<nettime> Wired News : Echelon 'Proof' Discovered

[scot@autonomous.org (scot mcphee)]

A note from scot mcphee:

   [[ Does the NSA spy on American citizens? Probably not, if it
is fearful of being caught breaking American law. But nothing legally
prevents, e.g. the Australian DSD using Echelon to spy on American
citizens, and the NSA spying on Australian citizens. How is this
information shared between these agencies? What further information is
required isn't really about Echelon (which I doubt is used for just random
keyword searching but I suspect rather more specific types of monitoring)
but the extent of co-operation between agencies under the UKUSA agreement.
-- SM ]] 

============================================================

>From Wired News, available online at:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,33891,00.html

Echelon 'Proof' Discovered  
by Chris Oakes  

3:00 a.m. 26.Jan.2000 PST 

References to a project Echelon have been found for the first time in
declassified National Security Agency documents, says the researcher who
found them. 

After combing through declassified National Security Agency documents,
Jeffrey Richelson, a researcher for the National Security Archives, has
concluded that Echelon -- the purported name of the alleged international
project for intercepting all forms of electronic communication -- does
exist. 

(The National Security Archive is an independent, non-governmental
research institute and library at George Washington University, according
to its Web site, and has no relation to the National Security Agency.)

"[The documents] provide government confirmation of the Echelon
program," Richelson said. 

At the same time, Richelson said the documents indicate that it may not
have nearly the illicit scope and nature held by some of the more extreme
conspiracy theories regarding Echelon. 

"My research suggests that it's much more limited than the extreme cases
make out," he said. 

In fact, Richelson said he doubts the agency has overstepped any legal
bounds in executing the Echelon program. 

Intelligence watchdogs suspect that national agencies worldwide -- led by
the NSA and others -- are intercepting and handing off private
communications among citizens to each other. 

Richelson found the telling information in a mountain of documents he
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. 

Some he obtained as recently as the last six months. Others he's had for
years. He published his findings on the Web for the first time last week. 

One of the documents Richelson highlights for its specific reference to
project Echelon pertains to the functions of naval security group activity
in Sugar Grove, West Virginia. 

Richelson said documents make clear that a program called Echelon is
associated with the Sugar Grove installation. 

Echelon has been described by privacy groups as a global surveillance
network that intercepts all kinds of communications for redistribution
among the primary partners in a decades-old U.K.-U.S. alliance that also
includes Australia and New Zealand. But Richelson said that the vision is
probably far bigger than the reality.  "Echelon is a more limited
program," he wrote on his site. 

Those limitations, he said, include restrictions imposed on collection
activities by the UK-U.S. allies regarding the citizens of those
countries. 

"Thus, the [Naval instruction document] also specifies that one of
the responsibilities of the commander of the Sugar Grove site is to
'ensure [that] the privacy of U.S. citizens are properly
safeguarded pursuant to the provisions of USSID 18." 

The agency's public affairs office did not respond to email seeking
comment on the findings. The office has consistently declined to comment
on Echelon-related developments. 

Last week, however, Michael Jacobs, deputy director for information
systems security at the NSA, bristled at the notion that his agency would
spy on U.S. citizens. Strict internal policies, he said, prevent the
agency from doing such a thing. 

"That is not our job," Jacobs said. "We take those restrictions very
seriously." 

Steven Aftergood, who edits the Secrecy & Government Bulletin Project on
Government Secrecy Federation and has been following the Echelon story,
accepts Richelson's findings and conclusions. 

"Is this reference to activation of Echelon units a reference to what we
have to come know and love as the Echelon network? I would say it appears
so," Aftergood said. "That's what Richelson is asserting and I buy it." 

So is it a big deal? 

"It's interesting because I don't know of any other official government
documents that make reference to Echelon by name,"  Aftergood said. "It's
certainly interesting from that point of view."


But he, like Richelson himself, sees no smoking gun. 

"I don't think this document in itself raises any significant questions.
The fact that there is such a network with various stations around the
globe ... that's entirely non-controversial," Aftergood said. 

"It does not get into other aspects of the Echelon mythology such as its
use for domestic surveillance, economic espionage, or other questionable
activities. So from that perspective it doesn't create any new questions." 


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