First Echelon Source

[John Young]

This letter came our way in response to the 60 Minutes
report and follow-ups. It is reportedly addressed to
Margaret Newsham.

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Peg,

Thanks for the UPI report. This is conistent with other US press
reports which have been appearing since the European furor
gained prominence. You are probably aware that DIRNSA 
commenced an image building campaign some months
ago, offering considerably more personal interviews than 
customary. Accompanied by reports on NSA's technological
breakdowns and lag behind cutting edge digital innovation.

Perhaps like you we've been tracking this transformation from
a closed never-say-anything agency to one with a friendly open 
face and one needing sympathy and funding from the public 
and Congress. The change has been pretty much according
to coverage of the European Parliament's reports on Echelon
commencing in late 1997, but especially as US coverage
has increased in the past few months.

I know from personal experience that the NSA public affairs
office has become more responsive to outside inquiries,
though nobody there will admit to "what reporters quoting
other reporters call Echelon." That denial still seems to
be official US policy: that the program called Echelon does
not exist except in the repeatedly telling of the initial
report by Duncan and his once unknown source of
information.

It shall be interesting to see when the existence of
Echelon is officially admitted, if ever. That might only
come when the Europeans apply pressure through
official investigations, or our own Congress does so.
I have to wonder if that will ever come to pass, particularly
if the NSA campaign to deny continues to be successful.

I'm counting on the investigations of Duncan, Wayne
Madsen and EPIC bearing fruit this spring. Their
more specific Echelon revelations, and related discoveries,
could embarrass Congress into doing its duty, as was
eventually done in the Pike and Church hearings of the
70s -- which also were preceded by years of the intel
agencies saying "it ain't so." 

But it was, we now know. 

And what it was was finally disclosed by those who know 
most about covert programs, the staff who run them, like 
you and others probably waiting for an opportunity to tell 
Congress what their superior are paid to deny.

I was struck by Stewart Baker's statement in the UPI report
that NSA staff may make mistakes, that they are human, that 
they are Americans like the rest of us. This seems to me to 
be his way of anticipating the eventual disclosure by such 
staff of what they are doing as official policy under guise of 
simple mistakes. That is precisely the story told by NSA staff 
in the Pike and Church hearings -- which I am sure Stewart 
Baker has carefully studied for use in helping crafting the 
current publicity campaign.

The NSA report to Congress on legal standards for
electronic surveillance, publicized yesterday on the FAS
Web site, repeatedly refers to measures to assure that
NSA complies with law and procedures which
grew out of the Pike and Church hearings. In case
you haven't seen it, here is the FAS announcement
on the report:

   A new National Security Agency Report to Congress on 
   "Legal Standards for the Intelligence Community in 
   Conducting Electronic Surveillance" is now posted at

   	http://www.fas.org/irp/nsa/standards.html

   The report, which was required by the FY 2000 
   Intelligence Authorization Act, is in part a response to 
   concerns raised by the "Echelon" story over the past 
   year or so.  The report reiterates and amplifies the 
   requirements of Executive Order 12333 and the 
   Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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