By Al Colombo, Editor
www.GiantKillers.Org
Are international supersleuths listening to your telephone calls, computer communications, and fax transmissions? Jason West, author of LISTENING IN, published by The Village Voice, 18 August 1998, says that this appears to be exactly the case. How, you ask? By using a massive, world-wide intelligence network, code named ECHELON.
"According to current and former intelligence officials, espionage scholars, Australian and British investigative reporters, and a dogged New Zealand researcher, [ECHELON] is all too real," says West. "A soon-to-be finalized European Parliament report on ECHELON has created quite a stir on the other side of the Atlantic. The report's revelations are so serious that it strongly recommends an intensive investigation of NSA (National Security Agency) operations."
According to Niall McKay, author of EAVESDROPPING ON EUROPE, Wired News, this month the European Parliament will presumably order an investigation into this very allegation. According to McKay, ECHELON is a network of listening devices that enable the NSA, the central seat of critical intelligence within the United States, to maintain close electronic surveillance of Europe.
West goes even further, saying that in this post-cold war era, ECHELON's mission has changed from watching the former Soviet Union to that of monitoring the citizen populations of the world. The NSA, like most other developed countries, gathers signal intelligence (SIGINT) using specialized electronic equipment capable of intercepting voice, data and many other kinds of communications.
ECHELON appears to be part of the UKUSA Agreement, signed in 1948 by the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. While the U.S. coordinates intelligence gathering efforts worldwide, West says that each of the five member countries have a geographic area for which they are responsible for SIGINT activities. West quotes Mike Frost, a former officer in the Canadian SIGINT service, as saying "there never 'has been any misunderstanding that we're NSA subsidiaries.'"
According to Wired News' McKay, "The parliament is alarmed at reports of ECHELON's impressive capabilities, and during a debate on 19 September, the European Union called for accountability. The parliament stressed that the NSA and the Government Communications Headquarters, which jointly operate ECHELON, must adopt measures to guard against the system's abuse."
Parliament's intent, says Glyn Ford, a British member of the European Parliament and a director of Scientific and Crypto Technical Options Assessment, technology advisory committee to the parliament, "We want to establish a code of conduct for the systems to protect EU citizens and governments." For additional information on ECHELON, go to: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/15295.html
Copyright©1998 Allan B. Colombo
| The above story, authored by Allan B. Colombo, appeard in the October/November, 1998, issue of the Safety & Security Magazine. |
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Editor's Note: Since the above story was written in 1998, the NSA and CIA have come under scrutiny by members of the Congress for the privacy implications that revolve around Echelon for U.S. Citizens.
"Last week, the House Committee on Intelligence requested that the National
Security Agency [http://www.nsa.gov:8080/] and the Central Intelligence
Agency [http://www.cia.gov/] provide a detailed report to Congress
explaining what legal standards they use to monitor the conversations,
transmissions and activities of American citizens," said Niall McKay of the New York Times.
"'I am concerned there are not sufficient legal mechanisms in place to
protect our private information from unauthorized government eavesdropping
through such mechanisms as Project Echelon,' Barr said in an interview on
Tuesday." (25 May 1999)
