Feel Safe?
 

Secret services are very well organized institutions. Eavesdropping and prying is their profession. The leader in the field is the National Security Agency (NSA) which employs over 37,000 people. The NSA cooperates with other secret services in operating a world wide surveillance network. This billion-dollar project is called Echelon.

One of the most important surveillance posts is situated in the German town of Bad Aibling. From there, the NSA eavesdrops on wireless communications in central Europe. The largest surveillance site can be found at Menwith Hill, in Great Britain. Satellites are overheard, as are microwave links. Even deep sea cables are not safe from being eavesdropped on, as special submarines are deployed to tap these communication links.

Echelon automatically searches e-mails and faxes for keywords. Even phone calls are analyzed by digital means. With voice detection, it is possible to identify the person speaking. No matter which device you use, Echelon records your call. All information gathered is later analyzed by the secret service personnel.

There are indications that this collected information is also used to reveal corporate secrets. The NSA is suspected of providing US companies with information about their competitors.

The source of most of the information about Echelon is the document Development Of Surveillance Technology And Risk Of Abuse Of Economic Information. It was published by the European Parliament in April 1999.

The book The Codebreakers by David Kahn describes the history of the NSA and other US secret services in detail.

Many companies woo personnel away from government institutions. Creating a private secret service is more or less only a matter of budget and this means that companies are able to spy on their competitors.

The FBI
Since the middle of 2000, there is a new espionage program: Carnivore. It was developed by the FBI to scan large volumes of e-mails automatically. This makes it possible to pry into a suspect's e-mail conversations. The FBI is not legally allowed to use Carnivore without judicial permission - but data protectionists are alarmed. The danger of abuse exists: the program is even able to track a suspect's activities in chat rooms and the web sites they visit.

echelon has been around forever, i'm surpised you just learned of it, also see 'magic lantern', and like you said carnivore, although the carnivore concept has been around longer than year 2000.

yea it's bs.. i try to ignore it since there's nothing I can do about it :/

if i'm not mistaken, there is an australian report that has the most publicly available details of echelon. i don't remember the name of it though. google if you're interested