[iwar] MEPs confirm eavesdropping by Echelon electronic network

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-06-03 11:15:01


Return-Path: <sentto-279987-1281-991592103-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com>
Delivered-To: fc@all.net
Received: from 204.181.12.215 by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.1.0) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Sun, 03 Jun 2001 11:16:07 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (qmail 29610 invoked by uid 510); 3 Jun 2001 17:16:18 -0000
Received: from hl.egroups.com (208.50.99.197) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 3 Jun 2001 17:16:18 -0000
X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-1281-991592103-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com
Received: from [10.1.4.54] by hl.egroups.com with NNFMP; 03 Jun 2001 18:15:03 -0000
X-Sender: fc@all.net
X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com
Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 3 Jun 2001 18:15:02 -0000
Received: (qmail 72338 invoked from network); 3 Jun 2001 18:15:02 -0000
Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 3 Jun 2001 18:15:02 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta2 with SMTP; 3 Jun 2001 18:15:02 -0000
Received: (from fc@localhost) by all.net (8.9.3/8.7.3) id LAA02207 for iwar@onelist.com; Sun, 3 Jun 2001 11:15:02 -0700
Message-Id: <200106031815.LAA02207@all.net>
To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List)
Organization: I'm not allowed to say
X-Mailer: don't even ask
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL1]
From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 11:15:01 -0700 (PDT)
Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [iwar] MEPs confirm eavesdropping by Echelon electronic network
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

MEPs confirm eavesdropping by Echelon electronic network 

Stuart Millar, Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Black
Saturday May 26, 2001
The Guardian 

For years it has been the subject of bitter controversy, its existence 
repeatedly claimed but never officially acknowledged. 

At last, the leaked draft of a report to be published next week by the 
European parliament removes any lingering doubt: Echelon, a shadowy, US-led 
worldwide electronic spying network, is a reality. 

Echelon is part of an Anglo-Saxon club set up by secret treaty in 1947, 
whereby the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, divided the world 
between them to share the product of global eavesdropping. Agencies from the 
five countries exchange intercepts using supercomputers to identify key 
words. 

The intercepts are picked up by ground stations, including the US base at 
Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, and GCHQ's listening post at Morwenstow in 
Cornwall. 

In the cold war, eavesdropping - signals intelligence, or Sigint as it is 
known in the trade - was aimed at military and diplomatic communications. 
Helped by increasingly sophisticated computers, it has now switched to 
industrial, commercial targets - and private individuals. 

Echelon computers can store millions of records on individuals, intercepting 
faxes, phone calls, and emails. 

The MEP's report - which faced opposition from the British and American 
governments and their respective security services - was prompted by claims 
that the US was using Echelon to spy on European companies on behalf of 
American firms. 

France, deeply suspicious of Britain's uniquely close intelligence links with 
the US, seized on reports that Echelon cost Airbus Industrie an #8bn contract 
with Saudi Arabia in 1994, after the US intercepted communications between 
Riyadh and the Toulouse headquarters of Airbus - in which British firms hold 
a 20% stake. 

The MEPs admitted they had been unable to find conclusive proof of industrial 
espionage. The claim has been dismissed by all the Echelon governments and in 
a new book by an intelligence expert, James Bamford. 

More disturbing, as Mr Bamford and the MEPs pointed out, was the threat 
Echelon posed to privacy. "The real issue is whether Echelon is doing away 
with individual privacy - a basic human right," he said. The MEPs looked at 
statements from former members of the intelligence services, who provided 
compelling evidence of Echelon's existence, and the potential scope of its 
activities. 



One former member of the Canadian intelligence service, the CSE, claimed that 
every day millions of emails, faxes and phone conversations were intercepted. 
The name and phone number of one woman, he said, was added to the CSE's list 
of potential terrorists after she used an ambiguous word in an innocent call 
to a friend. 

"Disembodied snippets of conversations are snatched from the ether, perhaps 
out of context, and may be misinterpreted by an analyst who then secretly 
transmits them to spy agencies and law enforcement offices around the world," 
Mr Bamford said. 

The "misleading information", he said, "is then placed in NSA's 
near-bottomless computer storage system, a system capable of storing 5 
trillion pages of text, a stack of paper 150 miles high". 

Unlike information on US citizens, which officially cannot be kept longer 
than a year, information on foreigners can he held "eternally", he said. 

The MEP's draft report concludes the system cannot be as extensive as reports 
have assumed. It is limited by being based on worldwide interception of 
satellite communications, which account for a small part of communications. 

Eavesdropping on other messages requires either tapping cables or 
intercepting radio signals, but the states involved in Echelon, the draft 
report found, had access to a limited proportion of radio and cable 
communications. 

But independent privacy groups claimed Britain, the US and their Echelon 
partners, were developing eavesdropping systems to cope with the explosion in 
communications on email and internet. 

In Britain, the government last year brought in the Regulation of 
Investigatory Powers Act, which allowed authorities to monitor email and 
internet traffic through "black boxes" placed inside service providers' 
systems. It gave police authority to order companies or individuals using 
encryption to protect their communications, to hand over the encryption keys. 
Failure to do so was punishable by a sentence of up to two years. 

The act has been condemned by civil liberties campaigners, but there are 
signs the authorities are keen to secure more far reaching powers to monitor 
internet traffic. 

Last week, the London-based group, Statewatch, published leaked documents 
saying the EU's 15 member states were lobbying the European commission to 
require that service providers kept all phone, fax, email and internet data 
in case they were needed in criminal investigations. 

------------------
http://all.net/ 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-06-30 21:44:15 PDT