Trading COMSAT Sigint in Europe (Echelon developments)

[Duncan Campbell]

10 July 2001 

Brian Gladman noted his views of the significance of intelligence exchanges and developments within Europe in a recent series of comments.

Although the debate is being presented as between the raised voices of Americans who want to believe that nothing like Echelon exists or could possibly be used for economic related purposes, and Europeans who want to believe that it exists only for such purposes, some rather deeper and serious things are happening.    

A longer version of the account of this I wrote for the Guardian, already posted to cryptome, appears below.  Thr original was truncated because of news developments.

Duncan Campbell 




http://cryptome.org/eu-intel-fight.htm

4 July 2001. Thanks to Duncan Campbell. 

See related European Parliament Motion of Resolution on Echelon, dated July
4, 2001: http://cryptome.org/echelon-epmr.htm 




This report by Duncan Campbell about unusual developments in Europe related
to Echelon appeared in the British Guardian on Tuesday 3 July, but was
unfortunately published only in abbreviated form owing to late-breaking
news of a verdict in a case of murder of famous British TV celebrity. The
published version is at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,515928,00.htm  




Fight over Euro-intelligence plans 

The sudden closure of one of the worlds largest spy stations is a potential
harbinger of confrontation between the U.S. and Germany 

Duncan Campbell 

Today in Brussels, members of the European Parliament will vote to finalise
a report that condemns the use of the British and American run "Echelon"
international communications surveillance system as a breach of privacy,
sovereignty and human rights. 

The special report, which is expected to be adopted overwhelmingly by the
full European Parliament at the start of September, calls for the European
Convention on Human Rights to be amended to enforce the privacy of
international communications to the same standard as applies to national
communications. And it demands that the British and German government
enforce their legal and treaty obligations to ensure proper supervision and
accountability for secret US surveillance operations conducted from their
territory. 

"The American authorities have repeatedly tried to justify the interception
of telecommunications by accusing the European authorities of corruption
and taking bribes", the report claims. But "the USA must leave the task of
law enforcement to the host countries". To do otherwise is "a violation of
human rights". 

Both Britain and Germany host giant satellite based listening stations
which form the major part of the US international surveillance network. Bad
Aibling Station, in a spa town south of Munich, was the worlds first
satellite spy base, and started operating in 1968. Menwith Hill Station,
near Harrogate, is the largest electronic listening station in the world,
and will play a major role in President Bushs controversial missile defence
plans. 

The worlds largest electronic spying system, of which Echelon is a part, is
run by the UKUSA alliance of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and
the US It is founded on a still-secret 1948 agreement. The five nations
share the take from their global network of surveillance stations. The only
other worldwide systems are run by Russia, and by France, which has
listening stations in South America and the South Pacific. A new European
intelligence agency, in which Germany and France would take leading roles,
would be a major challenge to the UKUSA group. 

The developing spy base controversy has been foreseen as placing Britain
under pressure to choose between its historic intelligence links with the
US and the new European defence and intelligence initiatives spearheaded by
the German government. These already include the construction of a joint
European satellite receiving station at Torrejon, Spain. 

But a series of recent events points to a deeper and different schism being
constructed in Europe, in which Washington appears to have moved
pre-emptively to prevent British isolation and to undermine a German-led
Europe rising over time to become a rival intelligence power. 

It is a battle that only Bonn seems so far to have anticipated and joined.
In a little-reported development two days after the European Parliament
report was published, irate US diplomats wrote to the German government to
announce that, after lengthy negotiation with the central government and
the state of Bavaria, the Bad Aibling base would peremptorily be closed. 

"We have decided to alter our course and will pursue a total closure ....
The US will remove ...all operational equipment under its control,
including antennas and computer processing equipment", the German foreign
ministry was told. 

This decision was, according to the US military attache, "driven by the
United States' government's desire to maintain good relations with your
government, and also with the government of Bavaria". 

Only last year, the supreme US military commander in Europe testified to
the US Senate about his plans to urgently expand Bad Aibling as a regional
intelligence co-ordination centre. Then, the US had no intention of
leaving. Now, hundreds of tons of top secret equipment will be pulled out
by September 2002. 

The Bad Aibling row is the latest in a series of decisions from Bonn
directly challenging the United States on intelligence policy issues. In
1999, Germany was the first major country to break ranks and denounce the
US intelligence-inspired attempts to control private and commercial
cryptography to levels they could easily break. France and most of the rest
of Europe followed suit. By December, the United States government had been
forced to abandon its until then successful decade old control policy on
commercial and political grounds. 

Four months ago, an edict from Bonn reported in Der Spiegel specified that
German military or foreign service computer systems would be prohibited
from using the Microsoft Windows system, on grounds that the program code
was not open and could not be checked for security or "back door" flaws.
American designed computer operating systems would not be permited for use
on "sensitive" German government systems. 

The American riposte on Echelon came in early June, after President Bush
visited Madrid. After the visit, Spanish and US officials openly spoke of
new arrangements between the US and Spain to supply communications
intelligence from the Echelon network to help fight ETA, the seperatist
Basque terrorist organisation. 

Spanish foreign minister Josep Pique confirmed that the US would be
providing Spain with secret intelligence on ETA. "A lot can be done from
the point of view of technology, information and detecting communications",
he said. Government spokesmen confirmed that "new forms of cooperation with
US intelligence services were still being worked on  it opens a very
promising field of action". 

Since most ETA terrorists operate from south-western France, the
Spanish-American deal effectively endorsed and authorised US intelligences
activities in intercepting telephone calls and other communications systems
operating in France. The Spanish prime minister, Jose-Maria Aznar, has also
 alone in Europe - endorsed Bushs plans for new missile defence systems. 

But the ETA-tracking deal is actually the first visible sign of longer term
U.S. plans to set up new bilateral intelligence arrangements with selected
European nations. The US has recently developed and extended intelligence
links with Norway, Denmark, and Switzerland, and has offered anti-terrorist
intelligence sharing to the Italian and Greek government, as well as the
Spanish. 

At the remote village of Skibsbylejren near Hjorring in northern Denmark,
and at Heimenschwand and Leuk in central Switzerland, contractors are now
putting the finishing touches to a new network of satellite communications
interception centres. The data they collect will be routed to processing
centres at Zimmerwald and near Copenhagen, and then exchanged with other
intelligence agencies. 

By the time they are complete in 2002, the new stations will be capable of
simultaneously intercepting messages from about 25 satellites. This will
provide the US with more capacity than is provided by the three smaller
members of the current US alliance- Canada, Australia and New Zealand  put
together. 

Neither Denmark nor Switzerland has claimed that the new spy bases are
being provided for national requirements. According to General Peter Regli,
head of the Swiss Untergruppe Nachrichtendienst der Armee (UNA) military
intelligence unit, the purpose of the Swiss system  called SATOS-3  is to
trade information with partner spy agencies. 

Most significantly, the policy of sharing anti-Echelon intelligence with
Spain announced by President Bush is not new. The agreements were put in
place under the previous Clinton administration. They were then put into
operation on 15 September 2000, when a joint French-Spanish police
operation netted 20 high-flying ETA figures, including Ignacio Gracia
Arregui, believed to have been ETA's most senior military commander at the
time. Back in Washington, administration officials gloated and said that
when the right moment came, they would make use of these results and "let
the damn Europeans stick this up their Echelon". 

This and other developments suggest that the U.S. intelligence agencies
have long been planning how to overcome the new European intelligence and
privacy concerns. Their goal appears to go further than merely protecting
existing surveillance operations against privacy campaigners or
restrictions proposed by the European Parliament. The greater target
appears to be to head off, or at least subvert and minimise the impact of
an independent European intelligence capability. Now, in Bavaria and the
Basque country, these battle lines have been joined. 

ENDS