From: Matthew Gaylor (freematt@coil.com)
Date: Fri Aug 20 1999 - 08:17:35 MDT
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 15:07:47 +0300 (EEST)
From: Zombie Cow <waste@zor.hut.fi>
To: freematt@coil.com
Subject: U.S.-British Cyber-Spy System Puts European Countries on Edge
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http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990816/t000072952.html
Monday, August 16, 1999
Digital Nation
U.S.-British Cyber-Spy System Puts European Countries on Edge
By GARY CHAPMAN
OVERETO, Italy--It felt like there was a
new Cold War developing at a conference
here last week on computers, networks and international security,
only this time the adversaries are the United States and Europe and
the field of conflict is cyberspace.
The revelation last year about the collaborative electronic
eavesdropping system developed by the U.S. National Security Agency
and British intelligence agencies, a system known as Echelon, has
become a huge topic of discussion in Europe.
The Echelon system can and does intercept "all e-mail, telephone and
fax communications" in Europe, according to a report delivered last
year to the European Parliament, and further investigations revealed
that this capability also covers Australia, New Zealand and other
countries.
The report's author, Steve Wright, director of Omega Foundation, a
British human rights group, was here last week and summarized his
investigation into Echelon.
"The Echelon system forms part of the U.K.-U.S.A. system but unlike
many of the electronic spy systems developed during the Cold War,
Echelon is designed for primarily nonmilitary targets: governments,
organizations and businesses in virtually every country," states
Wright's report, "An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control,"
(available on the Web at http://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm).
The report was prepared for the European Parliament's Scientific and
Technological Options Assessment (STOA) group. Its release in early
1998 shocked European government leaders. * * *
The chief piece of news that angered European politicians and
business executives was the allegation that Echelon data intercepts
are used for economic intelligence, and that the U.S. and British
governments pass on this information to private companies for
competitive advantage in trade talks, financial deals or contract
negotiations, Simon Davies, head of Privacy International in London
and another participant in the conference, wrote in an Aug. 4
commentary piece in The Times.
This is a particularly sensitive and explosive allegation, as Britain
is a member of the European Union and therefore must abide by EU laws
and treaties, one of which, the Maastricht Treaty, is specifically
aimed at leveling the playing field in EU commerce.
Also worrisome is that the "special relationship" between the U.S.
and British governments could allow each country's intelligence agency
to rely on the other to circumvent national privacy laws, according to
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy
Information Center in Washington. When the National Security Agency is
prohibited from certain kinds of domestic surveillance, it may get the
information from its British counterparts, and vice versa.
The STOA report produced a firestorm of controversy in Europe, but
got very little attention in the United States, something Wright
attributes to the fact that throughout 1998 the U.S. news media was
saturated with the scandal in the White House. The European Parliament
took the unprecedented step of holding hearings on Echelon in
September of last year, just about the time our impeachment hearings
were getting underway. * * *
A common response among many people confronted with the news about
Echelon is incredulity--how on earth could any organization intercept
all the telephone calls, e-mail and faxes of several hundred million
people? How could that volume of information be processed or analyzed?
Immense banks of intelligence agency supercomputers search for
keywords that are part of electronic "dictionaries," according to
reports on Echelon. These dictionaries include words or phrases that
are of interest to intelligence analysts, and are used to filter the
Niagara-like flow of data into the system.
Of particular concern to civil liberties and privacy activists is
that these digital dictionaries reportedly contain the names of
organizations such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace.
A great deal about Echelon and electronic surveillance in Europe is
unknown, because the NSA is one of the most secretive organizations in
the world--it was once known as "No Such Agency." The British
government, with its Official State Secrets Act, has even more powers
of secrecy than the U.S. government.
Consequently, the European Parliament and individual European
governments are demanding that U.S. and British intelligence agencies
hand over information about Echelon and implement mechanisms of
accountability.
In the U.S., an investigation into Echelon has been initiated by an
unexpected critic: Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), one of the congressional
leaders of the impeachment movement against President Clinton. Barr is
apparently such a foe of the federal government that he is taking on
the federal intelligence agencies, organizations not accustomed to
being challenged by Republicans.
A member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
Barr arranged for the panel to demand information on Echelon from the
NSA, which, for the first time in its history, refused to turn over
information and documents, citing attorney-client privilege.
Barr is expected to initiate hearings on Echelon sometime in the near
future. Ironically enough, Barr's extreme conservative views and his
well-known style of fiery rhetoric have alienated longtime advocates
of civil liberties who might otherwise be supporters of this
investigation. * * *
The prospect that all e-mail, faxes and telephone calls in Europe may
be under surveillance has led to a significant increase in the market
here for digital encryption products. But the U.S. government still
seems intent on limiting the export of the strongest encryption
techniques available. Both the House Intelligence Committee and the
House Armed Services Committee recently reversed a trend toward
relaxing encryption export controls and revised such legislation
already passed in other House committees.
Thus from a European point of view, the U.S. government appears to be
committed to spying on European citizens, companies and organizations,
but is also bent on preventing Europeans from buying strong
protections against such spying.
Organizations such as the NSA and Britain's MI5 were set up to
provide intelligence on military adversaries, but there are relatively
few of those left. The new domain of cyberspace has unlimited
potential for surveillance and intelligence gathering, unless citizens
intervene and demand democratic accountability of institutions left
around from the Cold War. * * *
Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the
University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at
gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
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