The VAX mentioned in use by Echelon was manufactured by Digital Equipment Corp, not

CDC.

The fact that Aid doesn't know who made the VAX microcomputer throws a lot of sand on his whole story. That is not an easy mistake to make if you are paying attention.

Echelon is a lot more than just a VAX, it's the alliance of listening stations among the English-speaking countries.

...it's not exactly quibbling. Others pointed out the VAX-DEC connection/correction, and that's well and fine. But the interviewee's characterization of Echelon as merely, only, nothing but a VAX is ridiculous. VAXes (or "VAXen," as geeks liked to say) were nicely designed, dependable little units--bitchin' little boxes in their time--but they were still basically batch, back-end processors. The boffins could try siccing a phalanx of VAXen on digitized voice/fax/etc data streams, but it wouldn't servicably keep up, and the best/brightest of the time would know that full well.

I always assumed that there had to be dedicated front-end processors that pre-crunched the raw stuff, and passed tagged lexical info to VAXen for downstream semantic analysis. Of course, I don't know. But I *do* know that the interviewee in this article saying "only a VAX" betrays a lack of pretty basic technical knowlege. What else doesn't he know?

I can actually tell a strange story; but I won't. Well, it had to do with visiting my cousin in England who, it turned out, "pulled wire" (wink, wink) at Menwith Hill.

In a recent poll 66% of Americans claim that NSA'a intrusive activities are acceptable. That's far more shocking than Big Brother pushing the snooper's envelope. That's to be expected (but not accepted). After all, if the agency isn't very good at interpreting data - and it hasn't been - then of course it needs as much as it can get to make sense of what's happening.

But what about the "intelligence" of Americans? What happened to that? First of all, does the 66% really believe that the NSA programs are going to catch the next group of major terrorists by translating explicit messages either by phone or email? Are the messages going to be this revelational: "Abdul, sent nuclear materials on the 6th; will arrive in Baltimore on the 9th in time for your attack on the 12th"? The communications of the 9/11 operatives clearly showed a degree of discretion that would've been difficult to crack by any intelligence agency, much less the one working for this Administration.

Part of this Administration's problem has been the consistent underestimation of people's intelligence, particularly foreigners. Unfortunately, the domestic nitwits who blindly accept his foreign policy initiatives out of fear are proving he may be right about an overall lack of intelligence here in America. On the other hand, the Islamic militants have shown a remarkable resourcefulness, a cunning ability to outfox Western logic, and a flexibility to adapt to changing conditions. They know, like the rebels at the Boston Tea Party, you don't need electronics to foster mayhem. And when they do use electronics, they're gifted with the poetic latitude of Arabic, which is not an easy language to translate into English. How well are the NSA translators schooled in the nuances of what they're gathering?

How easily the English phrase, "nickel bag" becomes "tool kit" or "homework" in the mouths of 14-year-olds making deals in America. Are there not a million equivalents in Arabic for terrorists planning activities? You can't help but think of the movie scenes where the FBI van is parked around the corner waiting for Vinnie to actually say "OK, OK. I'll tellya whad I'm gonna do, I'm gonna put a bullet in his head." Apparently, the NSA didn't receive the memo revealing that clever criminals aren't that explicit.

In the meantime, a precedent for prying into private matters has been set, and one of the key officials running the operation is set to become head of the CIA. If Orwell was alive how could he resist saying, "I told you so?"

The most crucial lack of intelligence regarding America's foreign policy isn't the data about when America will be attacked again, but the misunderstanding about what constitutes a free and open democracy. You can't have it both ways: intensively spying on common citizens while preaching the benefits of democracy to the rest of the world. They see the duplicity, even if most Americans don't. Cheney's lecturing Putin on human rights in the afternoon and then later that night asks for a report on 2 professors who might be stirring up a rebellion on campus. What about the human rights of citizens being spied on, or doesn't that count?

True intelligence leads to understanding, which is deeper than just raw data. And, unfortunately, neither this Administration nor the majority of Americans are interested in the kind of intelligence that reveals democracies are lost to the abuse of powers; democracies are not imposed by force but grow out of a consciousness of freedom, supported to a great degree by secular principles as opposed to theocratic dictates; most democracies are short-lived because they're exceedingly fragile forms of governance; without wise leadership democracies are destined for extinction. Let's work on accruing that kind of intelligence instead of trying to find out whether or not I recently visited an Islamic site out of curiosity.

You all should remember Harry Caul in the film CONVERSATIONS which exposed the NSA practice of listening to phone calls, looking for word patterns. As Harry (played by Gene Hackman) pointed out, this practice is now more then 20 years old.

Don;t forget Poindexter's program which Congress thought they killed but it lives on under an assumed name--it is resident in NSA computers.

Publishing Coach

The Bush administration will use the phone records illegally gathered by the NSA the same way they used all intelligence - ignore it if it isn't what they want to hear or selectively use it to trump up some falsehood. I cannot fathom a government agency that has the brainpower, relevant skills or technical capability to actually mine even a minute fraction of that sea of data.

Instead, when they want to fabricate a case against a person or an organization, they put those phones under a microscope, cull those records and tap without warrants. When the government is caught, it claims it has the legal right and power to do so... 9/11, 9/11, etc and so on... and after a brief, noisy flurry, the issue is obfuscated into oblivion. This will continue until this administration manages to infringe on the rights of / piss off a prominent Republican and the right wing group he or she favors, who will now feel betrayed and want retribution... or the Republicans suddenly lose their majority in the House and Senate... or the lawsuits against the telecommunications corporations start to pile up.

Dare we hope that Sen. Specter's sudden interest is based on just such an infringement?

Incidentally, do the corruption charges against the ex-CEO of Quest have anything to do with the fact that he would not play along with the NSA in 2002?