The Real Y2K Problem: Privacy John W. Smith Jsmith64@hotpop.com y2k, bug, millenium bug, year 2000, year 2k, problem, computers, technology By our nature, man wants to know all and this seems to apply to the governments of the world more than the individual. After all, we individuals want to know how our computers run so we can get the most from it and use it more effectively. Ever get the feeling the government wants to use you more effectively? Your imagination has not gone out of control. Those huge computer networks that are supposed to spy on us in the future are not fiction and are not a thing to come. They are here today gathering information on almost every citizen of every modern country. Most technology is developed by governments, and in the case of computers and communication this could not be more true. We paid for this in order to protect us from the common enemy, which was said to be communism. The spying programs of the cold war and the technology it produced are what got us to where we are. Where is that you ask? It seems the government has allowed us to have their leftover technology so that we may put our private lives on public display where they monitor it with their now more advanced technology, and we've paid for it all. I am talking about project Echelon. Don't be surprised is you have not heard of it as I try to keep an eye on these things and I had not heard of it until a short time back. This has been a secret project to monitor communications whether it is phone, network, or whatever. According to those who claim to know, the U.S. has had the ability to do speech to text translation by means of computer since at least 1975 where its main use was to monitor international and domestic phone calls and print the conversations that interested them. This has now been expanded to include emails, faxes and general web surfing. BinaryZer0's article on encryption is right on target, but why? Well, it's simple. They have built the network to monitor us and they do not want us to be able to hinder that monitoring. Australia was the first Country to admit such a project existed. But Intel develops our technology you say, not the government. When is the last time you can remember when major industries were not under secret contract by the government to develop something? Back in the sixties when the government wanted to build a national database to make it easier for us to get medical treatment, and to allow them to better study unemployment so that they could improve our lives the public outcry against it was loud and clear. The government agreed not to build such a thing and instead built departments with their own separate computers to maintain their information. Then came the telecommunications boom and all of these departments were networked in effect forming the huge database they had agreed not to build. This is not the first or the last time that the government outright lied knowing full well their intentions. Remember this, the only reason they tell us anything is to get us to fund it! Project Echelon is an entirely different case. It was conceived in secret (in 1947), and paid for without approval of anyone. It operates outside of the laws of all nations involved through a loophole they built for themselves. The law basically says that the government cannot spy on us or invade our privacy. It does not say our government cannot spy on the citizens of another country and this is what is going on. We have members of another country manning our monitoring stations in the U.S. and Americans are manning the European monitoring stations and somehow I missed who is manning the Australian stations. In the end they all swap information and what's the difference? Again, we have been lied to, outright by our own government and if ask about it they deny it or just say nothing and we go, oh, ok, la de da, back to work and nothing ever gets done about it. It is this it's too late, oh well it don't affect me, no skin of my back attitude that is going to skin us all. They almost have the laws in place to make it a crime to ask, labeling you anti government or a terrorist. We are in serious trouble people. Big brother is alive and well. I do not have the answer and don't pretend to. All I can tell you is that someone with more power than most of us better do something fast. Oh yes, don't let the government tell you they will fix it because they will just get you to fund them so that they may better hide it from us. I'm not really sure they care if we know because it may truly be too late. Here are a few links to help you wake up world! http://www.iptvreports.mcmail.com/ic2kreport.htm - Interception capabilities 2000 http://www.fas.org/ - Federation of American Scientists http://www.euronet.nl/~rembert/echelon/ - The Global Surveillance system http://www.gn.apc.org/cndyorks/mhs/index.htm - Campaign to close Menwith Hill US Spy Base There are many, many more links from these sites including pictures, reports and other articles.