Perry Fellwock (born 1947) is a former

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

(NSA) analyst and

whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

who revealed the existence of the NSA and its worldwide covert surveillance network in an interview, using the pseudonym Winslow Peck, with '' Ramparts'' in 1971. At the time that Fellwock blew the whistle on

ECHELON ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program (signals intelligence/SIGINT collection and analysis network) operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement:Given the 5 dialects that use ...

, the NSA was a nearly unknown organization and among the most secretive of the US intelligence agencies. Fellwock revealed that it had a significantly larger budget than the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

(CIA). Fellwock was motivated by

Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an American political activist, and former United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the ''Pent ...

's release of the '' Pentagon Papers''. Today, Fellwock has been acknowledged as the first NSA whistleblower. ECHELON is the name popularly given to the

signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...

(SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states (so called " Five Eyes" FVEY) to the UKUSA Security Agreement. According to information in a

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

document "On the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system)", ECHELON was ostensibly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

and its

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

allies during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

in the early 1960s. Because of the Fellwock revelations, the U.S. Senate

United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities The Church Committee (formally the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a US Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence ...

("Church Committee" as it was chaired by

Frank Church Frank Forrester Church III (July 25, 1924 – April 7, 1984) was an Americans, American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Idah ...

) introduced successful legislation in 1973 to stop the NSA from spying on American citizens. Speaking about ECHELON, Frank Church said:

"... at capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such sthe capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology ... I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."

The Church Committee hearings and other congressional hearings into abuses by the Nixon Administration by a committee chaired by

Sam Ervin Samuel James Ervin Jr. (September 27, 1896April 23, 1985) was an American politician. A Southern Democrats, Democrat, he served as a United States Senate, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1954 to 1974. A native of Morganton, North Carolina, ...

helped lead to the passage of the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign po ...

("FISA") , in 1978. FISA prescribes procedures for the physical and electronic

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...

and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" (which may include American citizens and permanent residents suspected of espionage or terrorism) in 1978. After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, the law was amended, enabling President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

to expand the warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

Early life and education

Fellwock joined the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

in 1966. After his initial training, he was posted as an analyst to

Karamürsel Karamürsel is a town and district located in northwestern Turkey, on the coast of the Bay of Izmit in the province of Kocaeli. Before its conquest by the Ottomans it used to be called by the Greek name of Praenetos (Πραινετός in Greek) ...

, near

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

. From 1968 to 1969, he spent 13 months in Vietnam during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

and was stationed at

Pleiku Air Base Pleiku Air Base is a former air force base in Vietnam. It was established by the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) in 1962 at an undeveloped airstrip, and was used by the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War in the II Corps Tacti ...

. Upon his return from Vietnam, he transferred to the Air Force Reserves.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fellwock, Perry 1947 births Living people American whistleblowers Espionage writers American foreign policy writers American male non-fiction writers United States Air Force airmen United States Air Force reservists United States Air Force personnel of the Vietnam War National Security Agency people People from Joplin, Missouri

Early life and education

See also

References