NSA Budget

[Peter K.]

>Can anybody tell me what the estimated budget of the National Security
>Agency is? Extra credit if you can tell me how much it is estimated they
>spend on Echelon, the communications surveillance project.
>
>Thanks,
>
>-- Jim Cullen

In the March 20th Nation, Hitchens has a column on ECHELON, where he wrote:

"We know only the merest outline of its work, and possess a handful of
details for two reasons. The first is the work of a group of skillful
journalists -- Duncan Campbell in England, James Bamford and Jason Vest in
the United States, Nicky Hager in New Zealand -- who gradually became aware
of one another's work and began to compare notes. The second is the
emergence of one or two whistleblowers who dislike the fact that their work
has been used against civilians and against democracy rather than against
the vanished Communist foe."