-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/echelon/ic2000.htm <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/echelon/ic2000.htm">STOA Report: Interception Capabilities 2000 </A> ----- Awesome report. Site has oodles pix and drawings. Om K --[2]-- �3. ECHELON and Comint production 65. The ECHELON system became well known following publication of the previous STOA report. Since then, new evidence shows that ECHELON has existed since the 1970s, and was greatly enlarged between 1975 and 1995. Like ILC interception, ECHELON has developed from earlier methods. This section includes new information and documentary evidence about ECHELON and satellite interception. The "Watch List" 66. After the public revelation of the SHAMROCK interception programme, NSA Director Lt General Lew Allen described how NSA used "'watch lists" as an aid to watch for foreign activity of reportable intelligence interest".(41) "We have been providing details ... of any messages contained in the foreign communications we intercept that bear on named individuals or organisations. These compilations of names are commonly referred to as 'Watch Lists'", he said.(42) Until the 1970s, Watch List processing was manual. Analysts examined intercepted ILC communications, reporting, "gisting" or analysing those which appeared to cover names or topics on the Watch List. New information about ECHELON sites and systems 67. It now appears that the system identified as ECHELON has been in existence for more than 20 years. The need for such a system was foreseen in the late 1960s, when NSA and GCHQ planned ILC satellite interception stations at Mowenstow and Yakima. It was expected that the quantity of messages intercepted from the new satellites would be too great for individual examination. According to former NSA staff, the first ECHELON computers automated Comint processing at these sites.(43) 68. NSA and CIA then discovered that Sigint collection from space was more effective than had been anticipated, resulting in accumulations of recordings that outstripped the available supply of linguists and analysts. Documents show that when the SILKWORTH processing systems was installed at Menwith Hill for the new satellites, it was supported by ECHELON 2 and other databanks (see illustration). 69. By the mid 1980s, communications intercepted at these major stations were heavily sifted, with a wide variety of specifications available for non-verbal traffic. Extensive further automation was planned in the mid 1980s as NSA Project P-415. Implementation of this project completed the automation of the previous Watch List activity. From 1987 onwards, staff from international Comint agencies travelled to the US to attended training courses for the new computer systems. 70. Project P-415/ECHELON made heavy use of NSA and GCHQ's global Internet-like communication network to enable remote intelligence customers to task computers at each collection site, and receive the results automatically. The key component of the system are local "Dictionary" computers, which store an extensive database on specified targets, including names, topics of interest, addresses, telephone numbers and other selection criteria. Incoming messages are compared to these criteria; if a match is found, the raw intelligence is forwarded automatically. Dictionary computers are tasked with many thousands of different collection requirements, described as "numbers" (four digit codes). 71. Tasking and receiving intelligence from the Dictionaries involves processes familiar to anyone who has used the Internet. Dictionary sorting and selection can be compared to using search engines, which select web pages containing key words or terms and specifying relationships. The forwarding function of the Dictionary computers may be compared to e-mail. When requested, the system will provide lists of communications matching each criterion for review, analysis, "gisting" or forwarding. An important point about the new system is that before ECHELON, different countries and different stations knew what was being intercepted and to whom it was sent. Now, all but a fraction of the messages selected by Dictionary computers at remote sites are forwarded to NSA or other customers without being read locally. List of intelligence databanks operating at ECHELON Menwith Hill in 1979 included the second generation of ECHELON Satellite interception site at Sugar Grove, West Virginia, showing six antennae targeted on European and Atlantic Ocean regional communications satellites �Westminster, London - Dictionary computer 72. In 1991, a British television programme reported on the operations of the Dictionary computer at GCHQ's Westminster, London office. The system "secretly intercepts every single telex which passes into, out of or through London; thousands of diplomatic, business and personal messages every day. These are fed into a programme known as `Dictionary'. It picks out keywords from the mass of Sigint, and hunts out hundreds of individuals and corporations".(44) The programme pointed out that the Dictionary computers, although controlled and tasked by GCHQ, were operated by security vetted staff employed by British Telecom (BT), Britain's dominant telecommunications operator.(45) The presence of Dictionary computers has also been confirmed at Kojarena, Australia; and at GCHQ Cheltenham, England.(46) �Sugar Grove, Virginia - COMSAT interception at ECHELON site 73. US government documents confirm that the satellite receiving station at Sugar Grove, West Virginia is an ECHELON site, and that collects intelligence from COMSATs. The station is about 250 miles south-west of Washington, in a remote area of the Shenandoah Mountains. It is operated by the US Naval Security Group and the US Air Force Intelligence Agency. 74. An upgraded system called TIMBERLINE II, was installed at Sugar Grove in the summer of 1990. At the same time, according to official US documents, an "ECHELON training department" was established.(47) With training complete, the task of the station in 1991 became "to maintain and operate an ECHELON site".(48) 75. The US Air Force has publicly identified the intelligence activity at Sugar Grove: its "mission is to direct satellite communications equipment [in support of] consumers of COMSAT information ... This is achieved by providing a trained cadre of collection system operators, analysts and managers".(49) In 1990, satellite photographs showed that there were 4 satellite antennae at Sugar Grove. By November 1998, ground inspection revealed that this had expanded to a group of 9. �Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico and Leitrim, Canada - COMSAT interception sites 76. Further information published by the US Air Force identifies the US Naval Security Group Station at Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico as a COMSAT interception site. Its mission is "to become the premier satellite communications processing and analysis field station".(50) 77. Canadian Defence Forces have published details about staff functions at the Leitrim field station of the Canadian Sigint agency CSE. The station, near Ottawa, Ontario has four satellite terminals, erected since 1984. The staff roster includes seven Communications Satellite Analysts, Supervisors and Instructors.(51) 78. In a publicly available resume, a former Communication Satellite Analyst employed at Leitrim describes his job as having required expertise in the "operation and analysis of numerous Comsat computer systems and associated subsystems ... [utilising] computer assisted analysis systems ... [and] a broad range of sophisticated electronic equipment to intercept and study foreign communications and electronic transmissions.(52) Financial reports from CSE also indicate that in 1995/96, the agency planned payments of $7 million to ECHELON and $6 million to Cray (computers). There were no further details about ECHELON.(53) �Waihopai, New Zealand - Intelsat interception at ECHELON site 79. New Zealand's Sigint agency GCSB operates two satellite interception terminals at Waihopai, tasked on Intelsat satellites covering the Pacific Ocean. Extensive details have already been published about the station's Dictionary computers and its role in the ECHELON network.(54) After the book was published, a New Zealand TV station obtained images of the inside of the station operations centre. The pictures were obtained clandestinely by filming through partially curtained windows at night. The TV reporter was able to film close-ups of technical manuals held in the control centre. These were Intelsat technical manuals, providing confirmation that the station targeted these satellites Strikingly, the station was seen to be virtually empty, operating fully automatically. One guard was inside, but was unaware he was being filmed.(55) �ILC processing techniques 80. The technical annexe describes the main systems used to extract and process communications intelligence. The detailed explanations given about processing methods are not essential to understanding the core of this report, but are provided so that readers knowledgeable about telecommunications may fully evaluate the state of the art. 81. Fax messages and computer data (from modems) are given priority in processing because of the ease with which they are understood and analysed. The main method of filtering and analysing non-verbal traffic, the Dictionary computers, utilise traditional information retrieval techniques, including keywords. Fast special purpose chips enable vast quantities of data to be processed in this way. The newest technique is "topic spotting". The processing of telephone calls is mainly limited to identifying call-related information, and traffic analysis. Effective voice "wordspotting" systems do not exist are not in use, despite reports to the contrary. But "voiceprint" type speaker identification systems have been in use since at least 1995. The use of strong cryptog raphy is slowly impinging on Comint agencies' capabilities. This difficulty for Comint agencies has been offset by covert and overt activities which have subverted the effectiveness of cryptographic systems supplied from and/or used in Europe. 82. The conclusions drawn in the annexe are that Comint equipment currently available has the capability, as tasked, to intercept, process and analyse every modern type of high capacity communications system to which access is obtained, including the highest levels of the Internet. There are few gaps in coverage. The scale, capacity and speed of some systems is difficult fully to comprehend. Special purpose systems have been built to process pager messages, cellular mobile radio and new satellites. ��4. Comint and Law Enforcement 83. In 1990 and 1991, the US government became concerned that the marketing of a secure telephone system by AT&T could curtail Comint activity. AT&T was persuaded to withdraw its product. In its place the US government offered NSA "Clipper" chips for incorporation in secure phones. The chips would be manufactured by NSA, which would also record built-in keys and pass this information to other government agencies for storage and, if required, retrieval. This proposal proved extremely unpopular, and was abandoned. In its place, the US government proposed that non government agencies should be required to keep copies of every user's keys, a system called "key escrow" and, later, "key recovery". Viewed in retrospect, the actual purpose of these proposals was to pro vide NSA with a single (or very few) point(s) of access to keys, enabling them to continue to access private and commercial communications. �Misrepresentation of law enforcement interception requirements 84. Between 1993 to 1998, the United States conducted sustained diplomatic activity seeking to persuade EU nations and the OECD to adopt their "key recovery" system. Throughout this period, the US government insisted that the purpose of the initiative was to assist law enforcement agencies. Documents obtained for this study suggest that these claims wilfully misrepresented the true intention of US policy. Documents obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act indicate that policymaking was led exclusively by NSA officials, sometimes to the complete exclusion of police or judicial officials. For example, when the specially appointed US "Ambassador for Cryptography", David Aaron, visited Britain on 25 November 1996, he was accompanied and briefed by NSA's most senior representative in Britain, Dr James J Hearn, formerly Deputy Director of NSA. Mr Aaron had did not meet or consult FBI officials attached to his Embassy. His meeting with British Cabinet officials included NSA's representative and staff from Britain's GCHQ, but police officers or justice officials from both nations were excluded. 85. Since 1993, unknown to European parliamentary bodies and their electors, law enforcement officials from many EU countries and most of the UKUSA nations have been meeting annually in a separate forum to discuss their requirements for intercepting communications. These officials met under the auspices of a hitherto unknown organisation, ILETS (International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar). ILETS was initiated and founded by the FBI. Table 2 lists ILETS meetings held between 1993 and 1997. 86. At their 1993 and 1994 meetings, ILETS participants specified law enforcement user requirements for communications interception. These appear in a 1974 ILETS document called "IUR 1.0". This document was based on an earlier FBI report on "Law Enforcement Requirements for the Surveillance of Electronic Communications", first issued in July 1992 and revised in June 1994. The IUR requirement differed little in substance from the FBI's requirements but was enlarged, containing ten requirements rather than nine. IUR did not specify any law enforcement need for "key escrow" or "key recovery". Cryptography was mentioned solely in the context of network security arrangements. 87. Between 1993 and 1997 police representatives from ILETS were not involved in the NSA-led policy making process for "key recovery", nor did ILETS advance any such proposal, even as late as 1997. Despite this, during the same period the US government repeatedly presented its policy as being motivated by the stated needs of law enforcement agencies. At their 1997 meeting in Dublin, ILETS did not alter the IUR. It was not until 1998 that a revised IUR was prepared containing requirements in respect of cryptography. It follows from this that the US government misled EU and OECD states about the true intention of its policy. 88. This US deception was, however, clear to the senior Commission official responsible for information security. In September 1996, David Herson, head of the EU Senior Officers' Group on Information Security, stated his assessment of the US "key recovery" project : ����"'Law Enforcement' is a protective shield for all the other governmental activities ... We're talking about foreign intelligence, that's what all this is about. There is no question [that] 'law enforcement' is a smoke screen".(56) 89. It should be noted that technically, legally and organisationally, law enforcement requirements for communications interception differ fundamentally from communications intelligence. Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) will normally wish to intercept a specific line or group of lines, and must normally justify their requests to a judicial or administrative authority before proceeding. In contract, Comint agencies conduct broad international communications "trawling" activities, and operate under general warrants. Such operations do not require or even suppose that the parties they intercept are criminals. Such distinctions are vital to civil liberty, but risk being eroded it the boundaries between law enforcement and communications intelligence interception bec omes blurred in future. YearVenueNon-EU participantsEU participants1993Quantico, Virginia, USA Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Norway United StatesDenmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom1994Bonn, Germany Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Norway, United StatesAustria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom1995Canberra, AustraliaAustralia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Norway, United StatesBelgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom1997Dublin, IrelandAustralia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Norway, United StatesAustria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom ������Table 2 ILETS meetings, 1993-1997 ��� Law enforcement communications interception - policy development in Europe 90. Following the second ILETS meeting in Bonn in 1994, IUR 1.0 was presented to the Council of Ministers and was passed without a single word being altered on 17January 1995.(57) During 1995, several non EU members of the ILETS group wrote to the Council to endorse the (unpublished) Council resolution. The resolution was not published in the Official Journal for nearly two years, on 4 November 1996. 91. Following the third ILETS meeting in Canberra in 1995, the Australian government was asked to present the IUR to International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Noting that "law enforcement and national security agencies of a significant number of ITU member states have agreed on a generic set of requirements for legal interception", the Australian government asked the ITU to advise its standards bodies to incorporate the IUR requirements into future telecommunications systems on the basis that the "costs of [providing] legal interception capability and associated disruptions can be lessened by providing for that capability at the design stage".(58) 92. It appears that ILETS met again in 1998 and revised and extended its terms to cover the Internet and Satellite Personal Communications Systems such as Iridium. The new IUR also specified "additional security requirements for network operators and service providers", extensive new requirements for personal information about subscribers, and provisions to deal with cryptography. 93. On 3 September 1998, the revised IUR was presented to the Police Co-operation Working Group as ENFOPOL 98. The Austrian Presidency proposed that, as in 1994, the new IUR be adopted verbatim as a Council Resolution on interception "in respect of new technology".(59) The group did not agree. After repeated redrafting, a fresh paper has been prepared by the German Presidency, for the eventual consideration of Council Home and Justice ministers.(60) ��5. Comint and economic intelligence 94. During the 1998 EP debate on "Transatlantic relations/ECHELON system" Commissioner Bangeman observed on behalf of the Commission that "If this system were to exist, it would be an intolerable attack against individual liberties, competition and the security of the states".(61) The existence of ECHELON was described in section 3, above. This section describes the organisational and reporting frameworks within which economically sensitive information collected by ECHELON and related systems is disseminated, summarising examples where European organisations have been the subject of surveillance. �Tasking economic intelligence 95. US officials acknowledge that NSA collects economic information, whether intentionally or otherwise. Former military intelligence attach� Colonel Dan Smith worked at the US Embassy, London until 1993. He regularly received Comint product from Menwith Hill. In 1998, he told the BBC that at Menwith Hill: ����"In terms of scooping up communications, inevitably since their take is broadband, there will be conversations or communications which are intercepted which have nothing to do with the military, and probably within those there will be some information about commercial dealings" "Anything would be possible technically. Technically they can scoop all this information up, sort through it and find out what it is that might be asked for . . . But there is not policy to do this specifically in response to a particular company's interest(62) 96. In general, this statement is not incorrect. But it overlooks fundamental distinctions between tasking and dissemination, and between commercial and economic intelligence. There is no evidence that companies in any of the UKUSA countries are able to task Comint collection to suit their private purposes. They do not have to. Each UKUSA country authorises national level intelligence assessment organisations and relevant individual ministries to task and receive economic intelligence from Comint. Such information may be collected for myriad purposes, such as: estimation of future essential commodity prices; determining other nation's private positions in trade negotiations; monitoring international trading in arms; tracking sensitive technology; or evaluating the political stability and/or economic strength of a target country. Any of these targets and many others may produce intelligence of direct commercial relevance. The decision as to whether it should be disseminated or exploited is taken not by Comint agencies but by national government organisation(s). �Disseminating economic intelligence 97. In 1970, according to its former Executive Director, the US Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board recommended that "henceforth economic intelligence be considered a function of the national security, enjoying a priority equivalent to diplomatic, military, technological intelligence".(63) On 5 May 1977, a meeting between NSA, CIA and the Department of Commerce authorised the creation of secret new department, the "Office of Intelligence Liaison". Its task was to handle "foreign intelligence" of interest to the Department of Commerce. Its standing orders show that it was authorised to receive and handle SCI intelligence - Comint and Sigint from NSA. The creation of this office THUS provided a formal mechanism whereby NSA data could be used to support commercial and economic interests. After this system was highlighted in a British TV programme in 1993, its name was changed to the "Office of Executive Support".(64) Also in 1993, President Clinton extended US intelligence support to commercial organisations by creating a new National Economic Council, paralleling the National Security Council. 98. The nature of this intelligence support has been widely reported. "Former intelligence officials and other experts say tips based on spying ... regularly flow from the Commerce Department to U.S. companies to help them win contracts overseas.(65) The Office of Executive Support provides classified weekly briefings to security officials. One US newspaper obtained reports from the Commerce Department demonstrating intelligence support to US companies: ����One such document consists of minutes from an August 1994 Commerce Department meeting [intended] to identify major contracts open for bid in Indonesia in order to help U.S. companies win the work. A CIA employee ... spoke at the meeting; five of the 16 people on the routine distribution list for the minutes were from the CIA. 99. In the United Kingdom, GCHQ is specifically required by law (and as and when tasked by the British government) to intercept foreign communications "in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom ...in relation to the actions or intentions of persons outside the British Islands". Commercial interception is tasked and analysed by GCHQ's K Division. Commercial and economic targets can be specified by the government's Overseas Economic Intelligence Committee, the Economic Staff of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the Treasury, or the Bank of England.(66) According to a former senior JIC official, the Comint take routinely includes "company plans, telexes, faxes, and transcribed phone calls. Many were calls between Europe and the South[ern Hemisphere]".(67) 100. In Australia, commercially relevant Comint is passed by DSD to the Office of National Assessments, who consider whether, and if so where, to disseminate it. Staff there may pass information to Australian companies if they believe that an overseas nation has or seeks an unfair trade advantage. Targets of such activity have included Thomson-CSF, and trade negotiations with Japanese purchasers of coal and iron ore. Similar systems operate in the other UKUSA nations, Canada and New Zealand. �The use of Comint economic intelligence product Panavia European Fighter Aircraft consortium and Saudi Arabia 101. In 1993, former National Security Council official Howard Teicher described in a programme about Menwith Hill how the European Panavia company was specifically targeted over sales to the Middle East. "I recall that the words 'Tornado' or 'Panavia' - information related to the specific aircraft - would have been priority targets that we would have wanted information about".(68) �Thomson CSF and Brazil 102. In 1994, NSA intercepted phone calls between Thomson-CSF and Brazil concerning SIVAM, a $1.3 billion surveillance system for the Amazon rain forest. The company was alleged to have bribed members of the Brazilian government selection panel. The contract was awarded to the US Raytheon Corporation - who announced afterwards that "the Department of Commerce worked very hard in support of U.S. industry on this project".(69) Raytheon also provide maintenance and engineering services to NSA's ECHELON satellite interception station at Sugar Grove. �Airbus Industrie and Saudi Arabia 103. According to a well-informed 1995 press report :"from a commercial communications satellite, NSA lifted all the faxes and phone calls between the European consortium Airbus, the Saudi national airline and the Saudi government. The agency found that Airbus agents were offering bribes to a Saudi official. It passed the information to U.S. officials pressing the bid of Boeing Co and McDonnell Douglas Corp., which triumphed last year in the $6 billion competition." (70) �International trade negotiations 104. Many other accounts have been published by reputable journalists and some firsthand witnesses citing frequent occasions on which the US government has utlitised Comint for national commercial purposes. These include targeting data about the emission standards of Japanese vehicles;(71) 1995 trade negotiations the import of Japanese luxury cars;(72) French participation in the GATT trade negotiations in 1993; the Asian-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC), 1997. �Targeting host nations 105. The issue of whether the United States utilises communications intelligence facilities such as Menwith Hilll or Bad Aibling to attack host nations' communications also arises. The available evidence suggests that such conduct may normally be avoided. According to former National Security Council official Howard Teicher, the US government would not direct NSA to spy on a host governments such as Britain: ����" [But] I would never say never in this business because, at the end of the day, national interests are national interests ... sometimes our interests diverge. So never say never - especially in this business" . 6. Comint capabilities after 2000 Developments in technology 106. Since the mid-1990s, communications intelligence agencies have faced substantial difficulties in maintaining global access to communications systems. These difficulties will increase during and after 2000. The major reason is the shift in telecommunications to high capacity optical fibre networks. Physical access to cables is required for interception. Unless a fibre network lies within or passes through a collaborating state, effective interception is practical only by tampering with optoelectronic repeaters (when installed). This limitation is likely to place many foreign land-based high capacity optical fibre networks beyond reach. The physical size of equipment needed to process traffic, together with power, communications and recording systems, makes clandestine activity impractical and risky. 107. Even where access is readily available (such as to COMSATs), the proliferation of new systems will limit collection activities, partly because budgetary constraint will restrict new deployments, and partly because some systems (for example, Iridium) cannot be accessed by presently available systems. 108. In the past 15 years the substantial technological lead in computers and information technology once enjoyed by Comint organisations has all but disappeared. Their principal computer systems are bought "off the shelf" and are the equal of or even inferior to those used by first rank industrial and academic organisations. They differ only in being "TEMPEST shielded", preventing them emitting radio signals which could be used to analyse Sigint activity. 109. Communications intelligence organisations recognise that the long war against civil and commercial cryptography has been lost. A thriving academic and industrial community is skilled in cryptography and cryptology. The Internet and the global marketplace have created a free flow in information, systems and software. NSA has failed in its mission to perpetuate access by pretending that that "key escrow" and like systems were intended to support law enforcement (as opposed to Comint) requirements. 110. Future trends in Comint are likely to include limits on investment in Comint collection from space; greater use of human agents to plant collection devices or obtain codes than in the past; and an intensified effort to attack foreign computer systems, using the Internet and other means (in particular, to gain access to protected files or communications before they are encrypted). 111. Attempts to restrict cryptography have nevertheless delayed the large-scale introduction of effective cryptographic security systems. The reduced cost of computational power has also enabled Comint agencies to deploy fast and sophisticated processing and sorting tools. 112. Recent remarks to CIA veterans by the head of staff of the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, ex CIA officer John Millis illustrate how NSA views the same issues: 1.���"Signals intelligence is in a crisis. ... Over the last fifty years ... In the past, technology has been the friend of NSA, but in the last four or five years technology has moved from being the friend to being the enemy of Sigint. The media of telecommunications is no longer Sigint-friendly. It used to be. When you were doing RF signals, anybody within range of that RF signal could receive it just as clearly as the intended recipient. We moved from that to microwaves, and people figured out a great way to harness that as well. Well, we're moving to media that are very difficult to get to. Encryption is here and it's going to grow very rapidly. That is bad news for Sigint ... It is going to take a huge amount of money invested in new technologies to get access and to be able to break out the information that we still need to get from Sigint". Policy issues for the European Parliament 1. The 1998 Parliamentary resolution on "Transatlantic relations/ECHELON system"(73) called for "protective measures concerning economic information and effective encryption". Providing such measures may be facilitated by developing an in-depth understanding of present and future Comint capabilities. 2. At the technical level, protective measures may best be focused on defeating hostile Comint activity by denying access or, where this is impractical or impossible, preventing processing of message content and associated traffic information by general use of cryptography. 3. As the SOGIS group within the Commission has recognised,(74) the contrasting interests of states is a complex issue. Larger states have made substantial investments in Comint capabilities. One member state is active in the UKUSA alliance, whilst others are either "third parties" to UKUSA or have made bilateral arrangements with NSA. Some of these arrangements were a legacy of the cold war; others are enduring. These issues create internal and international conflicts of interest. Technical solutions are not obvious. It should be possible to define a shared interest in implementing measures to defeat future external Comint activities directed against European states, their citizens and commercial activities. 4. A second area of apparent conflict concerns states' desires to provide communications interception for legitimate law enforcement purposes. The technical and legal processes involved in providing interception for law enforcement purpose differ fundamentally from those used in communications intelligence. Partly because of the lack of parliamentary and public awareness of Comint activities, this distinction is often glossed over, particularly by states that invest heavily in Comint. Any failure to distinguish between legitimate law enforcement interception requirements and interception for clandestine intelligence purposes raises grave issues for civil liberties. A clear boundary between law enforcement and "national security" interception activity is essential to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. 5. At the present time, Internet browsers and other software used in almost every personal computer in Europe is deliberately disabled such that "secure" communications they send can, if collected, be read without difficulty by NSA. US manufacturers are compelled to make these arrangements under US export rules. A level playing field is important. Consideration could be given to a countermeasure whereby, if systems with disabled cryptographic systems are sold outside the United States, they should be required to conform to an "open standard" such that third parties and other nations may provide additional applications which restore the level of security to at least enjoyed by domestic US customers. 6. The work of ILETS has proceeded for 6 years without the involvement of parliaments, and in the absence of consultation with the industrial organisations whose vital interests their work affects. It is regrettable that, prior to the publication of this report, public information has not been available in states about the scope of the policy-making processes, inside and outside the EU, which have led to the formulation of existing and new law enforcement "user requirements". As a matter of urgency, the current policy-making process should be made open to public and parliamentary discussion in member states and in the EP, so that a proper balance may be struck between the security and privacy rights of citizens and commercial enterprises, the financial and technical interests of communications network operators and service providers, and the need to support law enforcement activities intended to suppress serious crime and terrorism. --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
