SO, WHAT'S NEW ABOUT GOVERNMENT SPYING ON ITS CITIZENS
(see: GLADIO)
WIKIPEDIA: The United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement (UKUSA, /juːkuːˈsɑː/ ew-koo-SAH)[1][2] is a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence among the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The alliance of intelligence operations is also known as Five Eyes. It was first signed in March 1946 by the United Kingdom and the United States and later extended to encompass the three Commonwealth realms of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The UKUSA Agreement was a follow-up of the 1943 BRUSA Agreement, the World War II agreement on cooperation over intelligence matters.[3] This was a secret treaty, allegedly so secret that it was kept secret from the Australian Prime Ministers until 1973.[4]
The agreement established an alliance of five English-speaking countries for the purpose of sharing intelligence, especially signals intelligence. It formalized the intelligence sharing agreement in the Atlantic Charter, signed in 1941, before the entry of the U.S. into the conflict. [5]
Topic : Canadian & US Governments Monitoring Citizens
It would seem to be rather naive not to believe that the state regularly spies on its citizens beyond the standard provisions of universal human, civil and political rights. It would be more apparent and within the bounds of common sense to understand that the state considers the rights of its citizenry to be secondary to those claimed and more paramount rights of the state.
ECHELON (see TC1975-1) : Note : Inverse Onus
WIKIPEDIA : "ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement[1] (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, referred to by a number of abbreviations, including AUSCANNZUKUS[1] and Five Eyes).[2][3] It has also been described as the only software system which controls the download and dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communications.[4]
ECHELON, according to information in the European Parliament document, "On the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system)" was created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s.[5]
The system has been reported in a number of public sources.[6] Its capabilities and political implications were investigated by a committee of the European Parliament during 2000 and 2001 with a report published in 2001,[5] and by author James Bamford in his books on the National Security Agency of the United States.[4] The European Parliament stated in its report that the term ECHELON is used in a number of contexts, but that the evidence presented indicates that it was the name for a signals intelligence collection system. The report concludes that, on the basis of information presented, ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks (which once carried most Internet traffic) and microwave links.[5]
Bamford describes the system as the software controlling the collection and distribution of civilian telecommunications traffic conveyed using communication satellites, with the collection being undertaken by ground stations located in the footprint of the downlink leg."
