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The Eyes in the Sky

By Matt Hourihan

In a surveillance effort that is staggering in scope, the National Security Agency (NSA) has spent the past 31 years establishing an electronic spy network that spans the globe. Known as Echelon, this massive system has enormous surveillance capabilities, many of which are only now being fully realized by those outside of the intelligence community.

Most forms of global communication are subject to its scrutiny, and this has in fact led to some nefarious violations of privacy and illegal activity. There is already a budding movement pushing for disclosure of Echelon's activities both at home and abroad. The essential goal here is to establish some transparency in Echelon's activity. Securing this will ensure protection for common citizens around the globe.

Following Allied victory in World War II, the United States signed an intelligence treaty with the U.K. that came to be known the UKUSA agreement. Later on, the governments of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia joined as well. This is the agreement that makes Echelon's function possible.

In cooperation with the various national security bureaus of these governments, the NSA's Echelon is able to capture millions upon millions of pieces of information. This is task is accomplished by intercepting all signals from the major communications satellites, which are in stationary orbit above various points around the globe. Known as Intelsat and Inmarsat satellites, they are responsible for the vast majority of international telephone and fax traffic.
Most of this traffic is of a civilian nature, but diplomatic and governmental transmissions can also be found in these airwaves. In addition to direct access to satellites, there are radio listening posts, listening devices within several major telephone systems, and other methods. This is how Echelon is able to monitor such a broad range of global traffic at once.

The NSA is the largest national intelligence agency in the country, with more employees and advanced technology than even the CIA, and Echelon is the largest, most far-reaching network of its kind. The potential for abuse of the system is enormous. However, in most debate on civil rights that accompany various domestic security measures taken by President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft, Echelon is rarely, if ever, mentioned. This is due to a thunderous silence from the various governments that are involved in the project. The original UKUSA pact is still, in fact, classified, with terms of agreement officially undisclosed.

There are very few sources of information about even the existence of Echelon. The first report on the matter appeared in the August 12, 1988 issue of The New Statesman. Official revelations have come from the governments of Australia and New Zealand. In 1999, Martin Brady, director of Australia's Defence Signals Directorate, sent a letter to an Australian journalist confirming Echelon's existence and mentioning it by name. A similar report appeared in a Kiwi newspaper shortly thereafter, with sources from New Zealand's intelligence directorate. Most notably, the European Parliament's technical office conducted two reports that heavily detail Echelon's existence and capabilities. Among other things, this report suggests, "Echelon is designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organizations and business in virtually every country."

Later reports provide strong evidence that Echelon has spied on such international charity organizations as Amnesty International, Christian Aid, and Greenpeace. There are a number of documents supporting the theory that Echelon has been used against political "undesirables" or dissidents. In addition to these cases of organizational surveillance, there have been situations in which transcripts of private telephone conversations have been produced in court. In a sensational turn, The Washington Post discovered that the NSA actually had various transcripts of Princess Di, recorded before her death.

Due to these revelations, Echelon drew the concern of the House Select Committee on Intelligence in late 1999. In particular, the committee wanted to know if American citizens were subject to Echelon's eye. The NSA, invoking attorney-client privilege, refused to disclose the legal standards that would have given them their authority. A number of other attempts to bring Echelon's activity to light were turned away as well, including inconclusive hearings before Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) and the House Oversight Committee.

The case against Echelon that drew the most concern took the form of a later report by the Scientific and Technical Options Assessment (STOA) office of the European Parliament. This report, produced in May 2001, analyzes the NSA's abilities to conduct industrial espionage. In other words, according to STOA's findings, the NSA has been using Echelon to steal industrial secrets from foreign corporations and pass them on to American firms. A few instances of this include:

Enercon managed to patent a new wind wheel for generating electricity before a foreign competitor, thanks to stolen industry secrets. Enercon then took the foreign firm to court on breaches of patent rights.

The loss of a $1.4 billion deal to monitor, via rader, the Amazon Basin, by a French communications firm to an American competitor.

The infamous Airbus case, in which a deal between Saudi Arabia and Airbus for a number of jetliners was subverted by the NSA. The end result: Airbus's American competitor, McDonnel-Douglas, ended up winning the $6 billion contract.

Granted, a number of countries have, in the past, taken part in industrial espionage; however, the Echelon network is many times more powerful than any other spy network. The fact that it takes part in such espionage may galvanize the international business community to push for wider legal restraint on electronic surveillance as a whole. If this were to happen, citizens of several countries would avoid violations of privacy as an indirect result of business interests trying to end industrial espionage.

The end result is that Echelon is still in full use, most likely outside of established legal parameters, and with virtually no oversight from any congressional body. In the wake of September 11th, the need for public scrutiny and discussion on matters such as these is of utmost importance. The civil liberties of Americans faced have faced official threat already, as the Bush administration attempted to pass a domestic security program while Congress struggled with the Patriot Act. In the administration's version, the NSA would have been permitted to spy on American citizens, a direct violation of the 4th Amendment, which guarantees right to privacy. The administration failed to get past Congress, but the message is clear. The NSA and the administration feel that the 4th Amendment is conditional.

A shroud of secrecy around a project such as this is not necessarily harmful or detrimental to the state of the nation; to the contrary, a massive security system dedicated to foreign surveillance needs to maintain a somewhat unknown status, in order to better serve its purpose. In this case, however, the problem is that Echelon and its overseers seem to have gone beyond their original purpose. Keeping an eye on potential threats to the United States is extremely important. But a level of transparency is also important, to ensure the Bill of Rights and economic fairness are maintained. If the NSA's activity is restricted, it could impede national security; but unrestricted, the illegal activity will certainly continue. At some point in the near future, this is the question we'll have to answer, and the reality we'll have to face.

Matt Hourihan is a senior journalism major. His email address is hourihan50@hotmail.com.