ECHELON: The Secret Global Surveillance Network

Until Edward Snowden revealed the extensive global surveillance carried out by the US security agency, the NSA (National Security Agency) and other government spying agencies, ECHELON was just a name or rather a codename whose meaning was unclear to the public.

Designed and coordinated by NSA, ECHELON is a system used to capture and virtually analyze every phone call, email, fax, internet downloads, and telex message sent anywhere in the world.

Monitored transmissions are said to include up to 3 billion communications on a daily basis. These are transmissions of both public and private organizations.

The system is operated by the NSA in conjunction with the General Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) of New Zealand, the Australian Defense Security Directorate (DSD), and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) of Canada. All these organizations are bound together under a secret agreement whose terms, conditions, and texts remain a closely hidden secret even today.

ECHELON Targets

ECHELON was primarily designed for non-military targets, unlike most electronic spy systems developed during the Cold War.

These targets include organizations, governments, businesses, and individuals in virtually every country around the world. The surveillance basically affects anyone communicating between and sometimes within countries anywhere in the world.

How Does ECHELON Operate?

The ECHELON system does not operate like other government spying agencies. It’s not designed to snoop on a particular email or fax message.

Rather, this system gathers huge volumes of data indiscriminately through an extensive system of radio antennae and particular satellites that closely monitor satellite communications. There are also sniffer devices that gather internet communications derived from data packets.

The system then filters out important information by use of computers (the computers identify and extract messages of interest to the organizations from a huge volume of information).

To make the filtering process easy, the system is designed to automatically identify messages/information containing pre-programmed keywords. These keywords contain target names, localities, subject, including others.

Various interception facilities have been established all around the world to eavesdrop into all international telecommunications networks. By linking all these facilities, ECHELON provides the involved organizations with the ability to tap into virtually any communication network around the globe.

According to various reports, ECHELON helped the US government learn of the plans to bomb the World Trade Center a few months before it actually happened. It’s not known how much information was intercepted by intelligence gatherers but since it was not prevented, we could assume the details were either unclear or insufficient.

Although the system has possibly stopped many attacks, the invasion of privacy has not been taken lightly by private organizations and the general public.

Some Ways To Help Stop Global Warming

Global warming is most certainly a global issue. Countries all over the world are starting to wake up to the damage that we are doing to our planet, and we have realized that there are steps that we need to take to stop our activities from killing our world for the generations to come. A lot of people will think that there is nothing that they can do themselves to help, but the truth is that if we all help to do our bit, then the problem might well be resolved over time. Below are a few things that you might consider doing at home that will help.

Well, first of all, you can change all of the light bulbs in your house to energy saving bulbs. This will help you to lower some harmful carbon emissions that are coming out of your home. It will also benefit you in allowing you to save a bit of money because these sorts of light bulbs last a lot longer.

Second, make sure that you recycle you used goods. When you have used things like cans, bottles, and plastic ensure that you recycle these materials to be used again. When you go to the supermarket, also try to bring the plastic bags that you have at home with you rather than using new ones each time.

Thirdly, make sure that you try to buy less packaged food and try to get more organically produced foods. If you use a lot of packaging a lot of this will be burned and will release harmful gasses into the atmosphere. Organic food is made with fewer chemicals that will pollute the environment when used on farms so try to change your habits to become organic.

Fourth of all, you should try to limit the use of your car. If you can manage it, you should see if you can walk or cycle on short trips or perhaps use the bus or other public transport. It is also a good idea to try to sort out a carpool with some local people when you do things like going shopping.

Finally, look to plant trees as often as possible. You will be able to get involved with different schemes set up by your local council to increase the numbers of trees around. Deforestation is one of the major problems when it comes to global warming. We need to trees to release life-saving gasses and absorb harmful ones so you should try to help out with this as much as you can.