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up a page12/21/97- From London Electronic Telegraph
A GLOBAL electronic spy network that can
eavesdrop on every telephone, email and telex
communication around the world will be officially
acknowledged for the first time in a European
Commission report to be delivered this week.
The report - Assessing the Technologies of Political Control -
was commissioned last year by the Civil
Liberties Committee of the European Parliament. It
contains details of a network of American-controlled
intelligence stations on British soil and around the
world, that "routinely and indiscriminately" monitor
countless phone, fax and email messages.
It states: "Within Europe all email telephone and fax
communications are routinely intercepted by the
United States National Security Agency transfering
all target information from the European mainland via
the strategic hub of London then by satellite to Fort
Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith
Hill in the North York moors in the UK."
The report confirms for the first time the existence of
the secretive ECHELON system.
Until now, evidence of such astounding technology
has been patchy and anecdotal. But the report - to
be discussed on Thursday by the committee of the
office of Science and Technology Assessment in
Luxembourg - confirms that the citizens of Britain
and other European states are subject to an intensity
of surveillance far in excess of that imagined by most
parliaments. Its findings are certain to excite the
concern of MEPs.
"The ECHELON system forms part of the UK-USA
system but unlike many of the electronic spy systems
developed during the Cold War, ECHELON is designed
primarily for non-military targets: governments,
organizations and businesses in virtually every
country.
"The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately
intercepting very large quantities of communications
and then siphoning out what is valuable using
artificial intelligence aids like MEMEX to find key
words".
According to the report, ECHELON uses a number
of national dictionaries containing key words of
interest to each country.
For more than a decade, former agents of US,
British, Canadian and New Zealand national security
agencies have claimed that the monitoring of
electronic communications has become endemic
throughout the world. Rumours have circulated that
new technologies have been developed which have
the capability to search most of the world's telex, fax
and email networks for "key words". Phone calls,
they claim, can be automatically analysed for key
words.
Former signals intelligence operatives have claimed
that spy bases controlled by America have the ability
to search nearly all data communications for key
words. They claim that ECHELON automatically
analyses most email messaging for "precursor" data
which assists intelligence agencies to determine
targets. According to former Canadian Security
Establishment agent Mike Frost, a voice recognition
system called Oratory has been used for some years
to intercept diplomatic calls.
The driving force behind the report is Glyn Ford,
Labour MEP for Greater Manchester East. He
believes that the report is crucial to the future of civil
liberties in Europe.
"In the civil liberties committee we spend a great
deal of time debating issues such as free movement,
immigration and drugs. Technology always sits at the
centre of these discussions. There are times in
history when technology helps democratise, and
times when it helps centralise. This is a time of
centralisation. The justice and home affairs pillar of
Europe has become more powerful without a
corresponding strengthening of civil liberties."
The report recommends a variety of measures for
dealing with the increasing power of the technologies
of surveillance being used at Menwith Hill and other
centres. It bluntly advises: "The European Parliament
should reject proposals from the United States for
making private messages via the global
communications network (Internet) accessible to US
intelligence agencies."
The report also urges a fundamental review of the
involvement of the American NSA (National
Security Agency) in Europe, suggesting that their
activities be either scaled down, or become more
open and accountable.
Such concerns have been privately expressed by
governments and MEPs since the Cold War, but
surveillance has continued to expand. US intelligence
activity in Britain has enjoyed a steady growth
throughout the past two decades. The principal
motivation for this rush of development is the US
interest in commercial espionage. In the Fifties,
during the development of the "special relationship"
between America and Britain, one US institution
was singled out for special attention.
The NSA, the world's biggest and most powerful
signals intelligence organisation, received approval to
set up a network of spy stations throughout Britain.
Their role was to provide military, diplomatic and
economic intelligence by intercepting
communications from throughout the Northern
Hemisphere.
The NSA is one of the shadowiest of the US
intelligence agencies. Until a few years ago, it
existence was a secret and its charter and any
mention of its duties are still classified. However, it
does have a Web site (www.nsa.gov:8080) in which
it describes itself as being responsible for the signals
intelligence and communications security activities of
the US government.
One of its bases, Menwith Hill, was to become the
biggest spy station in the world. Its ears - known as
radomes - are capable of listening in to vast chunks
of the communications spectrum throughout Europe
and the old Soviet Union.
In its first decade the base sucked data from cables
and microwave links running through a nearby Post
Office tower, but the communications revolutions of
the Seventies and Eighties gave the base a capability
that even its architects could scarcely have been able
to imagine. With the creation of Intelsat and digital
telecommunications, Menwith and other stations
developed the capability to eavesdrop on an
extensive scale on fax, telex and voice messages.
Then, with the development of the Internet,
electronic mail and electronic commerce, the
listening posts were able to increase their monitoring
capability to eavesdrop on an unprecedented
spectrum of personal and business communications.
This activity has been all but ignored by the UK
Parliament. When Labour MPs raised questions
about the activities of the NSA, the Government
invoked secrecy rules. It has been the same for 40
years.
Glyn Ford hopes that his report may be the first step
in a long road to more openness. "Some
democratically elected body should surely have a
right to know at some level. At the moment that's
nowhere".