Privacy Group Sues NSA Over Echelon

Washington (eFront News) – The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a lawsuit Friday against the National Security Agency to request the release of controversial documents relating to the worldwide communications intelligence system, Echelon. The lawsuit comes after the NSA missed the 20-day Freedom of Information Request deadline to disclose the documents to EPIC.

The NSA refused to provide the same set of documents to the House Intelligence Committee earlier this year. When the NSA refused, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-FL), chairman of the oversight panel and former CIA officer, wrote in a committee report that NSA's rationale for withholding the legal memoranda was both "unpersuasive and dubious."

Echelon is an automated global surveillance system administered by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Echelon is believed to intercept over 3 billion communications each day, including phone calls, e-mails, and satellite transmissions. Some reports indicate that Echelon monitors 90 percent of all Internet traffic, sifting through all the information for key words that are of relevance to international security.

The NSA has undergone intense scrutiny in recent months as the existence of Echelon and concerns over domestic privacy became more widely reported. EPIC Director Marc Rotenberg said, "the charter of the National Security Agency does not authorize domestic intelligence gathering. Yet we have reason to believe that the NSA is engaged in the indiscriminate acquisition and interception of domestic communications taking place over the Internet."