Does anyone know much about the Echelon satellite communications surveillance system?

I was just reading about it and was amazed I've never heard of it before.

Some sites of interest...

http://mediafilter.org/caq/echelon/
http://serendipity.magnet.ch/hermeti...on/echelon.htm
http://www.freecongress.org/ - search>echelon

<font color="#ffccff">I have heard of Echelon [img]smile.gif[/img] It has been around for a few years now. You can also bet, that any public statment of capability is ....quite incomplete ;)

Edit: Simply by using the word in your post, you have invited scrutiny by the U.S. Intelligence community [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>

[ 01-09-2003, 08:25 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

I'm an idiot! You know, it didn't even occur to me... but hey, that old war forum may have cause some short circuits in the system...

<font color="#ffccff">LLAO, you are so right [img]smile.gif[/img] Im sure that many posts in the war forum triggered major Echelon events to be recorded :D </font>