Echelon, violating our rights one step at a time : Essay about the spy tool used by USUK govenments

Essay by zeitgeistCollege, UndergraduateA+, April 2004

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Echelon, violating our rights one step at a time

The forth amendment is under attack by the United States of America's National Security Agency. The United States Constitution's Forth Amendment states "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized," however; with the invention of National Security Agency's "Echelon," this is no longer the case. Echelon is the government's attempt to control your communications, domestic and international, daily. In 1947 the UKUSA Agreement signed by five nations including the United States gave the other nations permission to monitor information from each other. The information obtained from spying on traffic and communications obtained by partner nations is routinely sent back to the United States government to circumvent the rights granted by the US constitution.

Echelon is a direct violation of our constitutional rights that have been granted since the foundation of our nation. For these reasons, the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution has been undermined by the government, whose job it is to enforce it.

Echelon is a global Communications Interception (COMINT) system that is used to monitor, spy on, and record all communications worldwide. This system is overseen by the United States', powerful and secret, National Security Agency. Echelon receives all e-mail, phone, satellite, fax, and internet communications available and feeds them into a computer network which scans them for a list of key words such as "bomb" or "president." This information is then filtered and forwarded to a live person for analysis. Information obtained via Echelon's methods of data capture can then...