In 1988 the '' ' ECHELON ' '' network was revealed by Margaret Newsham , a Lockheed employee . Newsham told a member of the U.S. Congress that the telephone calls of Strom Thurmond , a Republican U.S. senator , were being collected by the NSA . Congressional investigators determined that " targeting of U.S. political figures would not occur by accident . but was designed into the system from the start . " By the late 1990s '' ' ECHELON ' '' was reportedly capable of monitoring up to 90 % of all internet traffic . According to the BBC in May 2001 , however , " The US Government still refuses to admit that Echelon even exists . " In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks , William Binney , along with colleagues J. Kirke Wiebe and Edward Loomis and in cooperation with House staffer Diane Roark , asked the U.S. Defense Department to investigate the NSA for allegedly wasting " millions and millions of dollars " on Trailblazer , a system intended to analyze data carried on communications networks such as the Internet . Binney was also publicly critical of the NSA for spying on U.S. citizens after the September 11 , 2001 attacks . Binney claimed that the NSA had failed to uncover the 9/11 plot despite its massive interception of data
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Global surveillance disclosures (1970–2013)