Re: Jam Echelon Day [OCTOBER 21] - The Disinformation Has Begun

[James Glave <james@wired.com>]

[: hacktivism :]

I received an email from Linda with Jam Echelon in the subject that I
understood to be a part of the Hacktivism list discussion. Here is her
response to my query, which appears in the footer of the letter. I probably
should have written to more people on the hacktivism list, and for one
reason or another, this gained steam here in the newsroom and was not
researched thoroughly enough. It began as a small itme, what we call a
"brief," and grew until suddently it was our top story.

It's the equivalent of a nugget in the "Also" column of a paper getting
bumped to page one "above the fold," and I didn't do enough to stop it
until it was more properly researched.

The correction should be live any minute now, reflecting the exact date.

jtg


>X-From_: bama@latrading.net  Tue Oct  5 11:21:14 1999
>Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 13:17:45 -0500
>From: Linda Thompson <bama@latrading.net>
>Reply-To: bama@latrading.net
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.04Gold (Win95; I)
>To: James Glave <james@wired.com>
>Subject: Re: Wired News on "Jam Echelon"
>
>I'm glad the effort is catching on.  Actually, this recent effort was
>started by Doug McIntosh in Indianapolis, Indiana, a reporter for AEN
>News, who wrote the original list (at the bottom of this message). 
>Together, we revised the list and I wrote the message explaining what
>Echelon is and pointing to some Echelon articles.  I just write more
>posts than he does so the tagline gets around more.  I am forwarding a
>copy of this mail and your mail to him.  Someone else apparently came up
>with the October 18 target date.  
>
>I'm a Constitutional rights attorney and Chairman of the American
>Justice Federation.  In 1992, our news network, AEN News, put out
>information on Echelon.  At that time, I received a lot of
>anonymous/phony "hate" email claiming I was a "kook," and many
>well-placed propaganda pieces suddenly appeared in the media which made
>it appear that anyone who "believed" in Echelon was a nut (as if Echelon
>were the tooth fairy, Santa Claus or a UFO).  The primary claim was that
>such a capability to monitor telephone calls and internet mail could not
>and did not exist.  But Echelon existed then, it exists now, and its
>capacity has greatly improved with time.  It is now linked to even more
>such computers world-wide.
>
>Yet, here it is, some 7 years later, and the general public still isn't
>aware that we (the *world*, not just the U.S.) are *all* routinely
>monitored by Echelon.  *Many* countries' top security, not just the USA
>and not just NSA, utilize this monitoring, including France and the UK.  
>
>Why do we tolerate this outrageous behavior from our so-called "public
>servants?" Even Hitler had nothing to compare to this, yet nothing is
>being done by the President or U.S. Congress or any world power to shut
>it down.
>
>The effort to "gag the Ecelon computer" is an effort at public awareness
>-- a first step necessary to kill the beast.
>
>
>
>James Glave wrote:
>> 
>> I'd like to do a short write up on the plan to flood echelon on 18 October,
>> and I'd like to get your views and/or those of whomever is leading the
>> effort. I am at (415) 276-8430 in PST/California.
>> 
>> jtg.


At 06:13 PM 10/06/1999 -0400, Robert Kemp wrote:
>[: hacktivism :]
>
>----Original Message Follows----
>From: James Glave <james@wired.com>
>
>
>The article was in error concerning hte date and has been corrected -- the 
>corrections will be live shortly. We regret the error.
>
>James Glave
>WIred News
>======================================================================
>Thank you, James.  Perhaps you can tell me how Linda Thompson got involved 
>in this.  She certainly never spoke on the list.
>
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James Glave, Wired News http://www.wired.com  +1 (415) 276-8430

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