-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- ISSUE 1724 Sunday 13 February 2000 Britain's spy posts accused of listening in on business By Philip Sherwell in London and David Wastell in Washington BRITAIN and the US are facing unprecedented legal and political challenges from their European allies over a secret Anglophone spy network. Within earshot: Menwith Hill in Yorkshire is the Americans' most important international listening post Newly declassified American documents last week provided the first official confirmation that the global electronic eavesdropping operation exists. The Echelon surveillance system - run by five English-speaking nations but dominated by the US - is reportedly capable of monitoring telephone, fax and email communications relayed by satellite anywhere in the world. The network is a legacy of the Cold War intelligence showdown with the communist bloc. But there are allegations in west European nations that Echelon is being abused by US espionage chiefs to spy on individuals and to pass on commercial secrets to American businesses. Britain's role has come under fierce fire as it is the only European member of the UK/USA alliance that operates the system. Canada, Australia and New Zealand subsequently joined the grouping that London formed with America in 1947 to pool security information. The sprawling Menwith Hill listening station in North Yorkshire is the most important international site for America's National Security Agency (NSA), the lead player in Echelon. A new report into Echelon's electronic surveillance commissioned by the European Parliament will fuel the row when MEPs debate its findings next week. The document lists high-profile cases in which American companies allegedly won contracts heading for European firms after NSA intercepted conversations. The Airbus consortium and Thomson CSF of France were among the reported losers. In Asia, the US used information gathered from its bases in Australia to win a half share of a significant Indonesian trade contract for AT&T that communication intercepts showed was initially going to NRC of Japan, according to a former NSA agent, Wayne Madsen, on Australian television last year. A lawsuit against the US and Britain is being launched in France, judicial and parliamentary investigations have begun in Italy, and German parliamentarians have demanded an inquiry. In the US, a Congressional investigation into the Echelon system starts this year amid concerns over possible privacy violations. A spokesman for the government reform committee said: "American people not only have the right to privacy, they have the right to know about it if their privacy is infringed." The committee will be able to issue subpoenas to federal officials and employees of NSA to compel them to give evidence. Although a 1996 book by a New Zealand whistleblower and an earlier 1997 report to the European Parliament disclosed the existence of Echelon, there had been no official confirmation in Britain or America until declassified US defence department papers were posted on the Internet last week. The first reference to the "highly controversial programme . . . codenamed Echelon" came in a 1991 document relating to military Sigint (signals intelligence) units at Sugar Grove in West Virginia. Despite the release, NSA continued to refuse to confirm or deny Echelon's existence. The Home Office did not respond to inquiries about Echelon last week. Senior British intelligence officials have, however, denied that there is a "word spotting" search system that allows calls of intelligence interest to be selected by the use of key words or names. The report, to be presented to the European Parliament's civil liberties committee on February 22, agrees that "word spotting" does not exist. Instead, the millions of satellite communications monitored each day are reportedly sifted by so-called "dictionary" computers that check messages against a database of targets such as names, topics, addresses and telephone numbers. If there is a match, the intercepts are relayed to security agents for analysis. The biggest data-collection centre is at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Virginia, while Britain's largest centre is GCHQ in Cheltenham. The investigations will throw embarrassing light on the clandestine Anglophone listening operation. The biggest challenge seems likely in France, where strict privacy laws mean that it is necessary to prove only that an attempt to breach the privacy of an individual has been made, not that the intrusion was harmful. A leading Parisian law firm said said last week that it would file the French equivalent of a class action suit to sue the US and Britain, representing individuals and firms that claim they have lost contracts because of "theft of information". David Natas, a lawyer specialising in computer crime, said: "The French are extremely angry. They should tear down the listening stations in Cornwall." In Italy, parliament's secret services committee has opened an inquiry, as have magistrates in Rome. Carlo Sarzana, an assistant chief preliminary judge, said of NSA's intercepts: "The scope is not military." But there are plenty in Washington who believe that NSA is simply doing its duty, and say that European secret services pursue the same policy. One congressional insider said: "The French are like whining babies. They always seem to find a reason for any of their failures." 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