Re: [h2o-discuss] Echelon

["Edward (Ted) Burton" <attorney@consultburton.com>]

At 3:34 -0800 on 11/22/99, Tuyet A. Ngoc Tran spake about Re: 
[h2o-discuss] Echelon thus:

>I find it extraordinary that my point concerning individual privacy 
>and rights had turned into a
>convenient reason for an odd response from the recent discussant.

I must apologize for poorly communicating my ideas.

>I am quite puzzled about the reference as to why my family could not 
>find freedom in the land of our heritage. If I am not mistaken, this 
>country provided refuge for countless generations of numerous 
>refugees from all over Europe, post World War II and thereafter. By 
>T.B.'s inferences, the Vietnamese immigrants are somehow held 
>accountable for US foreign policies and political machinations 
>during the time that Mr. Burton was a soldier.

Again, I must apologize. I meant only to say that in one way our 
lives had touched each other before.

>My point was the important value of personal privacy and rights. 
>Moreover, I did not expect to receive a set down for not 
>understanding the true functions of Echelon's existence therefore, 
>as an "interloper" US citizen, I should "not" have voiced my concern 
>and opinions. The last time I look, the ACLU, the Center for 
>Democracy and Technology, Amnestry Internation are respectable 
>organizations. These institutions and others are expressing 
>seriousconcerns over the violation of personal privacy.

And I acknowledge that your concern was for privacy.  I agree that 
privacy is a valid concern.

My point which I so poorly communicated before is, that we know so 
very little about Echelon beyond news reports and various other 
governments' revelations, that we are not able to know whether any of 
us in fact have had or would have our privacy violated. It would be 
wrong to say therefore we should not inquire, but it is also wrong to 
say that we know it is a problem.

I have seen, in the past, various innocuous activities of the 
government misrepresented by political enemies of the federal 
government with quite a furor resulting. For example, the President 
signed an executive order directing how the executive branch of the 
government was supposed to behave when dealing with state and local 
governments, which order in fact was designed to put a stop to some 
past arrogance. From the furor that resulted, you would have thought 
he had proposed to abolish the states. Many descriptions of the 
executive order that spread around the Internet were wholly false, 
and many characterizations of what an executive order is, were also 
false.

I am not going to accuse Echelon of being what I do not yet know that 
it is. If the efforts of these organizations reveal some more facts, 
that will be useful. As for Rep. Barr, I find him to be somewhat to 
the right of the late Ghengis Khan in his politics, and expect 
alarmist statements from him. That makes it difficult to decide 
whether to believe that any particular something that he says has 
merit.

Being an attorney, I  am focused on the law and the facts as we can 
prove them to be.

If every message I send from this computer is read by a government 
computer, that would be illegal and offensive, but I do not believe 
that all messages are read.

Thanks.

Ted

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