Perry Fellwock Perry Fellwock ( born c . 1946 ) is a former National Security Agency ( NSA ) analyst and whistleblower who revealed the existence of the NSA and its worldwide covert surveillance network in an interview , using the pseudonym Winslow Peck , with " magazine " in 1971 . At the time that Fellwock blew the whistle on ECHELON , the NSA was a little known 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 ( CIA ) . Fellwock was motivated by Daniel Ellsberg ' s release of the Pentagon Papers . ECHELON is the name popularly given to the signals intelligence ( 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 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 and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War 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 ( " Church Committee " as it was chaired by Frank Church ) introduced successful legislation in 1973 to stop the NSA from spying on American citizens . Speaking about ECHELON , Frank Church said : " . . . [ T ] hat capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left , such [ is ] the 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 helped lead to the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ( " FISA " ) , in 1978 . FISA prescribes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance 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 law was amended , enabling President George W . Bush to expand the warrantless surveillance of American citizens .