[CTRL] 60 Minutes ECHELON transcript (fwd)

[Jukka E Isosaari]

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From: Paul Wolf <paulwolf@icdc.com>
To: <paulwolf@icdc.com>
Subject: 60 Minutes ECHELON transcript
Date: Thursday, March 02, 2000 7:24 PM



From: Sanho Tree <stree@igc.org>


60 MINUTES

February 27, 2000

ECHELON; WORLDWIDE CONVERSATIONS BEING RECEIVED BY THE ECHELON
SYSTEM MAY FALL INTO THE WRONG HANDS AND INNOCENT PEOPLE MAY
BE TAGGED AS SPIES

STEVE KROFT, co-host:

If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a g=
ood
chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's
largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network i=
s
called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency and four
English-speaking allies: Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
The mission is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries,
terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computer=
s
capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world.

How does it work, and what happens to all the information that's gathered=
? A
lot of people have begun to ask that question, and some suspect that the
information is being used for more than just catching bad guys.

(Footage of satellite; person talking on cell phone; fax machine; ATM bei=
ng
used; telephone pole and wires; radio towers)

KROFT: (Voiceover) We can't see them, but the air around us is filled wit=
h
invisible electronic signals, everything from cell phone conversations to
fax transmissions to ATM transfers. What most people don't realize is tha=
t
virtually every signal radiated across the electromagnetic spectrum is be=
ing
collected and analyzed.

How much of the world is covered by them?

Mr. MIKE FROST (Former Spy): The entire world, the whole planet--covers
everything. Echelon covers everything that's radiated worldwide at any gi=
ven
instant.

KROFT: Every square inch is covered.

Mr. FROST: Every square inch is covered.

(Footage of Frost; listening post)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Mike Frost spent 20 years as a spy for the CSE, the
Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, and he is the only
high-ranking former intelligence agent to speak publicly about the Echelo=
n
program. Frost even showed us one of the installations where he says
operators can listen in to just about anything.

Mr. FROST: Everything from--from data transfers to cell phones to portabl=
e
phones to baby monitors to ATMs...

KROFT: Baby monitors?

Mr. FROST: Oh, yeah. Baby monitors give you a lot of intelligence.

(Footage of listening posts)

KROFT: (Voiceover) This listening post outside Ottawa is just part of a
network of spy stations, which are hidden in the hills of West Virginia, =
in
remote parts of Washington state, even in plain view among the sheep
pastures of Europe.

This is Menwith Hill Station in the Yorkshire countryside of Northern
England. Even though we're on British soil, Menwith Hill is an American b=
ase
operated by the National Security Agency. It's believed to be the largest
spy station in the world.

(Footage of Menwith Hill Station; aerial footage of NSA headquarters;
supercomputers)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Inside each globe are huge dishes which intercept and
download satellite communications from around the world. The information =
is
then sent on to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, where acres of
supercomputers scan millions of transmissions word by word, looking for k=
ey
phrases and, some say, specific voices that may be of major significance.

Mr. FROST: Everything is looked at. The entire take is looked at. And the
computer sorts out what it is told to sort out, be it, say, by key words
such as 'bomb' or 'terrorist' or 'blow up,' to telephone numbers or--or a
person's name. And people are getting caught, and--and that's great.

(Footage of National Security Agency; Carlos the Jackal; two Libyans in
court)

KROFT: (Voiceover) The National Security Agency won't talk about those
successes or even confirm that a program called Echelon exists. But it's
believed the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal was captured with =
the
assistance of Echelon, and that it helped identify two Libyans the US
believes blew up Pan-Am Flight 103.

Is it possible for people like you and I, innocent civilians, to be targe=
ted
by Echelon?

Mr. FROST: Not only possible, not only probable, but factual. While I was=
 at
CSE, a classic example: A lady had been to a school play the night before=
,
and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a--a lousy job.
Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she sai=
d
to her friend something like this, 'Oh, Danny really bombed last night,'
just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that
was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation w--was
referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and h=
er
phone number in the database as a possible terrorist.

KROFT: This is not urban legend you're talking about. This actually
happened?

Mr. FROST: Factual. Absolutely fact. No legend here.

(Vintage footage of Fonda; Spock; King; congressional hearing; the Capito=
l
building)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Back in the 1970s, the NSA was caught red-handed spyin=
g
on anti-war protesters like Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock, and it tur=
ns
out they had been recording the conversations of civil rights leaders lik=
e
Martin Luther King in the 1960s. When Congress found out, it drafted stri=
ct,
new laws prohibiting the NSA from spying on Americans, but today, there's
enough renewed concern about potential abuses that Congress is revisiting
the issue.

Representative BOB BARR (Republican, Georgia): (From C-SPAN) One such
project known as Project Echelon engages in the interception of literally
millions of communications involving United States citizens.

(Footage of Barr; NSA sign; Goss and Kroft)

KROFT: (Voiceover) But even members of Congress have trouble getting
information about Echelon. Last year, the NSA refused to provide internal
memoranda on the program to Porter Goss, the chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee.

What exactly was it that you requested?

Representative PORTER GOSS (Chairman, House Intelligence Committee): Well=
, I
can't get too specific about it, but there was some information about
procedures in how the NSA people would employ some safeguards, and I want=
ed
to see all the correspondence on that to make sure that those safeguards
were being completely honored. At that point, one of the counsels of the =
NSA
said, 'Well, we don't think we need to share this information with the
Oversight Committee.' And we said, 'Well, we're sorry about that. We do h=
ave
the oversight, and you will share the information with us,' and they did.

(Footage of Goss and Kroft)

KROFT: (Voiceover) But only after Goss threatened to cut the NSA's budget.
He still believes, though, that the NSA does not eavesdrop on innocent
American citizens.

If the NSA has capabilities to screen enormous numbers of telephone calls=
,
faxes, e-mails, whatnot, how do you filter out the American conversations=
,
and how do you--how can you be sure that no one is listening to those
conversations?

Rep. GOSS: We do have methods for that, and I am relatively sure that tho=
se
procedures are working very well.

(Footage of Madsen; epic.org Web site; Amnesty International gathering;
Greenpeace members in a boat; Princess Diana)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Others aren't so sure. Wayne Madsen works with a group
called the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which is suing the NSA =
to
get a copy of the documents that were finally turned over to Congressman
Goss. Madsen, a former naval officer who used to work for the NSA, is
concerned about reports that Echelon has listened in on groups like Amnes=
ty
International and Greenpeace. Last year, the NSA was forced to acknowledg=
e
that it had more than 1,000 pages of information on the late Princess Dia=
na.

Mr. WAYNE MADSEN (Electronic Privacy Information Center): Princess Diana,=
 in
her campaign against land mines, of course, was completely at odds with U=
S
policy, so her activities were of tremendous interest to--to the US
policy-makers, of course, and--and, therefore, to the National Security
Agency eavesdroppers.

KROFT: Do you think the--the NSA only monitored her conversations that
involved land mines?

Mr. MADSEN: Well, when NSA extends the big drift net out there, it's
possible that they're picking up more than just her conversations concern=
ing
land mines. What they do with that intelligence, who knows?

(Footage of newspaper headlines; Menwith Hill Station)

KROFT: (Voiceover) In the early 1990s, some of Diana's personal
conversations, as well as those of some others associated with the royal
family, mysteriously appeared in the British tabloids. Could some of thos=
e
conversations have been picked up by that US spy station in England?

Mr. MADSEN: (Voiceover) There's been some speculation that Menwith Hill m=
ay
have been involved in the intercepts of those communications as--as well.

And how--how could that be legal? Well, British intelligence could say,
'Well, we didn't eavesdrop on members of the British royal family. These
happened to be conducted by, you know, one of our strategic partners.' An=
d,
therefore, they would skirt the--skirt the British laws against intercept=
s
of communications.

(Footage of National Security Agency sign)

KROFT: (Voiceover) The US admits it often shares intelligence with its
allies, but never to get around the law.

Mr. FROST: Never, Steve, will governments admit that they can circumvent
legislation by asking another country to do for them what they can't do f=
or
themselves. They will never admit that. But that sort of thing is so easy=
 to
do. It is so commonplace.

KROFT: Do you have any first-hand experience?

Mr. FROST: I do have first-hand experience where CSE did some dirty work =
for
Margaret Thatcher when she was prime minister. She...

KROFT: What kind of dirty work?

Mr. FROST: Well, at the time, she had two ministers that she said, quote,
"They weren't on side," unquote, and she wanted to find out, not what the=
se
ministers were saying, but what they were thinking. So my boss, as a matt=
er
of fact, went to McDonald House in London and did intercept traffic from
these two ministers. The British Parliament now have total deniability. T=
hey
didn't do anything. They know nothing about it. Of course they didn't do
anything; we did it for them.

(Footage of Newsham and Kroft)

KROFT: (Voiceover) One of the few people to acknowledge that they have
listened to conversations over the Echelon system is Margaret Newsham, wh=
o
worked at Menwith Hill in England back in 1979. She had a top secret
security clearance.

So who--you--you knew that conversations were being pulled off satellites.

Ms. MARGARET NEWSHAM: Yes. But to my knowledge, all it was going to be wo=
uld
be like Russian, Chinese or, y--you know, foreign.

(Footage of Newsham)

KROFT: (Voiceover) But soon, she says, she discovered it wasn't only the
Russians and the Chinese who were the targets.

Ms. NEWSHAM: I walked into the office building and a friend said, 'Come o=
ver
here and listen to--to this thing.' And--and he had headphones on, so I t=
ook
the headphones and I listened to it, and--and I looked at him and I'm goi=
ng,
'That's an American.' And he said, 'Well, yeah.'

KROFT: And it was definitely an American voice?

Ms. NEWSHAM: It was definitely an American voice, and it was a voice that
was distinct. And I said, 'Well, who is that?' And he said it was Senator
Strom Thurmond. And I go, 'What?'

KROFT: Do you think this kind of stuff goes on?

Mr. FROST: Oh, of course it goes on. Been going on for years. Of course i=
t
goes on.

KROFT: You mean the National Security Agency spying on politicians in...

Mr. FROST: Well, I--I...

KROFT: ...in the United States?

Mr. FROST: Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? Sounds like the world of fiction.
It's not; not the world of fiction. That's the way it works. I've been
there. I was trained by you guys.

Rep. GOSS: Certainly possible that something like that could happen. The
question is: What happened next?

KROFT: What do you mean?

Rep. GOSS: It is certainly possible that somebody overheard me in a
conversation. I have just been in Europe. I have been talking to people o=
n a
telephone and elsewhere. So it's very possible somebody could have heard =
me.
But the question is: What do they do about it? I mean, I cannot stop the
dust in the ether; it's there. But what I can make sure is that it's not
abused--the capability's not abused, and that's what we do.

KROFT: Much of what's known about the Echelon program comes not from enem=
ies
of the United States, but from its friends. Last year, the European
Parliament, which meets here in Strasbourg, France, issued a report listi=
ng
many of the Echelon's spy stations around the world and detailing their
surveillance capabilities. The report says Echelon is not just being used=
 to
track spies and terrorists. It claims the United States is using it for
corporate and industrial espionage as well, gathering sensitive informati=
on
on European corporations, then turning it over to American competitors so
they can gain an economic advantage.

(Footage of report; plane; report; Raytheon sign; Ford and Kroft)

KROFT: (Voiceover) The European Parliament report alleges that the NSA
'lifted all the faxes and phone calls' between the European aircraft
manufacturer Airbus and Saudi Arabian Airlines, and that the information
helped two American companies, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, win a $ 6
billion contract. The report also alleges that the French company
Thomson-CSF lost a $ 1.3 billion satellite deal to Raytheon the same way.
Glen Ford is the member of the European Parliament who commissioned the
report.

Mr. GLEN FORD (European Parliament Member): It's not the--if you want, th=
e
Echelon system that's the problem. It's how it's being used. Now, you kno=
w,
if we're catching the bad guys, we're completely in favor of that, whethe=
r
it's you catching the bad guys, us or anybody else. We don't like the bad
guys. What we're concerned about is that some of the good guys in my
constituency don't have jobs because US corporations got an inside track
on--on some global deal.

(Footage of encryption machine; Clinton and several men walking; Ford)

KROFT: (Voiceover) Increasingly, European governments and corporations ar=
e
turning to something called encryption, a system of scrambling phone, fax=
 or
e-mail transmissions so that the Echelon system won't be able to read the=
m.
The US is worried about the technology falling into the hands of terroris=
ts
or other enemies. The Clinton administration has been trying to persuade =
the
Europeans to give law enforcement and intelligence agencies a key with wh=
ich
they can unlock the code in matters of national security. Glen Ford, the
European parliamentarian, agrees it's a good idea, in principle.

Mr. FORD: However, if we are not assured that that is n--not going to be
abused, then I'm afraid we may well take the view, 'Sorry, no.' In the
United Kingdom, it's traditional for people to leave a key under the door=
mat
if they want the neighbors to come in and--and do something in their hous=
e.
Well, we're neighbors, and we're not going to leave the electronic key un=
der
the doormat if you're going to come in and steal the family silver.

KROFT: Y--you said that you think that this is basically a good idea, tha=
t
we have to do this at some...

Mr. FROST: Oh, in a perfect world, we would not need the NSA, we would no=
t
need CSE. But, you know, we have to. We have to in the areas of terrorism=
,
drug lords. We--we'd be lost without them. My concern is no accountabilit=
y
and nothing--no safety net in place for the innocent people that fall
through the cracks. That's my concern.

KROFT: Accountability isn't the only issue that's of interest to Congress.
There is growing concern within the intelligence community that encryptio=
n
and the worldwide move to fiber-optic cables, which Echelon may not be ab=
le
to penetrate, will erode the NSA's ability to gather the intelligence vit=
al
to national security. The agency is looking for more money to develop new
technologies.





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