“Guess what? It has. It started under Echelon during the Clinton Administration, grew under Bush and has mushroomed and been exposed under Obama.”
Echelon was started during the Truman years and has probably evolved to what we are seeing and hearing.
I’m of the opinion that what Snowden is talking about is actually the continuation of ECHELON.
ECHELON is an old Cold War project, and once things like that get started, they tend to have an inertia of their own - they never really shut down, they just change the name as needed.
Didn't know that. My earliest recollection was during the Clinton Administration, although it makes sense that intelligence gathering operations such as this may take years to truly develop as they require technology maturation to really implement.