|
“THIS is an
Anglo-Saxon Protestant conspiracy. So much for Britain’s
commitment to European solidarity; its real union is with
America.” So complained Jean-Claude Martinez, a French
member of the European Parliament after a debate on
eavesdropping by Britain and other English-speaking
countries. Is electronic snooping in danger of driving a
further wedge between Britain and its European
allies?
The spy system
Mr Martinez decried, dubbed Echelon, has long been a target
of conspiracy theorists and campaigners for civil liberties.
They claim that western spies routinely gather and share
private information by monitoring electronic communication
and satellites. In particular, the Anglo-Saxons (American,
Canada, New Zealand and Australia, as well as Britain) are
said to listen to Europeans by using equipment set up during
the cold war.
A recent
report for the European Parliament by a British journalist,
Duncan Campbell, detailed how easily communications can be
monitored. He described various sites in Britain (some used
by American security services) where information is gathered
and processed. This report, along with earlier ones and
allegations in the French press, spurred demands from more
than 170 MEPs for a further inquiry: it
is “a very dangerous attack on the sovereignty of member
states”, complained one speaker. The MEPs will get a temporary committee of
inquiry and Portugal, the current president of the European
Union, plans a discussion of industrial espionage for an
informal meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers next
month.
There are two
broad accusations against Britain and its English-speaking
allies: that they illicitly monitor communications among
European governments and businesses, and share that
information between themselves; and that such monitoring is
done for commercial gain.
The first
claim is more plausible. Spying on allies is common
practice, as is collaboration with other countries’ spies.
Interception of communications is common too. But British
intelligence co-operation with the United States is
unusually close. One former foreign secretary objected that
too much sensitive information about the EU
was passed to America. David (now Lord) Owen, foreign
secretary between 1977 and 1979, told a closed session of
the Franks Committee (on the Falklands war) in 1983 that
tapping was routine.
| |
Quite honestly I was, and I remain to this
day, very concerned about the fact that we are
listening to our European allies. I did not like this
and I tried to change it. I lost that battle. It is
one of the very few battles that I lost with my prime
minister. I thought it was unethical... |
|
In particular
Mr Owen emphasised that Britain routinely sent information
it had gathered to the American government:
| |
...it struck me as wrong in our new
relationship with Europe that we should be tapping
into the European Community and passing some of that
stuff on to the United States. I wanted to have an
arrangement whereby anything that dealt with
negotiations within the European Community, which
after all can influence the United States in trade
negotiations, should not be passed on. I wanted to
have a ring fence around it. There was terrific
resistance to this, unbelievable resistance, from
everyone... |
|
Mr Owen was
speaking almost 20 years ago. But the intervening years and
the end of the cold war do not appear to have changed the
nature of the Anglo-American intelligence relationship.
James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA in the Clinton administration, describes
the “Anglo-Saxon” relationship as “very close...although no
one is a complete friend in the intelligence world, with
Britain and America it is as close as it gets.” And, while
America has intelligence sharing arrangements with “dozens
of countries around the world”, that with Britain is
particularly tight. A former under-secretary of state for
the navy, Mr Woolsey even suggests that America’s navy has
had closer ties with Britain’s navy than with other parts of
the American armed forces.
The second
accusation, that the Echelon surveillance system is now used
for commercial gain, is particularly controversial and
harder to prove. A report compiled last October for the
European Parliament (which preceded the Campbell report)
concluded that “there is wide-ranging evidence” that
governments “utilise communications intelligence to provide
commercial advantages to companies”. It suggested that
satellites used by telephone companies are monitored by
sites in Britain, America, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand, while cables under sea and on land, as well as
microwave tower networks, are also tapped. Such monitoring
is increasingly useful, because of the growing use of
e-mail, faxes and the Internet by businesses to communicate.
The Campbell report agreed that there is “wide-ranging
evidence” suggesting governments use spies to benefit
companies.
One German
MEP, Christian von Boetticher, claimed
in February that Echelon had cost European businesses $20
billion. Charles Pasqua, a prominent French Euro-sceptic,
has complained that “Britain benefits from priority
information” from the Echelon system, giving its companies
an unfair advantage over continental ones. But concrete
examples of companies that have gained—or lost—because of
this surveillance system are rarely offered. One case that
is cited by the Campbell report is that of America’s
Raytheon Corporation, which won a contract to assist with a
$1.3 billion surveillance system for the Amazon rainforest.
Spies are said to have revealed a rival’s attempt to bribe
Brazilian officials.
Other
accusations concern the aircraft industry. Various articles
in the French press have claimed that Boeing, an American
aircraft company, was given secret information on Airbus,
its European rival, which could have been gathered only by
using a system such as Echelon. The French are particularly
sore about a large order that Boeing won from Saudi Arabia
in the mid-1990s. They claim that American spies scuppered a
rival bid by Airbus.
Responding to
these allegations, Mr Woolsey last month gleefully admitted
to journalists that “my continental friends, we have spied
on you”, claiming it was done “because you bribe”. But he
denied that America uses espionage to gain economic
advantage for its companies since “most European technology
just isn’t worth our stealing”. This week he added to The
Economist that Britain and America both aim to “get
other countries in the West to play by the same rules on
bribery; America’s national policy is to undermine
bribery—if we discover bribery, we bring it to the attention
of the bribee.” He also suggested that there is “feuding
with some of our continental friends” over bribery, but he
denied that the aim was to help particular American
firms.
In Britain,
says the Foreign Office, interception for the sake of
“economic well- being” is permitted, although not for the
specific benefit of companies. But Tom King, chairman of the
House of Commons intelligence committee and a former defence
secretary, concedes that drawing a firm distinction between
these two activities is a “difficult area”. Mr King also
notes that economic espionage has “certainly grown” since
the end of the cold war and that there has been “bad blood
for some time between the Americans and the French” about
this.
Mr King’s own
committee has looked into the activities at Menwith Hill, a
monitoring station in Yorkshire, which is jointly manned by
the British and Americans. But regulating electronic
interceptions is difficult. American or British spies who
want to monitor a particular target need a warrant. But they
are also believed to carry out large-scale routine
monitoring of communications, which searches for trigger
words that might (for example) lead investigators to drug
smugglers or terrorists. This kind of activity is much
harder to control. The Foreign Office says “any operations
by visiting agencies must comply with UK
law”. But this kind of bland reassurance is unlikely
to quell the suspicions of European parliamentarians.
|
