Re: [h2o-discuss] Echelon

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

At 11:44 -0500 on 11/22/99, Robert S. Thau spake about Re: 
[h2o-discuss] Echelon:

>BTW, early published reports I've read have stated outright that
>ECHELON *does* intercept Internet traffic --- see, for instance,
>
>   http://www.pathfinder.com/time/digital/daily/0,2822,27293,00.html

but not ALL Internet traffic. That June new report had some 
non-sequiturs in it. I would be appalled if our intelligence agencies 
did not monitor some international traffic, exactly as I suspect they 
monitor some international mail and parcel post. As always it is a 
question of who, how, why, and with what safeguards against abuse.

>The "critical junctions on the Internet" alluded to in the story
>are presumably large NAPs such as MAE-West and MAE-East.

Early reports mentioned 6 or 7 junctions being monitored world-wide 
(at least including Germany and Australia, as well as the UK & US. No 
one has yet advised which junctions, and what sort of traffic goes 
though them, which is the kind of information that would let citizens 
judge what class of commerce is being sniffed, and whether the 
question affects the average individual. We may hope that such 
information will be forthcoming.

I have been concerned that some alarmist (the Waco/Ruby Ridge/Mont. 
Freemen claque) groups are trying to say that every email message 
there ever was was monitored, including for example, my e-mail to & 
from my wife at her college in this town, which likely never leaves 
the local copper-wire exchanges (traceroutes have always been 
strictly local). I believe that such reports are a gross exaggeration 
and threaten in their falsity to divert the inquiry into the wrong 
area, with which such questions I sure do not trust Bob Barr to have 
the right sense of relevance.

If there is a problem, and there very well may be, we need to 
quantify and describe it accurately, so that we may correct it 
surgically, and not throw out some baby with the bath water. I do not 
care a wit for the privacy of  foreign intelligence services, nor for 
the privacy of international heroin vendors. On the other hand, the 
government has no business monitoring this list, or my e-mail to my 
clients.

Thanks.

Ted

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