TOP SECRET SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM
How the United States spies on us all
January 1999
http://mondediplo.com/1999/01/04echelon
With an annual budget of $26.7 billion - as much as during the cold war - the American intelligence services are the best equipped in the world. Strategic alliances and powerful technology allow them to tap into the world's telephones, faxes and electronic mail as a matter of routine. But the United States' trump card is the cooperation it receives from the police and armed forces of other states more concerned with surveillance than with protecting individual liberties.
With an annual budget of $26.7 billion - as much as during the cold war - the American intelligence services are the best equipped in the world. Strategic alliances and powerful technology allow them to tap into the world's telephones, faxes and electronic mail as a matter of routine. But the United States' trump card is the cooperation it receives from the police and armed forces of other states more concerned with surveillance than with protecting individual liberties.