http://www.humanunderground.com/echelon_interview.html


DEATH SENTENCE 
             Newsham has gone through hell ever since she was fired from her
job at Lockheed Martin where she designed programs for Echelon's global
surveillance network. When asked to work on a project in 1984, she refused
because she believed it could harm the US government. Shortly after,
Echelon's wirepullers in the National Security Agency (NSA) made sure that
she was  fired by Lockheed Martin. Immediately afterward, she sued her
former employer or wrongful dismissal and contacted the internal security
commission, DCAA, which arranged the closed hearings. 

[...]


             SPYING ON POLITICIANS 
             "To me, there are only two issues at stake here: right or
wrong. And the  longer I worked on the clandestine surveillance projects,
the more I could  see that they were not only illegal, but also
unconstitutional." 

             Margaret Newsham is not pleased with herself for participating
in spying on ordinary people, politicians, interest groups and private
companies, which is exactly what she did for 10 years, from 1974 to 1984.
Both the satellites and the computer programs were developed at Lockheed's
headquarters in Sunnyvale California, and in 1977, she was stationed at the
largest listening post in  the world at Menwith Hill, England.