the article. I'd suggest a substitute, but I'm not sure what would be the best fit based on reports (and please attribute!) regarding the intended subjects of surveillance. -- Rethunk
There are NSA patents on 'text analysis by topic'. They should be mentioned, as they were filed after some information about Echelon was released, seemingly as an attempt to prevent commercial enterprises from slowing down research, or developing similar technology for sale. It would seem to validate existence of Echelon. NSA never filed a patent before that...
1) Has anyone heard of something called "Carnivore" mentioned in connection with Echelon? What is it and does it belong in this article?
2) Echelon is/was definitely real and not just a figment of some conspiracy theorist's imagination. In many (most) democratic countries, it is (or until recently was) illegal for a government to spy on its own citizens without probable cause. It would not, however, be illegal for say, the US government to monitor Canadian citizens, and then share some of that information with Canadian intelligence agencies, etc, etc. This is exactly what's been purported to happen with ECHELON - it provides (or provided - has it been dismantled?) a sort of "loophole" for governments to spy on their own citizens.
Is ECHELON an acronym? If it is, it needs to be defined. --Rookkey 00:26, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Morwinstow is a small village with an interesting vicarage, there's certainly no international listening post there. You can see Goonhilly from there though, is that what's meant?
The Total Information Awareness bit ought to be deleted. TIA has been torpedoed by Congress and is really no longer relevant, especially not to Echelon. --thames 19:42, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Done, at rather long last. Dan100 16:19, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
If TIA has been "torpedoed" then has Echelon, secret tapings/taps etc also been "torpedoed"? I suspect that the passion to gather every bit of info on ever person/cow/chicken/... has not subsided greatly in the last year or so. I also doubt that Congress knows or wants to know much about it or its details.159.105.80.141 15:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I believe that one of the OTC satellite stations in WA is or was ECHELON related. I know someone who used to work there, a few decades ago, and there were quite a few spooks running around from his account, using the commercial satellite communications going on as a cover.
Could you or him be refering to Pine Gap, NT? There was also the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia. Kanadier 13:47 24 Mar 2005 UTC
Really? I would have thought that would have been quite enough to cover salary requirements; what's the average wage in the States? — Matt Crypto 17:36, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The article currently says:
Apparently however, it wasn't "cancelled", after all; the essense of Total Information Awareness didn't die with that. According to the AP story (linked below):
...etc (my emphasis). See:
--Vinsci 15:49, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The article lists the "Shoal Bay" installation as being in New South Wales, is this corrent?
http://archives.openflows.org/hacktivism/hacktivism01421.html along with many others (google: "shoal bay" echelon) mentions "Shoal Bay, near Darwin in Northern Australia"...
http://echelononline.free.fr/documents/dc/inside_echelon.htm Also lists shoal bay as in the NT.
Can you please add sources for these and other claims in the article? Thanks. Read also WP:AWT. --Eleassar my talk 13:48, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
Whilst this section is interesting, I think it should be modified to remove the implication that the whole echelon system is powered by the same hardware produced by the same company. This is highly unlikely. I would doubt that GCHQ (UK) would use much equipment produced in the US; likewise the other members of Echelon. I have knowledge of several electronics companies based in the UK that provide digital encryption hardware, DSP's and storage hardware to GCHQ.
More likely is that Echelon is a framework for tying together the work of each organisation - not a technological framework for homogenising the hardware used. Rob cowie 19:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
The first paragraph in hte history section says it is now also used for the invasion of privacy. But none of the other things can be done without invasion of privacy. So what is meant here? Non-political invasion of pivacy? DirkvdM 12:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
As mentioned in previous comments on this talk page, there are some interesting claims made for which no specific documentation is referenced. Obviously, it's difficult to know what the real truth of the matter is for a classified program, so verification here is only going to go so far. The secretive nature of the topic just makes it all the more important to cite specific sources, since it's easy for any one source (or all available sources, for that matter) to get the facts wrong. -- Beland 12:03, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I removed the Clinton sentence in history which had no citations. - elemming
Introduction states:
"ECHELON is thought to be the largest signals intelligence and analysis network ... Run by the UKUSA Community, ECHELON can capture radio and satellite communications, ..."
On the one hand, ECHELON is thought to be something. On the other, its capabilities are stated as fact. I don't think we can have it both ways...?
Soundbyte 20:34, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/23/AR2005122302050.html G Clark 01:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Cryptome refers to a declassified National Security Council document dated June 30, 1958 that states "Naval Radio Research Observatory (NRRO)... to be erected at Sugar Grove, West Virginia for exploiting lunar reflective techniques for the purposes of intelligence collection, radio astronomy, and communications-electronics research... will provide for reception and analyzing emissions from areas of the world not now accessible by any other known method..." Are they still using this "moonbounce" technique? Could recent lunar explosions possibly be connected to recent revelations about the Bush administrations illegal spying? 58.147.26.57 20:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
No, we have detection methods millions of times better now. WAS 4.250 20:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
it was a simple meteoroid impact there. has nothing to do with echelon. satellites have replaced air planes, baloons and moon-bouncing technique. it is used by radio amateurs, see under EME. Redecke 22:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems to be confirmed that ECHELON does indeed exist, however nobody knows exactly what it is. This should be clear in the article, and isn't. As far as I can tell, all that's confirmed is that it is a method for analysing and sorting data to find criminals or information about a specific word or whatnot. The conspiracy theorists charge that ECHELON is used to intercept all of our data, phone and fax traffic in north america, and produce a database of it, and some of this attitude bleeds into the article with little qualification. IMO this article needs to be researched and rewritten with confirmed fact separated from speculation. --Ktims 05:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
The only dates in the article body mentioned are on or after 2001. This program is older than that. There should be a better outline of the origins of this program. This omission gives the impression to a casual reader that the program only began sometime around 2001. I can only guess at the reasons for giving such an impression, but regardless, it is a misimpression and should be clarified. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.40.112.88 (talk • contribs) 12:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Here is a link I found on the Echelon project before 2001 http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/echelon.htm Here also is an article by NY Times James Risen in 1999:December 5, 1999, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 4; Page 5; Column 1; Week in Review Desk
LENGTH: 859 words
HEADLINE: The Nation: Don't Read This; If You Do, They May Have to Kill You
BYLINE: By JAMES RISEN
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY: NO government organization has been better insulated from public scrutiny than the National Security Agency. Its very existence as America's premier eavesdropper and code-breaker was classified for decades, and the N.S.A. -- also known as "No Such Agency" -- has been able to keep the press and Congress largely at bay even as the Central Intelligence Agency has come under increased scrutiny in the wake of its cold war excesses and failures.
But the N.S.A.'s isolation may be finally coming to an end. Critics on one side are now complaining that the N.S.A. has become obsolete in the Internet age, while critics on the other flank are attacking the agency for emerging from the cold war as a Big Brother without a cause, listening to everything around the globe for no good reason.
"N.S.A.'s problems are people and management problems," said one agency consultant. "They just haven't been willing to change the way they have always done things."
Some of its failings were on display last week, when the government announced that a Navy code expert had been charged with passing secrets to Russia five years ago while working at the N.S.A.
But N.S.A.'s problems go far deeper. In effect, the agency is under attack today both for incompetence and omnipotence. Its predicament suggests that its own obsession with secrecy has left it prey to conspiracy theorists, while at the same time making it difficult for the agency to seek the help it needs to fix its real problems.
Some current and former American intelligence officials argue that the agency has become overly bureaucratic and outdated, a cold war relic that is no longer able to lure the best young computer wizards to its headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. They warn that the N.S.A. is struggling to keep up in an era in which the daily volume of e-mail messages and cell phone calls threatens to overwhelm it.
At the same time, sophisticated, commercially available encryption technology is making it much tougher for the agency to sift through that mountain of intercepted communications and decipher the few messages that are actually important to the nation's security.
Still other critics complain that a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall the agency is still vacuuming telephone, fax, e-mail and other Internet traffic as if the Soviet Union had never collapsed. To them, the agency is not a cold war relic but a cold war beast in need of taming.
Created in 1952 to consolidate the nation's far-flung communications intelligence and code-breaking operations into one agency within the Defense Department, the N.S.A. quickly became the crown jewel of the intelligence community. Its code breakers enabled American presidents to regularly read the mail of America's enemies -- and its friends. The agency's high-tech collection efforts were so highly prized that it grew into the country's biggest intelligence agency.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Congress and the White House have reduced the N.S.A.'s budget. But those cutbacks have come just as the Internet has exploded, revolutionizing communications technology. The use of telephone and computer encryption is also certain to expand sharply over the coming years, as Washington moves to open up the export of advanced encryption software.
As Seymour M. Hersh wrote in the Dec. 6 New Yorker, the spread of such technology has already crippled the agency's collection efforts. In a speech last year, John Millis, the staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, warned that while the N.S.A. had traditionally been at the cutting edge of technology, "in the last four or five years technology has moved from being the friend to being the enemy" of the agency.
But the N.S.A. has also been attacked for accumulating far more power than it needs. Its huge international communications collection and monitoring operation, called Echelon, which is conducted jointly with the agency's counterparts in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is criticized both in this country and overseas as an excessive intrusion into the private communications of Americans and their allies. As James Bamford, the author of the classic study of the agency, "The Puzzle Palace" (Houghton Mifflin, 1982), recently noted in The Washington Post, the Echelon system relies on satellites and ground stations to intercept and then sort global communications, searching for specific names, words or phrases. The N.S.A.'s computers can then sort out intercepted communications that include names of drug dealers or political leaders or references to espionage or terrorist actions. The agency is prohibited from intercepting strictly domestic communications unless it gets a special court order.
The N.S.A., in a prepared statement, said that its new director, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, is trying to address the technological and management problems facing the agency by launching a restructuring program this winter that he calls "100 days of change." The program is designed to "provide the momentum for the workforce to shape the agency, so that it can thrive in the years to come."
What does ECHELON stand for? - unsigned
If you need the meaning of the word "echelon", you could check out an online dictionary .. try http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=echelon&gwp=13
Note that it is "ECHELON" and not "E.C.H.E.L.O.N.". It is a code-name for a very very secretive multi-government operation that has come to light because of its huge scale and its implicatins for possible industrial spying by English language nations against others (especially in Europe). Secret code names are chosen more or less at random and do not mean anything. WAS 4.250 17:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The article says '"The United States will occasionally have the United Kingdom keep an eye on individuals in this country, with the understanding that if Britain turns up any interesting tidbits, it will slide them across the table." - from the book, CHATTER: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping'. While this is no doubt a direct quote from a source, it is not clear what 'this country' is - I assume the US? -- Mithent 20:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
There is no law against the US gov't keeping an eye on everybody outside the US; it is only inside the US that there is a legal issue. So "this country" refers to the US, as any other interpretation makes no sense whatever. This is precisely the issuse with Bush illegally wiretapping millions of Americans, then claiming it was legal because he is "commander-in-chief" of the military and we are "at war" (even after his "declaration of victory"). I would rather this alledged relationship of spying on each others citizens did not exist, but it is at least better than Republicans watergating the Democrats again - the political implications are far more sinister and remind us of the Republican owned companies supplying computer controlled voting devices that lack the basic fraud-prevention measures of ATMs. WAS 4.250 22:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Apparently we don't even need the Brits for this anymore. Since 9-11 Bush has decided the law doesn't apply to him: "The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans - most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews." WAS 4.250 16:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Just curious, but how can an article that is classified under the categories "Wikipedia articles needing factual verification" and "Articles with unsourced statements" also be cited as a good article? To me these seem mutually exclusive. Is it considered a good article because of the writing style or structure? --Careax 19:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
The sources do verify the article even if they are not all linked up to the exact sentences that they support (they SHOULD be of course). Linking them up might uncover something that should be changed which is why every article should be as completely linked to sources as possible. Articles that consist of nothing but quotes from sources would be maximally verified, but no one wants that but me. WAS 4.250 20:16, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
The insert about Margaret Newsham's involvement with Lockhead and the project names SILKWORTH and SIRE come from the website of the Blacktown Branch Communist Party of Australia. After reading the interview with Margaret Newsham I find it highly incredulous and would like others to read the article at and see for themselfs if the report seems accurate.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Imladros (talk • contribs) 08:55, 17 May 2006.
ECHELON is estimated to intercept up to 3 billion communications every day was deleted from the article by someone else. The number in probably too low. The number whatever it is is classified so we need to know who is doing the guessing - i.e. a source is mandatory. And the number undoubtedly grows every year so when the guess was made is very important. WAS 4.250 17:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know whether Ireland is a full member of this organization now?
These articles suggest this to be the case:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,2079849,00.htm
http://cryptome.org/echelon-ie.htm
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=7372
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shuttle/5604/data2.html
Beta
quotes are supposed to be selective. it should be cut down. how did this get to be a "good article"?
I believe the ECHELON article as currently written is substandard and misleading. It appears to be mostly a collection of rumors, half truths and factoids collected under the rubric of ECHELON.
It is no secret that the U.S. National Security Agency collects signal intelligence (SIGINT). They say so on their web site, []: "The National Security Agency collects, processes and disseminates foreign Signals Intelligence (SIGINT)." On their SIGINT FAQ they say:
NSA has been doing this since its inception and its predecessors within the U.S. government have been collecting signals intelligence to some degree since the invention of telegraphy.
While there is a controversy ongoing in the U.S over whether NSA is complying with the law limiting surveillance of U.S. persons, no one doubts NSA's goals for non-U.S. traffic are omnivorous and limited only by their budget, which is likely large.
The ECHLON story begins to diverge from reality when it gets to details, however.
In short, while a large international effort to collect communications intelligence undoubtedly exists, large enough, arguably, to raise privacy concerns, and while there is undoubtedly a widespread belief in the ECHELON story, little of the information in this article is likely to be accurate or relevant to current practice. For this reason, I have added a disputed tag to the article.--agr 17:01, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it is appropriate to raise concerns about an article's veracity on the talk page. While I understand that verifiability is the ultimate test on Wikipedia, that does not mean we should simply repeat whatever has appeared somewhere in print. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources. I do not agree that this article is well sourced or that it "accurately reflects the contents of the sources." There are numerous citation needed tags in the current version, including on the breathtakingly sweeping "Various sources claim that these states have positioned electronic-intercept stations and space satellites to capture most radio, satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic communications traffic." Note that the EU report you cite comes to a different conclusion: "the analysis carried out in the report has revealed that the technical capabilities of the system are probably not nearly as extensive as some sections of the media had assumed" and "...the surveillance system depends, in particular, upon worldwide interception of satellite communications, although in areas characterised by a high volume of communications only a very small proportion of those communications are transmitted by satellite; ... this means that the majority of communications cannot be intercepted by earth stations, but only by tapping cables and intercepting radio signals, something which - as the investigations carried out in connection with the report have shown - is possible only to a limited extent" (page 11).
Then there is the long list of "Ground stations" with no citations. At best these should be move to a separate article, tilled something like "List of alleged SIGINT ground stations," assuming we can find some basis for the list. Comments like "well-attested" are POV and should go. I could go on. I believe the article requires a lot of work. I think the EU report is a good source for balance, but it will take me a while to get through it. In the mean time, a disputed tag is warranted.--agr 16:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem with the tag so long as the point is that someone is working to improve the article rather than that the tag is a substitute for someone working on the article. You say "it will take me a while" so I believe you intend to improve the article. Go for it! WAS 4.250 20:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
As for the source of the 1600+ staff, see http://www.hrma-agrh.gc.ca/pas-srp/report-rapport_e.asp?cat=f
The press kit (http://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/documents/media-room/media-kit.pdf) gives 2004 numbers at 1200 people, budget of almost $200CAD, almost double the $110CAD stated.
Lactam 14:21, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
How can this be considered a good article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wildman7856 (talk • contribs) 22:45, 16 December 2006 (UTC).
I could be wrong about this, but isn't it illegal to photograph military instalations. The article includes a picture taken at a Royal Air Force Base. Techlotl 21:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Added entry on Guardian (database), and expanded entry on TALON (database). Please feel free to view these entries. Oh, and you can edit them too, in case you didn't know. :-) Thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 13:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions about ECHELON. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
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