At least ten ECHELON stations operate around the world, and the network has the capacity to monitor huge volumes of international fax, phone and Internet communications. It operates on behalf of five states signed up to the UK-USA Security Agreement: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US.
No phone call you’ve made or text message you’ve sent is ultimately safe from their electronic eavesdropping. ECHELON is able to intercept and inspect the contents of communications via a global network of satellite stations and monitoring centres that capture radio, satellite, microwave, cellular and fibre optic traffic. It can automatically sift out flagged keywords and flagged addresses from masses of sent information.
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