The security services of UKUSA found themselves in possession of Echelon, a huge, top-secret and occasionally working worldwide network to monitor and decrypt messages from anyone anywhere. Actually, that's not strictly true -- ironically, the Russians had long since switched to a system which wasn't breakable. And the devil finds work for idle spooks -- it's always possible to find some new enemy of the state to keep an eye on. There's also been plenty of evidence that commercial interests, especially those close to the state, have been the lucky recipients of intelligence gathered just this side of the law. It is entirely possible that if you've been politically active in any way, you've come to the attention of the ears of Echelon, and you have no comeback whatsoever. In an ideal world, this wouldn't matter -- wise council and internal safeguards would ensure that no mistakes were made, no information went astray and no political use was made of anything. But we don't live in an ideal world: policemen, politicians and spooks can go mad or get bought, and a system that's undermonitored and highly secretive will by its nature hush things up. It's getting much worse now, with the spread of the Internet. Nobody can be in any doubt that the RIP Bill and its many antecedents on both sides of the Atlantic is driven by the spooks, scared by the proliferation of potentially secure personal communications. Again, they have a good point -- while there is much scaremongering about child pornographers and drug smugglers, there is a real and present threat from various groups that aren't talked about much but do have very dangerous agendas. As time goes by, little bits of truly frightening information about past intelligence work comes out -- the threats various states made to nuke their neighbours, disarmed by this or that aircraft fortuitously crashing; the missing nuclear devices; nutters with nerve gas and anthrax spores these things haven't gone away. Nor will they. But we can't assume that the intelligence services can be trusted, not now and certainly not if we or our fellow democracies have the stupidity to vote in a particularly aggressive, repressive government in the future. In the service of peace and security, we've allowed a state surveillance system to be built that would be the envy of any dictator, and we've allowed it to flourish unseen and uncontrolled. There are signs in the US -- and even over here -- that the security services are realising that its in everyone's interests for them to come out from behind the cloak, but we can't afford to let the process be driven by the services themselves. As the evidence mounts, we must start building pressure for a wholesale revelation and reform of Echelon: not to shut it down and render ourselves deaf to real threats but to improve its efficiency and make it ours again, not the plaything of nameless people. To have your say online click on the TalkBack button and go to the ZDNet forums.