"The Echelon program complied with FISA and obtained FISA warrants for all investigation of domestic targets"
And how do you know that to be a fact? Any links to prove it?
04/12/2000 at 2:38pm PREPARED TESTIMONY OF GEORGE J. TENET DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2000.
"There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the FBI scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of U.S. persons are involved, whether directly or indirectly. We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department."
George Tenet was around in the days before I was too interested in politics, so I suppose it's entirely possible he is a lying scumbag or that he didn't really know what the NSA was up to (entirely possible). Since echelon was run by UKUSA, I don't think the CIA was really involved.