Snowden revelation confirms existence of echelon surveillance system

Government has lied about its indiscriminate surveillance program for years

Another Edward Snowden revelation reveals that the United States government has lied about the existence of ECHELON, a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications.

ECHELON was reportedly first planned with the establishment of the national security state in 1947 and codified in a treaty signed by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

“Until Snowden placed the full capacities of the NSA and other government spying agencies in plain sight, ECHELON was largely just another codename in the conspiracy-theorist’s notebook,” writes Lucas Matney for TechCrunch.

In 1988 the British investigative journalist Duncan Campbell wrote an article titled “Somebody’s listening” for the Statesman that revealed the existence ECHELON.

The massive and indiscriminate surveillance program was later confirmed during an investigation conducted by the the European Parliament and also by the author James Bamford in his books on the NSA.

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