DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: STATUS OF US INTELLIGENCE
SUBSECTION: ECHELON, HIGH TECH
Revised 8/20/99
ECHELON AND HIGH TECH INTELLIGENCE
Daily Telegraph 12/16/97 ".A European Commission report warns that the United States has developed an extensive spying network on European Citizens and we should all be worried, reports Simon Davies. A global electronic spy network that can eavesdrop on every telephone,email and telex communication around the world will be officially acknowledged for the first time in a European Commission report to be delivered this week. The report - Assessing the Technologies of Political Control -- was commissioned last year by the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament. It contains details of a network of American-controlled spy stations on British soil and around the world. that "routinely and indiscriminately" monitors countless phone, fax and email messages. It states: "Within Europe all email telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States Natiomnal Security Agency transferring all target information from the European mainland via the strategic hub of London then by satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith Hill" in Yorkshire. The report confirms for the first time the existence of a the secretive Echelon system.."
Summarized from a report by Charles Smith (Softwar): Webb Hubbell, Ron Brown and Vince Foster were all assigned to encryption tasks involving chip technology. Janet Reno was personally tasked to encryption export policy. Ira Sockowitz, a former DNC fundraiser walked out of the Commerce Dept. with over 2,000 pages of secret material on encryption and satellites. According to the GAO, Clinton personally authorized the transfer of military strength encryption technology to China with a Presidential Waiver. There was a GAO report on the 1994 "Hua Mei" transfer of an advanced telecommunications, secure, fiber- optic system sold to a Chinese Army front company included advanced encryption software. One document returned under a FOIA request from the Commerce Dept. for the "Hua Mei" request, outlines the details of how China and the Clinton administration used an obscure license technique, called GLX, to avoid verifying the end user was the Chinese military. In the case of Hua Mei, the Chinese Army bought technology by using front companies. The Commerce Department under Ron Brown did very little, if anything, to stop them. In fact, according to the Commerce Dept., of the 734 licenses applied for advanced telecommunications export to China in 1994 under the "GLX" category only five were denied! Additional documents obtained by SOFTWAR using FOIA from the White House National Security Council (NSC) show that Motorola sought and obtained President Clinton's permission to sell encrypted radios to China. Motorola did so with the help of a former Clinton and Bush NSC official, Dr. Richard Barth. Barth was brought back into the Clinton White House as a contractor in 1993 and helped make U.S. encryption export policy. Clinton opposes the sale of the same type of equipment to all U.S. citizens.
Wired News 9/30/98 Niall McKay ".In October, Europe's governing body will commission a full report into the workings of Echelon, a global network of highly sensitive listening posts operated in part by America's most clandestine intelligence organization, the National Security Agency. "Frankly, the only people who have any doubt about the existence of Echelon are in the United States," said Glyn Ford, a British member of the European Parliament and a director of Scientific and Technical Options Assessment, or STOA, a technology advisory committee to the parliament. Echelon is reportedly able to intercept, record, and translate any electronic communication -- telephone, data, cellular, fax, email, telex -- sent anywhere in the world. ."
FOX NEWS 11/13/98 Patrick Riley ".Beware: you are being tracked by the government. Your phone calls are being monitored, your faxes and e-mails are being read. It is a classic Big Brother cliche, but it may also be reality, according to information emerging about a global surveillance network called Echelon, which is run by the United States National Security Agency in conjunction with intelligence operations in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. The Free Congress Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based civil liberties group, recently published a report detailing the system and is planning, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, to pressure Congress into investigating it. "Echelon is the most terrifying kind of surveillance that exists because you have no way of knowing if you're being listened to and you have no recourse and you have no privacy," said Cassidy Sehgal, a lawyer for the ACLU. A remnant of the Cold War that has continued to advance in the digital era, Echelon reportedly uses land- based intercept stations, as well as ships and satellites, to collect electronic and fiber-optic transmissions at an estimated rate of 5 million per minute.. It's not the existence of such a spy operation that troubles most critics, it's Echelon's seemingly indiscriminate nature and lack of regulation.."
WorldNet Daily 2/25/99 Joseph Farah "…One of the secrets of the Clinton administration's success at staying in power has been to plot such dastardly deeds that few Americans could even grasp their evil intent. Right at the top of the list of such conspiracies -- now well documented, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of WorldNetDaily columnist Charles Smith -- is the Clipper Chip project. It involves all of the following: a treasonous relationship with China, a plan to tap every phone in America, drug money and, of course, the usual intrigue of administration figures such as Webster Hubbell, Al Gore, Ron Brown, Janet Reno and Clinton himself…The story starts in 1992 when AT&T developed secure telephones untappable by the federal government. The company planned to make them available to the American public. Instead, the Clinton administration interceded and bought up all the phones with a secret slush fund…. By 1994, White House aide John Podesta had been called into the inner circle of the Clipper project. Meanwhile, Podesta's brother, Tony, a lobbyist and fund-raiser was representing AT&T. His donors and clients, including AT&T, were invited to participate in trade trips to China and obtain valuable export deals with Beijing…By 1996, Reno was urging the all-out federal takeover of the computer industry and the banning of any encryption technology that doesn't let the government in the back door. Interestingly, the first target of the government's wiretap plan was its own Drug Enforcement Administration. Hmmm. The Chinese sought information obtained from such taps -- which may explain why Chinese drug lord Ng Lapseng gave as much money to the Democratic National Committee as he did. It's no wonder Reno didn't want to investigate the penetration of the DEA by the Chinese. After all, Ng was photographed with her bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton at a DNC fund-raiser…."
Office of Congressman Bob Barr
http://www.house.gov/barr 4/7/99 "…Identifying information as the most valuable commercial and political asset as America enters its third century, U.S. Representative Bob Barr (GA-7) called on Congress to "exercise aggressive oversight of government transmission, retrieval, storage, and manipulation of private personal information." Barr's call for oversight hearings by the House Government Reform Committee was delivered at a major international conference in Washington, D.C. called "Computers, Freedom and Privacy 1999." At the conference, Barr participated in a panel discussion that centered on Project ECHELON, which began in the 1980s, and is controlled largely by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) in coordination with at least four other countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. According to reports, the system allows the government to intercept virtually any internationally transmitted phone conversation, fax, e-mail, or data transfer. "Anyone who cares about protecting privacy rights of American citizens should repeatedly contact Members of Congress, the news media, and the Administration. We must demand the government account for its surveillance activities, including Project ECHELON, and take steps to ensure the privacy of electronic communications," said Barr…."Electronic Telegraph 4/11/99 Tony Paterson "...German business is thought to suffer annual losses of at least £7 billion through stolen inventions and development projects. With Europe already locked in a trade war with its American ally over bananas, Germany's high-tech industry wants its government to back a counter-offensive. The main centres used for satellite tapping of millions of confidential company telephone calls, fax and e-mail messages are believed to be terrestrial listening posts run by the American National Security Agency (NSA) at Menwith Hill, near Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and Bad Aibling, Bavaria, with the backing of the American government. "Industrial espionage is becoming increasingly aggressive. Secrets are being siphoned off to an extent never experienced until now," said Horst Teltschik, a senior BMW board member and a former security adviser to Helmut Kohl. He is trying to co-ordinate a German business response to the spying problem. The practice of lifting industrial secrets via satellite listening posts has grown steadily in central Europe since the decline in political espionage that followed the collapse of communism. But it has been further encouraged by advances in communications technology..... In a rare public disclosure, a NSA employee, who refused to be named, agreed to appear in silhouette on German television last August to reveal how he had stolen Enercon's secrets. He said he used satellite information to tap the telephone and computer link lines that ran between Enercon's research laboratory near the North Sea and its production unit some 12 miles away. Detailed plans of the company's allegedly secret invention were then passed on to Kenetech. .....Experts have little doubt that the NSA is at the forefront of the European industrial espionage war, not least because Washington has instructed its security services to collect information for the benefit of American industry. Early in his presidency, Bill Clinton decreed that industrial espionage should be one of the main tasks of the CIA. "What is good for Boeing is good for America," he was quoted as saying. The NSA operates a global data surveillance network involving 52 super computers. .....From both the Yorkshire and Bavarian sites, data is transferred to the NSA's headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland where 10,000 military personnel and 30,000 civilian employees trawl the information with the help of the British Memex computer identification system...."
Koenig's Internationl News 5/10/99 Charles Smith "...Congressional investigators confronted Clinton administration officials last week with the latest information from SOFTWAR. House and Senate investigators want to know why the U.S. and China continue to operate joint signals (SIGINT) intercept bases inside the People's Republic of China. The joint CIA/PLA bases are located at Korla and Qitai in the western province Xinjiang. The bases were established in 1978, during the height of the Cold war. In response, Clinton administration Defense Dept. officials refused to answer questions about the joint CIA/Chinese Army bases. At one point, Clinton officials refused to answer any questions on joint U.S./Sino military operations. "We are going to have to call them in on the carpet," stated one frustrated Congressional investigator. "We certainly need to know about Korla and Qitai. The Chinese Army is setting up a SIGINT base with the Cubans to monitor U.S. military forces 90 miles from Florida. Just how much of that new PLA base is 'made in the U.S.A'?" ....The joint CIA/PLA SIGINT bases are also reported to be part of the National Security Agency (NSA) chain of stations linked to the "ECHELON" system. ECHELON is a giant NSA network of intercept posts, satellites and super-computers intended to monitor communications and signals on a world-wide scale. ECHELON is also plugged into various monitoring systems, each with individual code names such as "MAYFLY"....."
wired.com 5/10/99 Niall McKay "...The National Security Agency has its ear to the world, but doesn't listen to everyone at once. That was one conclusion of a new report, Interception Capabilities 2000, accepted late last week by the European Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA). The panel commissioned Duncan Campbell, a British investigative reporter, to prepare a report on Echelon, the US-led satellite surveillance network......Campbell was asked to investigate the system in the wake of charges made last year in the European Parliament that Echelon was being used to funnel European government and industry secrets into US hands. "What is new and important about this report is that it contains the first ever documentary evidence of the Echelon system," said Campbell. Campbell obtained the document from a source at Menwith Hill, the principal NSA communications monitoring station, located near Harrogate in northern England. The report details how intelligence agencies intercept Internet traffic and digital communications, and includes screen shots of traffic analysis from NSA computer systems....."[The report] is undoubtedly the most comprehensive look at Echelon to date because of its attention to detail -- [and] the NSA's use of technology," said John Young, a privacy activist in New York. Although the United States has never officially acknowledged Echelon's existence, dozens of investigative reports over the past decade have revealed a maze-like system that can intercept telephone, data, cellular, fax, and email transmissions sent anywhere in the world. Previously, Echelon computers were thought to be able to scan millions of telephone lines and faxes for keywords such as "bomb" and "terrorist." But Campbell's report maintains that the technologies to perform such a global dragnet do not exist. Instead, Campbell said that the system targets the communications networks of known diplomats, criminals, and industrialists of interest to the intelligence community...."
Office of Congressman Bob Barr 5/13/99 Freeper A Whitewater Researcher "...U.S. Representative Bob Barr (GA-7) successfully amended the Intelligence Reauthorization Act on the House Floor today, to require U.S. intelligence agencies to report to Congress on the legal standards justifying surveillance activities directed at American citizens....The Barr amendment requires the Attorney General, and the directors of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency to provide a detailed report to Congress, explaining the legal standards the intelligence community uses to monitor the conversations, transmissions, or activities of American citizens..."I am extremely concerned there are not sufficient legal mechanisms in place to protect our private information from unauthorized government eavesdropping through such mechanisms as Project ECHELON. This amendment represents a first step toward finding out whether or not sufficient legal safeguards and privacy protection procedures are in place," Barr continued..."
http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sun_cover2.asp?id=818 5/28/99 Ross Coulthart and Nick Farrow "...In an unprecedented statement to the Sunday program, the director of Australia's Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), Martin Brady, reveals what spying the DSD allows on Australian citizens and companies. DSD also officially acknowledges for the first time that it is a signatory of the hitherto secret UK-USA alliance, that endorses cooperation with counterpart intelligence organisations in the United Kingdom, the US, Canada and New Zealand. As the program reveals, Australia is routinely monitoring any fax, phone or data communications passing through satellites over the Indian and Pacific Ocean. The interception of these communications is controlled by a so-called "dictionary system" that scans all communications simultaneously with the use of powerful super-computers that have been programmed with key words, key numbers and even specific voice patterns. Some of the intercepted messages (which do include communications by Australians) are sent to Australia's DSD but the bulk of the intelligence from Australia's important Geraldton base is sent automatically to America without scrutiny by Australian eyes. This complex computer surveillance system is known by the codename "Echelon"...."
fcw.com 6/3/99 Daniel Verton "...According to an amendment to the fiscal 2000 Intelligence Authorization Act proposed last month by Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), the director of Central Intelligence, the director of NSA and the attorney general must submit a report within 60 days of the bill becoming law that outlines the legal standards being employed to safeguard the privacy of American citizens against Project Echelon. .... However, NSA, the supersecret spy agency known best for its worldwide eavesdropping capabilities, for the first time in the history of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence refused to hand over documents on the Echelon program, claiming attorney/client privilege. ...Calling NSA's argument of attorney/client privilege "unpersuasive and dubious," committee chairman Rep. Peter J. Goss (R-Fla.) said the ability of the intelligence community to deny access to documents on intelligence programs could "seriously hobble the legislative oversight process" provided for by the Constitution and would "result in the envelopment of the executive branch in a cloak of secrecy." ...."
Datateknik, Swedish Newspaper 6/10/99 Göran Andersson "….In a report written for the European Parliament it is claimed that information from United States military signals intelligence is used to benefit American corporations. The report contains several examples on how information from espionage has been used for business-related purposes. The United States National Security Agency (NSA) has used signals intelligence to intercept internal information from European corporations (Thomson and Airbus). This information has later been handed over to American corporations which then has succeeded to take home important affairs according to the report Interception Capabilities 2000 (IC 2000)….According to the report, advanced signals intelligence is also carried out by 30 countries including Russia and China. The yearly cost for the signal intelligence is estimated to 140 - 180 milliard crowns (15-20 billion Euro) and the main part goes to the U.S. lead signals intelligence operation, often called Echelon…"
Time Magazine 6/24/99 Greg Lindsay "...In the past month a series of announcements from the governments of Australia, the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Sweden and the U.S., among others, has brought to light the existence of a massive international electronic surveillance network known as "Echelon." Its existence was officially confirmed by the Australian intelligence agency back on May 23. In a nutshell, Echelon is a joint project undertaken by the U.S. and its allies to monitor satellite transmissions, phone calls and the Internet. How does it work? The Echelon partner nations have deployed "sniffer" programs that monitor the data traffic at six critical junctions on the Internet, vacuuming in as much information as they can and submitting it to the "Dictionary," a series of programs dedicated to finding red flag phrases -- for example, conversations about assassinating public figures. The results are then sorted and sent to the appropriate intelligence branch of the appropriate nation. As a result, as much as 90 percent of all traffic on the Net is being scanned by the NSA and other espionage organizations, just as thoroughly as if they were rummaging in your mailbox with a letter opener. In the U.S. the agency responsible for maintaining Echelon is the National Security Agency (NSA), which is charged with keeping an eye on nations deemed dangerous to U.S. interests. Thanks to its partners in Echelon, NSA watchdogs report, the agency can avoid actually engaging in domestic spying per se by asking British intelligence to do it for them, and vice versa...... "
World Net Daily 11/12/98 Stephan Archer ". Originally, Echelon was designed to spy on the Communist Bloc during the Cold War. However, since the end of the Cold War, the NSA has used it for other questionable purposes that include spying on the citizens of U.S. allies as well as the citizens of other countries, commercial spying, and even domestic spying. In essence, Echelon works through a series of high-tech spy facilities located primarily in five countries: the United States, Canada, England, New Zealand, and Australia. These countries, which are sworn to secrecy about the project in a secret agreement known as UKUSA, all actively take part in this encroachment of privacy into the lives of the people of the world by collecting virtually all fax transmissions, e-mails, and phone calls. Not even cellular phone calls escape the grasp of the Echelon system. "Obviously, we need to have these capabilities," said Wayne Madsen, who worked in the National COMSEC Assessment Center at the NSA's Fort Meade, Maryland, facility back in the 1980s and is currently a senior fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. .Concerning Echelon's inherent intrusion on people's privacy, Patrick Poole, the deputy director for the Center of Technology Policy at the Free Congress Foundation, said, "While we understand the need for the intelligence power embodied by Echelon, the indiscriminate use of Echelon presents major threats to liberty not only to U.S. citizens but to citizens around the world." And this threat is real. The foundation's report states that U.S. leaders have, in fact, already abused this awesome technology. For example, the report states the following: "In September 1993, President Clinton asked the CIA to spy on Japanese auto manufacturers that were designing zero-emission cars and to forward that information to the Big Three U.S. car manufacturers: Ford, General Motors and Chrysler." "You can assume that all major U.S. corporations are fed items of interest (via Echelon) from time to time to give them a leg up on international competitors," said Madsen..With this kind of abuse of Echelon's power, the question as to whether or not the U.S. government has been using this power for political purposes can be easily raised. This question is seemingly answered in the foundation's report. "The discovery of domestic surveillance targeted at American civilians for reasons of 'unpopular' political affiliation -- or for no probable cause at all -- in violation of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution is regularly impeded by very elaborate and complex legal arguments and privilege claims by the intelligence agencies and the U.S. government," the report says. When asked if the system has been used by the U.S. government to spy on its citizens, Madsen told WorldNetDaily that he was sure it has been. "I don't believe that the NSA or the current Administration would hesitate to use this system on American citizens for their own agendas," he said. Outraged by this flagrant abuse of power illustrated by our country's elected officials, Poole said, "While the U.S. is the prime mover behind the Echelon system, it's shameful that the European Parliament is the body holding the constitutional debate in regards to Echelon today."."
Foxnews.com 7/13/99 Tom Raum AP "…Easing export controls on powerful data and voice-scrambling technology will hamper efforts to track down terrorists and other criminals, the nation's top two law enforcement officials told Congress. Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh registered Clinton administration objections Tuesday to encryption-decontrol legislation that is widely supported by high-tech companies. They said increasing numbers of terrorist groups, drug traffickers, child pornographers and financial criminals already are using the scrambling technology to avoid detection and frustrate prosecution…."
ABC news 7/18/99 David Ruppe "…Some of America's closest European allies suspect a massive U.S. listening post, nestled on the quiet, windswept moors of northern England, has secretly been spying on European governments, businesses and citizens….The station, located at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, and reportedly staffed with more than 1,000 Americans, was created nearly 40 years ago to keep tabs on the Soviet empire…..The site is supposed to be used to monitor matters of international security, such as weapons proliferation, drug trafficking
[?} and terrorism. But according to numerous European press reports, businesses, civil liberties groups, and some government officials believe Menwith Hill and a sister post at Bad Aibling, Germany are also targeting them….The concerns of the European community are a bit overblown," says James Bamford, author of The Puzzle Palace, the definitive book on the NSA. "The [NSA is] not worried about some company in Brussels. They’re worried about the things you see on the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times, terrorism, Kosovo." …."
Drudge 7/27/99 "...The Clinton administration has developed a plan for an extensive computer monitoring system, overseen by the FBI, that will track banking, telecommunications and other industries, it will be reported on Wednesday. The National Security Council is conducting a legal and technical review of the new Clinton plan, a final report is scheduled to be made public in September. NEW YORK TIMES reporter John Markoff has been shown a draft, according to publishing sources, and was busy on Tuesday afternoon preparing a story.....The plan calls for the development of a "sophisticated software system to monitor activities on non-military government networks" and a separate system to "track all transactions used in the banking, telecommunications and transportation industries." ...."
The New York Times 7/27/99 John Markoff "...The Clinton Administration has developed a plan for an extensive computer monitoring system, overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to protect the nation's crucial data networks from intruders. The plan, an outgrowth of the Administration's anti-terrorism program, has already raised concerns from civil liberties groups. A draft prepared by officials at the National Security Council last month, which was provided to The New York Times by a civil liberties group, calls for a sophisticated software system to monitor activities on nonmilitary Government networks and a separate system to track networks used in crucial industries like banking, telecommunications and transportation. The effort, whose details are still being debated within the Administration, is intended to alert law enforcement officials to attacks that might cripple Government operations or the nation's economy. But because of the increasing power of the nation's computers and their emerging role as a backbone of the country's commerce, politics and culture, critics of the proposed system say it could become a building block for a surveillance infrastructure with great potential for misuse....."
The New York Times 7/27/99 John Markoff "...The plan calls for the creation of a Federal Intrusion Detection Network, or Fidnet, and specifies that the data it collects will be gathered at the National Infrastructure Protection Center, an interagency task force housed at the Federal Bureau of Investigation..... The plan focuses on monitoring data flowing over Government and national computer networks. That means the systems would potentially have access to computer-to-computer communications like electronic mail and other documents, computer programs and remote log-ins. But an increasing percentage of network traffic, like banking and financial information, is routinely encrypted and would not be visible to the monitor software. Government officials argue that they are not interested in eavesdropping, but rather are looking for patterns of behavior that suggest illegal activity...."
World Net Daily 7/29/99 Joseph Farah "... The New York Times reports the Clinton administration has developed a plan for "an extensive computer monitoring system, overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to protect the nation's crucial data networks from intruders." "The plan, an outgrowth of the administration's anti-terrorism program, has already raised concerns from civil liberties groups," reports the Times. "A draft prepared by officials at the National Security Council last month, which was provided to The New York Times by a civil liberties group, calls for a sophisticated software system to monitor activities on non-military government networks and a separate system to track networks used in crucial industries like banking, telecommunications and transportation....And, vice versa: Since this shocking plan was revealed in the pages of the New York Times, there is little reason for any American to question its veracity or to suggest that it is being sensationalized. Therefore, for those out there who still cannot believe that this administration would actually use all the power of the federal government to go after its political enemies, perhaps this story will demonstrate the true character of the Clinton machine. These are totalitarians. The people running the executive branch of the federal government are nothing less than fascists. No other descriptive quite fits. They would think nothing of turning America into a police state -- if they haven't already brought us to that point. And they would do it without a second thought. They'd do it while telling you the whole time that they are protecting you, safeguarding your interests, making you more secure...."
ABC 7/31/99 David Ruppe "...Is Uncle Sam illicitly reading your e-mail? Listening in on your telephone calls? Scanning your faxes? Some in Congress suspect advances in communications technology in recent years may have enabled America's biggest, and most secret, spy agency, the National Security Agency, to greatly increase its eaves- dropping powers at the expense of Americans' privacy. But they can't be sure without a thorough congressional examination into the agency's practices. And, they say, the NSA has not yet provided all the information requested by the House Select Intelligence Committee, which is looking into the question. That the National Security Agency intercepts Americans' missives is clear. Observers point to the agency's practice of intercepting massive volumes of communications through spy satellites and by listening to commercial communications satellites, which inevitably draws in the communications of U.S. citizens for whom the agency has no court order.....Government officials admit the NSA's collection methods do draw in communications made by U.S. citizens. "Read the statute, the executive order, the legislative history, and what you'll find is the underlying assumption is that you can't avoid collecting U.S.-person information incidentally if you are going to do foreign intelligence collection," says an official familiar with the agency..... Still, critics say there is no way to be sure the NSA's judg- ments consistently respect citizens' rights unless the congressional committees responsible for overseeing those rights have full access to information on how the agency applies the laws..... "
National Post Online 7/15/99 Peter Morton "...All tiny TMI Communications Inc. wanted was to sell its satellite telephone service in the United States....The FBI is continuing to block TMI's 16-month-old bid to get a licence that would allow it to sell mobile telephone service to Americans. That's because new U.S. wiretap laws demand the FBI be able to listen to all kinds of telephone calls, including ones on satellite telephones. But the agency cannot easily do this in TMI's case, because the company is in Canada.... From the FBI's perspective, it cannot legally use the evidence from a wiretap on TMI's equipment because it cannot prove the call was made on U.S. soil or by an American. TMI is not alone in getting caught up in the FBI's new national security concerns. Iridium LLC, the troubled U.S. satellite company, is facing the same FBI objections because of its plans to build a groundstation in eastern Canada to serve the U.S. northeast. The groundstation has been temporarily shelved because of Iridium's restructuring. As well, Globalstar Canada LP, a partnership of U.S. Globalstar and Canadian Satellite Communications, is facing a similar FBI threat because of its plans to use groundstations in Smith Falls, Ont., and High River, Alta., to reach the market in the United States. ...."
LA Times 8/4/99 Simon Davies "...Europe is discretely gearing up for one of the most interesting legal battles in its history. At stake is the future of the world's most secretive intelligence organization, America's National Security Agency. The NSA is in the business of eavesdropping on the world's communications networks for the benefit of the United States. In doing so, it has built a vast spying operation that reaches into the telephone systems of nearly every country. Its operations are so secret that this activity, outside the U.S., occurs without any democratic oversight and without any legal basis. Over the past year, members of the European Parliament have learned, to their astonishment, that the NSA, in collusion with the British government, has created the means to intercept almost every fax, e-mail and telephone call within the European Union. The revelation has irritated governments throughout Europe, culminating in a current Italian judicial inquiry into the legality of the NSA's activity.... The issue has erupted now because of two recent European Parliament studies that confirm the existence in Britain of a network of communications intelligence bases operated by the NSA. The publication last year of the first report, "An Appraisal of the Technologies of Political Control," confirmed for the first time that the NSA had established a surveillance capacity over the entire European communications network. It also described a grid of supercomputers, known as Echelon, capable of scanning vast areas of the communications spectrum to detect keywords. Of particular interest to Parliament was the report's assertion that the NSA was beefing up its commercial espionage activities. Its claim is that the NSA has been routinely intercepting sensitive traffic relating to bids, takeovers, mergers, investments and tender offers, all for U.S. economic benefit. Questions have been raised by parliamentarians in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Holland and Sweden. Then, in September, the plenary session of the European Parliament took the unprecedented step of openly debating the activities of the NSA. In a consensus resolution, the Parliament fired a shot across the bow of the spooks by demanding more openness and accountability. ...."
WorldNet Daily 8/5/99 Tanya Metaksa "...Every American, especially those calling themselves civil libertarians, should be terrified that a president, who no man would leave alone in the room with his daughter, is putting the ultimate intelligence gathering tool in the hands of an agency that designed government offensives against civilians at Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas. According to Drudge, on Tuesday, July 27, "The Clinton administration has developed an extensive computer monitoring system, overseen by the FBI, that will track telecommunications, banking and other industries." Drudge goes on to report, "In some government circles, the proposed system has been nicknamed 'Hillary.'" And we thought she was running for senator from New York, not grand inquisitor. Thankfully, the announcement of the administration's computer surveillance plan, named Federal Intrusion Detection Network (FIDNET), has caused some good old-fashioned backlash..... With its hand stuck firmly in the privacy cookie jar, the Clinton administration began damage control in their usual manner -- obfuscating. According to a Reuters report, "John Tritak, director of the administration's Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, said that the Fidnet plan has not been approved by President Clinton and is still undergoing legal review by the Justice Department and the White House's chief counselor for privacy, Peter Swire." ...."
Colorado Springs Gazette 8/10/99 John Diedrich "...Unified military efforts to thwart computer hackers began eight months ago, but the program takes on a greater importance and prominence Oct. 1, when it is set to move under the control of the U.S. Space Command, headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base. The new arrangement, which is scheduled to be announced Wednesday in Washington, D.C., is awaiting President Clinton's signature. Putting the high-profile job of computer defense at Peterson will increase the importance of Space Command, which already controls all military satellites providing missile warning, weather, navigation and other information to troops. "Taking on (this program) is a natural fit for Space Command," said Maj. Perry Nouis, a command spokesman. "It's not a large number of folks, but the mission is huge and of critical importance." By Oct. 1, 2000, Space Command is scheduled to take the offensive in cyber warfare. Though details are sketchy, the Computer Network Attack program basically will train military workers to hack into enemies' computers. The ability to protect and attack systems has escalated in importance as today's military depends on computers for everything from planning air strikes to positioning troops. So far, hackers have done relatively minor damage, such as defacing Web sites on Department of Defense computers. The military is concerned about the potential for a more serious attack - for instance, tapping into classified data during wartime and changing a bombing target...."
House.Gov 8/16/99 Congressman Barr "…U.S. Representative Bob Barr (GA-7) announced today House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Dan Burton (R-IN) has agreed to hold hearings this fall on government surveillance programs, such as the National Security Agency's reported "Project Echelon." On several occasions, Barr has expressed concerns that both foreign and domestic surveillance operations may be violating the privacy rights of American citizens. Earlier this year, Barr successfully amended the FY 2000 Foreign Intelligence Authorization Act to require the Department of Justice, the National Security Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency to submit to Congress a report detailing the legal standards the agencies use when they eavesdrop on American citizens. A similar amendment has also been passed by the United States Senate. Barr's concerns were prompted by news reports indicating a system known as Project Echelon is conducting massive interception of the private phone calls, e-mails, faxes and data transmissions of American citizens. "As advances make information much easier to acquire, store, and search, we must make absolutely certain our legal structure develops in tandem with our technological infrastructure. More importantly, Congress must remain vigilant in ensuring government agencies adhere to existing laws governing surveillance activities. These hearings will help reassure the American public this is a responsibility Congress takes seriously," said Barr….."