Subject: More on ECHELON... (guru).. Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 061839 -0600 (CST) From: "Roy L. Beavers"To: emfguru -------------------------------------------------- ......Here is an AP story about ECHELON.... Roy Beavers (EMFguru) roy@emfguru.com .....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness..... NEW!!! Website... http://emfguru.com ...................People are more important than profits................. *** NSA defends eavesdropping policy WASHINGTON (AP) - Reacting to a spate of charges, a low-profile U.S. government spy agency is defending to Congress controversial information-gathering that allegedly includes eavesdropping on ordinary Americans. The National Security Agency mailed a letter to all members of Congress last week that says: "We want to assure you that the NSA's activities are conducted in accordance with the highest constitutional, legal and ethical standards, and in compliance with statutes and regulations designed to protect the privacy rights of U.S. persons." The letter, was signed by Kenneth A. Heath, the NSA's chief of staff for legislative affairs. It noted that the CBS's "60 Minutes" was airing a report Sunday that criticizes the agency's activities. The NSA is less well known by the American public than other U.S. spy agencies, such as the CIA. A joke in the intelligence community was that NSA was so secret that its initials stood for "No Such Agency." In the CBS broadcast, a former Canadian intelligence agent said NSA cooperates with Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand to run a satellite listening operation. The eavesdropping operation, known as Echelon, allegedly monitors phone calls, e-mails and faxes in order to sift out useful information about foreign governments, drug trafficking and terrorism. In addition, the European Parliament in a report last week accused the U.S. of using Echelon for commercial spying - a kind of industrial espionage - to help American companies win contracts over European competitors. ### Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com