The Age: Careful, they might hear you May 26, 1999, 21 :53 UTC (22 Talkback[s]) (3800 reads) (Other stories by Duncan Campbell) (As seen on Slashdot)
Every e-mail you write, every fax you send, is being scrutinized by the
government.
"Australia has become the first country openly to admit that it takes
part in a global electronic surveillance system that intercepts the private
and commercial international communications of citizens and companies from
its own and other countries."
"Together with the giant American National Security Agency (NSA) and its
Canadian, British, and New Zealand counterparts, DSD operates a network of
giant, highly automated tracking stations that illicitly pick up commercial
satellite communications and examine every fax, telex, e-mail, phone call,
or computer data message that the satellites carry."
"The five signals intelligence agencies form the UKUSA pact. They are
bound together by a secret agreement signed in 1947 or 1948."
"Now, due to a fast-growing UKUSA system called Echelon, millions of
messages are automatically intercepted every hour, and checked according to
criteria supplied by intelligence agencies and governments in all five
UKUSA countries. The intercepted signals are passed through a computer
system called the Dictionary, which checks each new message or call against
thousands of ``collection'' requirements."
