ECHELON is a name used to describe a highly secretive world-wide signals intelligence and analysis network said to be run by the UKUSA Community that has been reported by a number of sources including, in 2001, a committee of the European Parliament. According to some sources ECHELON can capture radio and satellite communications, telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and other data streams nearly anywhere in the world and includes computer automated analysis and sorting of intercepts.
ECHELON consists of a global network of computers that automatically search through millions of intercepted for pre-programmed keywords or fax, telex and e-mail addresses. Every word of every message in the frequencies and channels selected at a station is automatically searched. The processors in the network are known as the ECHELON Dictionaries. ECHELON connects all these computers and allows the individual stations to function as distributed elements an integrated system.
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