🚀 go-pugleaf

war was seriously discussed and planned for.

In the 1990s, the threat of global war has all but disappeared and
none of the allies faces the remotest serious military threat.


The second point about the ECHELON capabilities is that large parts of the
system, while hiding behind the Cold War for their justification, were
never primarily about the Cold War at all.

The UKUSA alliance did mount massive operations against the Soviet Union
and other 'communists', but other elements of the worldwide system, such
as the interception of Intelsat communications, microwave networks and
many regional satellites, were not aimed primarily at the Russians, the
Iraqis or the North Koreans.

Then, and now, they are targeting groups which do not pose any physical
threat to the UKUSA allies at all.

But they are ideal to use against political opponents, economic competitors,
countries where the allies may want to gain some advantage (especially
access to cheap resources) and administrations (like Nicaragua's Sandinista
government) which do not fit an American-dominated world order.


The third observation is that telecommunications organizations - including
the telephone companies - are not blameless in all of this.

These companies, to which people pay their monthly bills believing that
the phone calls they make and the faxes they send are secure, should well
be aware of the wholesale interception of 'private' communications that
has been occurring for decades.

Yet they neither invest in encryption technology nor insist that organizations
such as the Washington-based Intelsat Corporation provide encryption.

They do not let their customers know that their international communications
are open to continuous interception. Wittingly or unwittingly, this lack of
action assists large-scale spying against the individuals, businesses and
government and private organizations that innocently entrust their
communic