Yesterday was Jam Echelon Day — why in the world over a weekend when people are less likely to be using the net I don’t know — but it’s probably not too late anyway, since disseminating awareness about Echelon sounds like a more realistic purpose of the event than actually jamming the system:

The primary goal of Jam Echelon Day 2001 is to raise public awareness of the existence of Echelon and stimulate scrutiny of the world’s government agencies that operate it.

We are offering substantial resources for people to educate themselves about Echelon and what it is capable of. This is an educational campaign sponsored by concerned netizens that value personal privacy and firmly believe that everyone has a right to privacy without government intrusion.

The 2001 “Jam Echelon” campaign has kept the name of it’s 1999 predecessor both to honor a great idea and to state an ideal. We acknowledge that the current level of technology being utilized by the Echelon group far exceeds our ability to actually impact it in this manner. We do not intend, nor do we encourage attempting to overload Echelon’s surveillance systems with spam.

In the past, different organizations and individuals have sent out mass emailings using “keywords” designed to trigger Echelon’s filters. In reality, it is unknown if this tactic actually jammed up Echelon’s systems but it is likely that this would only produce an abundance of Echelon related spam and be counter productive. It is our opinion that more can be accomplished by sending people to one of the Jam Echelon mirrors for information.

Our recommendation for action on October 21st is for you to email everyone on your personal mailing list informing them of the existence of Echelon. Then, direct them to one of the “Jam Echelon” sites [full list at the linked site –FmH] for further information. Include some of the “keywords” in your email; it can’t hurt. Who knows? We might get lucky.