Do you think your phone calls from home are only between you and the party your talking too ? Think again! How about your emails or cell phone text messaging, are they only being read by those you send them too ? Think again! There is NO privacy when it comes to Telephone calls or text messaging of any kind, landline based or cell. Fax transmissions, emails, internet chat protocols such as ICQ, IRC and others are also not secure, thanks to Project ECHELON.

ECHELON is the most extensive espionage network on earth, capable of tapping into millions of phone calls and other communication networks every hour - At least ten ECHELON stations are operating around the world at any given time, besides telephone calls the network has the capacity to monitor huge amounts of fax and Internet communications of every kind. The system operates on behalf of five regions signed up to the UK-USA Security Agreement: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US.

Any phone call you have made or text message you have sent is unsecured from the electronic eavesdropping powers of ECHELON. ECHELON is able to intercept and inspect the contents of communications via a global network of satellite stations and monitoring centers that capture radio, satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber optic traffic. It can automatically sift out flagged keywords and flagged addresses from huge volumes of transmitted information.

At least ten ECHELON stations operate around the world, and the network has the capacity to monitor huge volumes of international fax, phone and Internet communications. It operates on behalf of five states signed up to the UK-USA Security Agreement: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US.

Many folks would say, it's illegal for the USA Government or one of it's agencies to monitor a citizens private calls or emails. This may be true, if the eavesdropping happens in the USA, as it may require a warrant to do the eavesdropping, and some special national security reason. The way they get around this, is since there are ECHELON stations in other countries, a foreign nation will do the eavesdropping on the USA citizens, and the USA ECHELON system will do the eavesdropping say on Great Britain's citizens, etc, and then any data or information is exchanged between the countries.

As mentioned earlier, there are several ECHELON stations operating around the globe, a few of these areas include RAF Menwith Hill in England, Sugar Hill government communications station in West Virginia, Pine Gap in Australia, and New Zealand's communications bureau GCSB Waihopai. Canada, Japan, the UK, Australia and various states in the US are also known sites for other stations.

The ECHELON system works by intercepting communications or transmission and then siphoning out what are called 'key words' using artificial intelligence aids like MEMEX. ECHELON uses a large amount of national dictionaries containing key words of interest for each country. Intelligence operatives have claimed that spy bases controlled by America have the ability to search nearly all data communications for key words. They claim that ECHELON automatically analyses most email for "precursor" data which assists intelligence agencies to determine targets. According to former Canadian Security Establishment agent Mike Frost, a voice recognition

system called Oratory has been used for some years to intercept diplomatic calls.

The main overseers of Echelon are the National Security Agency of the United States, the Government Communications Headquarters of Britain, the Communications Security Establishment of Canada, the Defence Signals Directorate of Australia, and the Government Communications Security Bureau of New Zealand.

So, what is the main reason or purpose for ECHELON ? If it's for the National Security of a given country to protect it from foreign invaders, or say terrorists, then I say, it may be needed, but what about other uses for ECHELON, like illegal uses ? Insiders, have already said that the ECHELON system is also being used for commercial theft, international economic espionage and a massive amount of privacy invasion. British journalist Duncan Campbell and New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager asserted in the 1990s that the United States was exploiting ECHELON traffic for industrial espionage, rather than military and diplomatic purposes. Examples alleged by the journalists include the gear-less wind turbine technology designed by the German firm Enercon, and the speech technology developed by the Belgian firm Lernout & Hauspie. An article in the Baltimore Sun reported in 1995 that European aerospace company Airbus lost a $6 billion contract with Saudi Arabia in 1994 after the NSA reported that Airbus officials had been bribing Saudi officials to secure the contract, and the information was gathered from ECHELON.

Margaret Newsham worked at the ECHELON station at RAF base Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, England, and she reports the following: "On the day at Menwith Hill when I realized in earnest how utterly wrong it was, I was sitting with one of the many 'translators'. He was an expert in languages like Russian, Chinese and Japanese. Suddenly he asked me if I wanted to listen in on a conversation taking place in the US at an office in the US Senate Building. Then I clearly heard a southern American dialect I thought I had heard before." "Who is that?" I asked the translator who told me that it was Republican senator Strom Thurmond. 'Oh my gosh!' I thought. We're not only spying on other countries, but also on our own citizens. That's when I realized in earnest that what we were doing had nothing to do with national security interests of the US." And US Senator Thurmond is just the tip of the iceberg, former NSA man Wayne Madsen claimed his former employers held hundreds of pages of information on Princess Diana. The surveillance network was also involved in international economic espionage and was spying on calls and transmissions of such groups as Amnesty International and Greenpeace.

So, the next time you make or accept a telephone call, or send a text message by cell phone, email or fax, remember, ECHELON will quite probably intercept the conversation or message also. Just think of the power of ECHELON during the reign of the AntiChrist and his Christian hating campaign around the globe. You will NOT be able to contact anyone without ECHELON eavesdropping on your conversations and messaging. Not only will there be no place to hide, even your very communications will be unsafe.