Echelon documentary, reviewed in Variety
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Monday April 28, 2003 16:55
by Ken
I haven't heard anything about Echelon for a while, so here's a timely Variety review of a new French documentary titled "Echelon: The Secret Power".
The final line is a good summary: "Backed up by leading British and
New Zealand investigative journalists and former security agents from
the countries concerned, so overwhelming and smartly presented is
doc's thesis that by the time a former CIA head weighs in with a
straight-faced rebuttal, he appears to have less credibility than a bag
lady raving about little green men."
Echelon: The Secret Power
Echelon: Le Pouvoir Secret
(Docu -- France) A France 2, KUIV production. (International sales:
SFP, Bry-sur-Marne, France.) Produced by Michael Rotman, Mahel
Ranc. Directed, written by David Korn-Brzoza.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Lisa Nesselon
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If you phone, fax or email a friend to say "Let's go see 'Echeleon: The
Secret Power,'" be advised, you'll doubtless end up on a list
somewhere. Juicy, entertaining and densely informative doc
demonstrates the extent to which private communications are illegally
and constantly spied on by the title network, which spans the globe,
plumbs the ocean depths and beams into outer space and back.
Visually and intellectually lively doc, designed to mimic an espionage
thriller, is a riveting, spine-tingling account of five sneaky English-
speaking nations working in collusion. Sure to be a fest favorite,
"Echelon" should be snapped up by tube outlets hither and yon and
beyond.
Shot split screen/widescreen in mock "surveillance camera" mode, pic
piles on the revelations with matter of fact authority. Doc traces roots of
comprehensive electronic surveillance to 1943, when the U.S. and
Great Britain pacted to break Germany's Enigma code, shortening
WWII by as much as two years.
[snip. --DBM]
Doc overflows with real names and precise addresses. In a modest
building at 8 Palmer St. in London, for example, every fax entering or
leaving the U.K. was analyzed in the 1980s, according to information in
the docu.
Ecehlon grows ever more powerful with next to no oversight. In the
early 1970s the base on British soil in Cornwall had only two antennae.
Now 21 dishes are aimed at over 21 satellites.
Easy to grasp 3-D diagrams show how simple it is to intercept various
signals. Programs with titles like "Advanced Vortex" cull transmissions
to and from pagers and mobile phones.
Semantic Intelligence is the term for scanning for spoken words.
"Voicecast," a form of personalized voice recognition, is credited with
making the shooting of Emilio Escobar in 1993 possible.
Fred Stock, a Canadian agent from 1987-1993, testifies that he was
instructed to listen in on the Red Cross, Greenpeace, Amnesty Intl. and
-- get this -- Princess Diana when she began campaigning against
landmines. The Queen of England, even the Pope--nobody is
impervious. Backed up by leading British and New Zealand
investigative journalists and former security agents from the countries
concerned, so overwhelming and smartly presented is doc's thesis that
by the time a former CIA head weighs in with a straight-faced rebuttal,
he appears to have less credibility than a bag lady raving about little
green men.
Camera (color, widescreen), Claude Pavelek, Bjorn Kathofer, Bruno
Henry, Christophe Petit, Korn-Brzoza; editor, Cecile Coolen; music,
Francoise Marchesean; sound (Dolby), Robin Aramburu, Witold
Kubeck. Reviewed at Gothenburg Film Festival, Sweden, Jan. 26,
2003. (Also in Amsterdam Documentary Festival.) Running time: 82
MIN.
Narrator: Francois Devienne.
printable version
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Comments (10 of 10)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10may exist, but do they exist to the degree we are 'told'. If they are so secret and well managed do you think someone could get the information 'out'? Are there some interested in having this information 'out'? Why? Would, by any chance, the fear of constantly being monitered to the degree we are 'told' we are being monitered be disempowering to those who might otherwise be prepared to act out? And is the Pope, Diana or any other supposedly 'untouchable' ("if they can get them then they must be able to get me") really being monitered? They would not want to challenge the status quo. It feeds their lifestyle.
And finally, could the breeding of a paranoid society be advantagous to anyone? If so, who?
2 companies going for the one contract, one is french and one is american. Echeleon then spies on the french company for any inside information, this includes downloading the hard drives of the french company giving the americans the upper hand on any negotiations.Software has evolved to such a degree that keeping tabs on the worlds phones , faxes and computers is a relatively simple thing now.
Have you seen the above movie? Do you agree with the review in Variety? Do you have anything to add to it? What do you know about Echelon?
If you have other information please take the time to write something instead of just turning indymedia.ie into an ancillary of the corporate media.
Thanks.
What R Isible really means is to bury any dangerous information. The odd occasion someone on indymedia gets close to what is really going down someone like R Isible tries to censor it or tries to create a diversionary thread to lead the debate off into safer (nd usually loonier) quarters.
Yes that's it. We are terrified of Variety and this review, because we have a 5% share in Echelon. Now you have it. Comments by editors don't have anything to do with keeping the wire free of copied articles and are all about covering our collective backs. In fact the deputy director of the FBI rang all the active IMC collective last night and demanded that this article be interfered with.
Happy now?
dont worry
oh dont worry
about a thing.
coz echelon have heard of you.
oh yeh.
dont worry no no dont worry, they love you so, they can count your hairs.
dont worry dont worry, they have the best I mean the best tippy top, etylomologists working on the hidden meanings and intricate weaving of your mail, phone calls and supermarket bills.
.can i do a latin? can I?
..."lucus a non lucendo"
first used that here last september.
means "light by its not shining".
Lucus a Etruscan word which passed in Latin means an olive grove, where light rarely passes to the ground, it also means "light", and traditionally is used to mark a word of "uncertain etymology or meaning" and I used it to welcome "the new planet" to our solar system last year, d'ya remember? coz it doesn't shine and it has a sillly name of "uncertain etymological origin". And if you think about George Lucas as well, oh your head would spin.
...imagine what it's like for the poor delusionals who accept the contract to work for MI5/MI6/CIA/FBI/FIE/QdO/KGB(nostalgia)/Mossad etc.,
coz they have to deal with all this stuff.
The mega mega super hyper computer can't do it all on its own, some poor delusional (prob. just like Mr Bean) has to take pen to paper and figure out does Lucus ad non Lucendo mean what it seems to mean which is to say a paradox?
The really good thing for all of us though is that the delusionals who accept the job (@ 30,000stg per annum intro wage) [MI5 general op.] sign the official secrets act so they can't get pissed off about their shitty working conditions in public....they have to marry other spooks and go to "anonymous pissed off spook support groups".
"The really good thing for all of us though is that the delusionals who accept the job ...can't get pissed off about their shitty working conditions in public....they have to marry other spooks and go to "anonymous pissed off spook support groups"
Why do you speak of fellow workers so? They too can join the ranks of the SWP and fight against the their oppressors? In fact, lets get them to strike at the MI5/6 etc... what's say fellow comrades?????????
Add these words;
Bush,Rumsfeld,Powell,CIA,NSA,FBI,Bin Ladin,AK47,M16,militas,world trade centre,Clinton assinate,Hillary,Blair,Saddam Hussien,Oudai,IRA CIRA, RIRA,SEMTEX,C4,
Graunteed to block up the machine
for breaking Echelon.
By using the English Language and the linguistic techniques of James Joyce, peppered with quotations in Arabic, Latin, Greek and Gaelic I broke it over a period of 1000 and 1 days.
= It doesn't work now, it listed millions of sweet little old ladies and such as terrorists for reading poetry.
I broke Echelon "a word of dubious etymology" to prove a point, Bertie, a point about Civilisation, it's values and the limit of machines. No matter how wonderful your intelligence collation, security and defence of a nation or community will always count on the most valued work of the human agent.
That's a very disingenuous question. Of course it exists. There are numerous reports in the public domain documenting the workings and capabilities of Echelon.
A few years ago, even the European Parliament did a limited investigation into Echelon with the emphasis on whether it is used for industrial spying and advantage.
Much of the information about Echelon has come from various sources over the years from people who worked there or were connected with it in some way or another. The information has been fairly slow in coming, but what has come to light, has shown the truly frightening power and nature of this sinister intelligence gathering network.
Whoever has their hands on the control Echelon yields tremendous power that one cannot even begun to understand until you gained some idea and awareness of it's capabilities.