DEBUNKING THE ECHELON MYTH...
Up-to-date Backgrounder:
Thursday, March 30 7:34 PM SGT
No one complaining to EU about Echelon spy web: commission
BRUSSELS, March 30 (AFP) - If any European companies are losing business to US rivals due to the globe-girdling Echelon spy network, none have complained to Brussels, the European Commission said Thursday.
"No companies have contacted the commission on this issue -- no companies," EU Enterprise and Information Society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen told the European Parliament in Brussels.
"We should certainly be interested in talking to people who want to come forward," commission spokesman Jonathan Faull added later at a daily press briefing. "But nobody has come forward."
Their statements threw cold water on allegations by Euro MPs that the United States and "Anglo-Saxon" allies, including EU member Britain, use Echelon for industrial espionage against European exporters and governments.
Reputedly the world's most powerful intelligence gathering system, Echelon is purported to be capable of sifting through millions of telephone calls, faxes and e-mails automatically.
Set up in 1971 by the United States, its existence has only been confirmed in recent months. Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are also involved in its operations, which are overseen by the National Security Agency (NSA). [snip]
sg.dailynews.yahoo.com
If the Anglo-saxons' scheme to electronically stake corporate Europe out on a ubiquitous basis has been so successful then how come British carmaker Rover was eventually crossed by BMW?
And how come Echelon was unable to prevent the blowing-up of two US embassies in East Africa? Or the frame-up of Coca-Cola in June 1999?
If the key explanation for the success of corporate America lies in this Echelon gear then why so many European graduates are still wasting their time applying for US MBA schools like Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago, etc...? They'd rather ask for an internship with the CIA or the NSA!<g>
However, it's interesting to watch how the European bourgeoisie is slowly propping up Uncle Sam as an unreliable con-artist.... I think Freudian psychoanalysis has a name for it: "The Murder of the Father". |
