Did Swisscom sell our Secrets to the USA?

Swisscom may have violated an agreement made with the Confederation by selling sensitive installations to the Americans of Verestar.

The military suspects that this company is related to the Echelon network for interception.

The Commission of Security of the Council of the States worries about "sovereignty about Switzerland."

Jean-Philippe Ceppi
Claude Ansermoz
Emmanuelle Marendaz

The Swiss mountains have ears. But who benefits from their listening? A true wind of panic has blown for a few days at the policies, which fear the infiltration of our installations of telecommunication by foreign forces. At an extraordinary meeting Friday of the Commission of Security Policy of the Council of the States, the senators decided to file a motion at the next session of the Federal Assembly on November 27, on "the problem of the sovereignty of the country caused by the sale by Swisscom of its telecommunications networks," indicated to us yesterday by the advisers to the States Christiane Langenberger (rad./VD) and Theo Maissen (PDC/GR), Members of the Commission. "We also wrote the Federal Council to urge it to take account of the gaps of the legislation," adds the president of the commission, Pierre Paupe (PDC/JU).

If the sovereignty of Switzerland east is so seriously threatened, it is that the uncontrolled sale of the installations of Swisscom could be used by other governments to reveal our secrets. In an official statement emanating October 23 from the commission, the members of Parliament already had declared themselves "surprised and irritated" by "the speed of the decisions" of Swisscom in the sale of its inheritance. But this week, like revealed it Freedom in its edition of Thursday, the Members of the Commission were truly alerted dangers posed by the sale envisaged of the antennas of Swisscom following a talk of the chief of the general staff Hans-Ulrich Scherrer.

The army double-crossed by Swisscom?

According to our information, it is a transaction already carried out which causes truly concern at the Federal Department of Defense: that of the parabolic aerials of Loèche, Were worth some, and of seven other stations in Geneva, Basle and Zurich at the American company Verestar on last 4 October. According to a high person in charge close to the case, the Federal Council was informed by twice, this week still, of "strong suspicions" of the military according to whom this American company would be related to the National Security Agency (NSA), to as much say the electronic services of information of the United States, which directs the famous Echelon network. The risk would exist as well as Switzerland can be spied on thanks to the installations which it itself built, or which it basic serf with this type of activities.

Always according to this same source, the Federal Department of Defense "was doubled-crossed," to some extent, by Swisscom. For an agreement signed on last 20 March provides that any important sale carried out by Swisscom is to be preceded by a green light from the Confederation. According to Hugo Schittenhelm, spokesman of the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication, Swisscom must submit for approval any contract which can call in question "the public interest and security policy." However, Dimanche learned that Swisscom would never have informed the military of the sale of the antennas of Loèche. What Swisscom question: for its spokesman, Christian Neuhaus, not only "the military were integrated in the decision-making process," but in more "the agreement relates to only the sales representing a certain volume of businesses." In fact, according to spokesman, the sale of the antennas of Loèche was not "not a large business." The mystery remains however on the full price of the transaction. Swisscom saw a good bargain there, for the station of Loèche was underused, says a technician on the spot. Its destruction had even been considered, Swisscom suggest.

But the concern does not come from the benefit of Swisscom, naturally. What worries, it is the nature of what the large ears can transmit - and thus intercept, faith of engineer! Approximately, not only of the radio waves and the programs of television, but also of the data internet as well as transmissions of cellular telephony or fixes, in short, all that the ground sees passing from communications. For Verestar, which is presented in the form of a specialist in "the transmission of the voice and data as well as services internet for the American Government and ships of cruising," the acquisition of the antennas of Loèche is "a first point of anchoring in Europe " and will make it possible "to make the connection with all the satellites located above the Indian Ocean," affirmed at the time of the purchase Alan Box, vice-president and general manager of Verestar.

New negotiations

As regards Swiss military, it does not go so far as to repeat in public the suspicions entrusted to the Commission of Secuirty Policy and the Federal Council. "We do not perform counter-espionage because it is not with the army, but with the Public Ministry of the Confederation to judge if this company works for the American intelligence," says Philippe Zahno, spokesman of the staff.

According to him, all the installations which belonged before to Swisscom must be the subject of new negotiations between the repreneurs and the Confederation: "They is tedious, of as much more if these businesses become foreign properties. There are the psychological side dependent on the loss of an inheritance, but also the problem of the maintenance of the secrecy as for the contents and the capacity of these installations. We do not want that this information becomes public, for they could involve a threat for the safety of the country." It is thus an open secret: the large ears of Loèche can be coveted by the mediums of espionage. The Confederation itself develops its own monitoring system thanks to antennas similar to Loèche within the framework of the project Satos 3, intended to prevent "the threats related on technology, terrorism and the nuclear proliferation." With still the installations of the Program of the United Nations for the environment, whose mission is to supervise the ecological state of planet, that done many people, in Loèche, to open large the ears...

Chronology

20 March 2000

March an agreement between Swisscom and the Confederation stipulates that the sales of installations of the old control will have to be subjected to the approval of the State.

4 October

The American company Verestar repurchases the parabolic aerials of Swisscom.

23 October

The Commission of the policy of safety of the Council of the States states to react with "surprised and irritation to the plans of Swisscom ".

8 November

A first oral report/ratio alarms the federal Council on the dangers of the sales of Swisscom.

13 November

The chief of the general staff informs the Commission of the policy of safety of the risks posed with the safety of the country.

15 November

The federal Conseil is informed written file.

17 November

The Commission of the policy of safety of the Council of the States decides in extraordinary session to deposit a motion on "the problem of the sovereignty of the country in the sale of the installations of Swisscom."

The turbid bonds of Verestar

Verestar is a provider specialist in the internet and communication without wire. This subsidiary company of American Tower Corporation (Boston, Massachusetts) does not seem directly not connected, first of all, with the activities of listening of the American secret service. However, Verestar acquired, these last years, several earth stations of transmission per satellite (SNAP). It is one of these SNAP which it bought in Swisscom with Loèche. It now has of it ten in the world. Verestar also manages 160 stations of smaller size, including seven bought by the "blue giant" in Basle, Zurich and Geneva.

The only collaboration acknowledged between Verestar and the American Government are a contract between its division of maritime telecommunications and the US Navy. It provides telephone services to deploy its fleet. Contacted to comment on its business with the American navy and its purchases with Swisscom, Verestar, based in Fairfax (Virginia), did not turn over our calls.

More interesting, Verestar provides connected direct to major hubs of communication internet, Metropolitan Area Ethernets (MAE). In a recent report/ratio entitled "Interception Capabilities 2000", the European Parliament pointed a finger at these MAE and other Internet sites as being the "eavesdroppers" of the National Security Agency (NSA) on the Internet.

For a former high-ranking civil servant of the American Government, the contract between Verestar and Swisscom could show that the NSA (National Security Agency) - American services of listening - decided to "outsource" some of its activities to private companies. It compares these operations to a kind of "privatization of the electronic information." Under the name "operation Groundbreaker," the NSA has already delegated a number of its "noncritical" activities to the private sector. It anticipates its privatization which should start in July 2001.

The director of the NSA, Michael Hayden, is determined to concentrate the activities of the agency on the less traditional modes of communication, like cellular and digital technologies or optical fibres. The NSA is under pressure to focus its attention on the activities of terrorists, traffickers of weapons or drugs, or economic criminality. These efforts of modernization have a code name: "the pioneer project."

Experts familiar with the operations of electronic interception think that the multiplication of the telecommunications satellites and the earth stations is the result of a need increasing for the NSA better covering the surfaces of reception of less size.

The NSA has today earth stations in Denmark, in the Netherlands, in England, in Germany, in Norway and Sweden. Undoubtedly, to improve the satellite cover in Switzerland and in other countries would not displease the NSA, says Wayne Madsen, Washington.

Switzerland close to Echelon?

Will Switzerland join Echelon, the international interception network directed by the American National Security Agency (NSA)? For the multiple Internet sites devoted to the subject, it has already done so. More seriously, Duncan Campbell, the man who flushed out "the large ears," is persuaded of it. In a report submitted to the European Parliament in October 1999, he specified already that "the Swiss services of information had recently announced a plan for the acquisition of two stations of satellite interception COMSAT (n.d.l.r.: the same system that Swisscom has just sold in Verestar with Loèche)." Contacted by Dimanche, the British specialist goes even further: "I investigated the development of the Swiss system, Satos 3. In my opinion, that shows indeed that Switzerland is joining the Echelon system as a minority partner. With less than the Swiss Government does not make an official statement going in the contrary direction."

But what does it hide behind sibylline Satos 3? A project initiated in the years 1990 per Peter Regli, the former chief of the secret service put at foot after the business Dino Bellasi. From here a few months, Switzerland will thus be equipped with its own system of listening of the telecommunications satellites. A system identical to that of Echelon, but a reduced model. The antennas necessary, which come from Great Britain, will be installed in Loèche (VS), just beside those of Verestar (!), in Zimmerwald and Heimenschwand (BE). For an amount estimated between 50 and 100 million francs. Officially, only for interceptions outside our borders, since the legislation on the matter was hardened in Switzerland.

In fact, nothing would however prevent Satos 3 from joining the Echelon network which includes already the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Even if Adolf Ogi, chief of defense (DDPS), always ensured that there would be no collaboration with foreign countries. Today, Australia already recognized the existence of Echelon. And the American and European pressures are done increasingly pressing so that the NSA, which has 40,000 employees, recognizes "officially" the existence of such a network. An existing network since 1971 and which would have the daily capacity to intercept 3 billion communications and to filter 90% of flows of traffic of internet. According to Duncan Campbell, even if the targets are primarily soldiers and diplomatic, nothing prevents the NSA from diverting them at commercial purposes, in particular in favour of the American companies of high technology. That tariff, it is worth for Switzerland to be partner, even minority perhaps better.

Claude Ansermoz

Translation by Cryptome.