27 January 2000. Thanks to FS.
Source:
http://www.lesoir.com/B456E.html
(BE)
Le Soir, Brussels, 27 January 2000 - © Rossel & Co SA
ALAIN LALLEMAND
First suspicion had fallen in February 1998: an expert's report addressed to the Commission of public freedoms of the European Parliament devoted two pages to a program of Anglo-American espionage initiated in 1947 and baptized "Echelon." Target: the interception of all communication (faxes, wire mobile or satellite telephones) and in particular commercial and political communications of the whole of the European continent. Considering that Europe missed the evidence of the report, the European police chief Martin Bangeman had then stated he did not to want to react to simple suspicions, but had added: If this system existed it would be an intolerable attack against the personal freedoms, the competition and the security of the European States.
But on next 22 February, the same Commission of public freedoms will be confronted by a second report, written by another expert, over forty pages this time, and extremely technical. All is there: names, dates, places, techniques of interception, context. Yes, for this expert, "Echelon" exists and its attack is all the more intolerable since it comes by way of a Member State of the European Union (which in particular has intercepted the communications of French and Italian diplomats) and that it is still growing.
The threat includes all means of communication, including computers, Internet, wired and cellular telephones and, from now on, even the satellite telephones of Iridium type which apparently were most difficult to cover. The recourse is to encryption, but it is not a question of European encryption, for that is not useful: the report explains how companies like Microsoft, Lotus, Netscape, have allowed the Americans to undermine the encryption of their own software.
Internet? It is trapped: the Americans have equipped nine strategic points of Internet exchanges with detection software. And the incredible flood of information carried by the "grande toile" is not greater than the capacities of interception of the English telephone spies.
The underwater lines of telephone are also targeted, in particular connections linking Europe to Africa via the Mediterranean. Lastly, the report provides a detailed look at the way in which the United States has called upon the need for fighting crime, whereas, in fact, these measures aim at protecting their commercial interests.
The economic repercussions are terrible: the report explains the way in which Thompson CSF saw in 1994 its communications intercepted by the American National Security Agency (NSA) and lost a contract of more than 40 billion francs relating to monitoring the Amazonian forest in Brazil . It also explains how the same agency, in 1995, torpedoed a contract of more than 200 billion francs between Airbus and Saudi Arabia.
All the information contained in this report is unfortunately not first hand - the information, by definition, is secret - but the expert gathered a core of facts and indisputable declarations. What is astonishing, is the little media impact which this second report had when it was completed last April, even before being transmitted to the European Parliament.
In Belgium, one will remember that Ecolo had been the first party to be reacted to the preliminary report of 1998. The requests for explanations had come from Paul Lannoye at the European level and Olivier Deleuze for the federal one. On the basis of second report, Paul Lannoye again discussed the file and account to start again Ecolo with the federal one. But Olivier Deleuze having now entered to the government, who will titillate the Verhofstadt team at this point?
In addition, the Committee R - Standing Committee of follow-up of the services of information - also initiated its own investigation of him, at the request of its former president, Veronique Paulus de Chatelet. To date, the results of this investigation were not communicated. But it is clear that "Echelon" is no longer a fantasy: at the time of a conference on secrecy organized by the government just a year ago, a Belgian Defense analyst had challenged the British on the subject, stating that it was known that indeed the Americans had twenty-five stations of electronic interception for just that contestible purpose.
See a second article summarizing Duncan Campbell's report to EuroParl: http://www.lesoir.com/B456A.html
Cryptome note: The referenced report appears to be that prepared for the European Parliament in April, 1999: "Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information (an appraisal of technologies of political control)."
Part 1: "The perception of economic risks arising from the potential vulnerability of electronic commercial media to interception - Survey of opinions of experts. Interim Study," by Nikos Bogonikolos: http://cryptome.org/dst-1.htm
Part 2: "The legality of the interception of electronic communications: A concise survey of the principal legal issues and instruments under international, European and national law," by Prof. Chris Elliott: http://cryptome.org/dst-2.htm
Part 3: "Encryption and cryptosystems in electronic surveillance: a survey of the technology assessment issues," by Dr. Franck Leprévost:
English: http://cryptome.org/stoa-r3-5.htm
French: http://cryptome.org/dst-3.htm
Part 4: "The state of the art in Communications Intelligence (COMINT) of automated processing for intelligence purposes of intercepted broadband multi-language leased or common carrier systems, and its applicability to COMINT targeting and selection, including speech recognition," by Duncan Campbell: http://www.iptvreports.mcmail.com/stoa_cover.htm