Created in the late 1960s to monitor themilitary anddiplomatic communications of theSoviet Union and itsEastern Bloc allies during theCold War, the ECHELON project became formally established in 1971.[5][6] By the end of the 20th century, it had greatly expanded.[7]
Former NSA analystPerry Fellwock, under the pseudonym Winslow Peck, first blew the whistle on ECHELON toRamparts in 1972,[21] when he revealed the existence of a global network of listening posts and told of his experiences working there. He also revealed the existence ofnuclear weapons in Israel in 1972, the widespread involvement ofCIA and NSA personnel in drugs and human smuggling, and CIA operatives leading Nationalist Chinese (Taiwan) commandos in burning villages insidePRC borders.[22]
In 1982, investigative journalist and authorJames Bamford wroteThe Puzzle Palace, an in-depth history of the NSA and its practices, which notably leaked the existence of the eavesdropping operationProject SHAMROCK. Project SHAMROCK ran from 1945 to 1975, after which it evolved into ECHELON.[23][24]
In 1988, Margaret Newsham, aLockheed employee under NSA contract, disclosed the ECHELONsurveillance system to members of Congress. Newsham told a member of theUS Congress that the telephone calls ofStrom Thurmond, aRepublican US senator, were being collected by the NSA. Congressional investigators determined that "targeting of US political figures would not occur by accident, but was designed into the system from the start".[25]
Also in 1988, an article titled "Somebody's Listening", written by investigative journalistDuncan Campbell in theNew Statesman, described thesignals intelligence gathering activities of a program code-named "ECHELON".[25] Bamford described the system as the software controlling the collection and distribution of civiliantelecommunications traffic conveyed using communication satellites, with the collection being undertaken by ground stations located in the footprint of the downlink leg.[26]
Lawmakers in the United States feared that the ECHELON system could be used to monitor US citizens.[32] According toThe New York Times, the ECHELON system has been "shrouded in such secrecy that its very existence has been difficult to prove".[32] Critics said that the ECHELON system emerged from theCold War as a "Big Brother without a cause".[33]
The program's capabilities and political implications were investigated by a committee of the European Parliament during 2000 and 2001 with a report published in 2001.[7] In July 2000, the Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System was established by the European parliament to investigate thesurveillance network.[35] It was chaired by the Portuguese politicianCarlos Coelho, who was in charge of supervising investigations throughout 2000 and 2001.
In May 2001, as the committee finalised its report on the ECHELON system, a delegation travelled toWashington, D.C. to attend meetings with US officials from the following agencies and departments:
All meetings were cancelled by the US government, and the committee was forced to end its trip prematurely.[36] According to aBBC correspondent in May 2001, "The US Government still refuses to admit that Echelon even exists."[5]
In July 2001, the Committee released its final report.[37] The EP report concluded that it seemed likely that ECHELON is a method of sorting captured signal traffic, rather than a comprehensive analysis tool.[7] On 5 September 2001, the European parliament voted to accept the report.[38]
The European Parliament stated in its report that the term ECHELON is used in a number of contexts, but that the evidence presented indicates that it was the name for a signals intelligence collection system.[7] The report concludes that, on the basis of information presented, ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers, including satellite transmission,public switched telephone networks (which once carried most Internet traffic), andmicrowave links.[7]
Two internal NSA newsletters from January 2011 and July 2012, published as part ofEdward Snowden's leaks by the websiteThe Intercept on 3 August 2015, for the first time confirmed that NSA used the code word ECHELON and provided some details about the scope of the program: ECHELON was part of an umbrella program with the code name FROSTING, which was established by the NSA in 1966 to collect and process data fromcommunications satellites. FROSTING had two sub-programs:[39]
TRANSIENT: for interceptingSoviet satellite transmissions
ECHELON: for interceptingIntelsat satellite transmissions
TheEuropean Parliament'sTemporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System stated, "It seems likely, in view of the evidence and the consistent pattern of statements from a very wide range of individuals and organisations, including American sources, that its name is in fact ECHELON, although this is a relatively minor detail".[7] The US intelligence community uses many code names (see, for example,CIA cryptonym).
Former NSA employeeMargaret Newsham said that she worked on the configuration and installation of software that makes up the ECHELON system while employed atLockheed Martin, from 1974 to 1984 inSunnyvale, California, in theUnited States, and inMenwith Hill,England, in theUK.[40] At that time, according to Newsham, the code name ECHELON was NSA's term for the computer network itself. Lockheed called itP415. The software programs were calledSILKWORTH andSIRE. Asatellite namedVORTEX intercepted communications. An image available on the internet of a fragment apparently torn from a job description shows Echelon listed along with several other code names.[41][42]
Britain'sThe Guardian newspaper summarized the capabilities of the ECHELON system as follows:
A global network of electronic spy stations that can eavesdrop on telephones, faxes and computers. It can even track bank accounts. This information is stored in Echelon computers, which can keep millions of records on individuals.Officially, however, Echelon doesn't exist.[43]
Documents leaked by the former NSA contractorEdward Snowden revealed that the ECHELON system's collection of satellite data is also referred to as FORNSAT - an abbreviation for "Foreign Satellite Collection".[44][45]
First revealed by theEuropean Parliament report (p. 54 ff)[7] and confirmed later by theEdward Snowden disclosures the following ground stations presently have, or have had, a role in intercepting transmissions from Satellite and other means of communication:[7]
Teletype operators at the Yakima Research Station (YRS) in the early days of the ECHELON program
In 1966, the firstIntelsatsatellite was launched into orbit. From 1970 to 1971, theGovernment Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) ofBritain began to operate a secret signal station atMorwenstow, nearBude inCornwall, England. The station interceptedsatellite communications over theAtlantic andIndian Oceans. Soon afterwards, the USNational Security Agency (NSA) built a second signal station atYakima, nearSeattle, for the interception of satellite communications over thePacific Ocean.[29] In 1981,GCHQ and the NSA started the construction of the first globalwide area network (WAN). Soon after Australia, Canada, and New Zealand joined the ECHELON system.[29] The report to the European Parliament of 2001 states: "IfUKUSA states operate listening stations in the relevant regions of the earth, in principle they can intercept all telephone, fax, and data traffic transmitted via such satellites."[7]
Most reports on ECHELON focus on satellite interception. Testimony before theEuropean Parliament indicated that separate but similar UKUSA systems are in place to monitor communication through undersea cables, microwave transmissions, and other lines.[59] The report to theEuropean Parliament points out that interception of private communications by foreign intelligence services is not necessarily limited to the US or British foreign intelligence services.[7] The role of satellites in point-to-point voice and data communications has largely been supplanted byfiber optics. In 2006, 99% of the world's long-distance voice and data traffic was carried overoptical-fiber.[60] The proportion of international communications accounted for by satellite links is said to have decreased substantially to an amount between 0.4% and 5% in Central Europe.[7] Even in less-developed parts of the world,communications satellites are used largely for point-to-multipoint applications, such as video.[61] Thus, the majority of communications can no longer be intercepted by earth stations; they can only be collected by tapping cables and intercepting line-of-sight microwave signals, which is possible only to a limited extent.[7]
In 2001, the Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System recommended to theEuropean Parliament that citizens of member states routinely usecryptography in their communications to protect their privacy, becauseeconomic espionage with ECHELON has been conducted by the US intelligence agencies.[7]
American authorJames Bamford provides an alternative view, highlighting that legislation prohibits the use of intercepted communications for commercial purposes, although he does not elaborate on how intercepted communications are used as part of an all-source intelligence process.[64]
In its report, the committee of the European Parliament stated categorically that the Echelon network was being used to intercept not only military communications, but also private and business ones. In its epigraph to the report, the parliamentary committee quotedJuvenal, "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes" ("But who will watch the watchers").[7] James Bamford, inThe Guardian in May 2001, warned that if Echelon were to continue unchecked, it could become a "cyber secret police, without courts, juries, or the right to a defence".[65]
Alleged examples of espionage conducted by the members of the "Five Eyes" include:
The US National Security Agency spied on and intercepted the phone calls ofDiana, Princess of Wales right up until she died in aParis car crash with Dodi Fayed in 1997. TheNSA currently holds 1,056 pages of information about Princess Diana, which has been classified astop secret "because their disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to thenational security ... the damage would be caused not by the information about Diana, but because the documents would disclose 'sources and methods' of US intelligence gathering".[67] An official said that "the references to Diana in intercepted conversations were 'incidental'", and she was never a "target" of the NSA eavesdropping.[67]
US agents gathered "detailed biometric information" on the 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations,Ban Ki-moon.[70][71]
In the early 1990s, the US National Security Agency intercepted the communications between theEuropean aerospace companyAirbus and theSaudi Arabian national airline. In 1994,Airbus lost a $6 billion contract withSaudi Arabia after the NSA, acting as awhistleblower, reported thatAirbus officials had been bribingSaudi officials to secure the contract.[72] As a result, the American aerospace companyMcDonnell Douglas (now part ofBoeing) won the multibillion-dollar contract instead ofAirbus.[73]
In order to boost the United States position in trade negotiations with the thenJapanese Trade MinisterRyutaro Hashimoto, in 1995 theCIA eavesdropped on the conversations between Japanese bureaucrats and executives of car manufacturersToyota andNissan.[75]
System diagram of the ECHELON satellite intercept station of the NSA at the Yakima Research Station (YRS)[76]
TOPCO – Terminal Operations Control
CCS – Computer Control Subsystem
STEAMS – System Test, Evaluation, Analysis, and Monitoring Subsystem
SPS – Signal Processing Subsystem
TTDM – Teletype Demodulator
The first United Statessatellite ground station for the ECHELON collection program was built in 1971 at a military firing and training center nearYakima, Washington. The facility, which was codenamed JACKKNIFE, was an investment of about 21.3 million dollars and had around 90 people.Satellite traffic was intercepted by a 30-meter single-dish antenna. The station became fully operational on 4 October 1974. It was connected with NSA headquarters at Fort Meade by a 75-baud secure Teletype orderwire channel.[39]
In 1999, Enercon, aGerman company and leading manufacturer of wind-energy equipment, developed a breakthrough generator for wind turbines. After applying for a US patent, it had learned that Kenetech, an American rival, had submitted an almost identical patent application shortly before. By the statement of a formerNSA employee, it was later claimed that the NSA had secretly intercepted and monitoredEnercon's data communications and conference calls and passed information regarding the new generator to Kenetech.[78] However, later German media reports contradicted this story, as it was revealed that the American patent in question was actually filed three years before the alleged wiretapping was said to have taken place.[79] As German intelligence services are forbidden from engaging in industrial or economic espionage, German companies have complained that this leaves them defenceless against industrial espionage from the United States or Russia. According to Wolfgang Hoffmann, a former manager atBayer, German intelligence services know which companies are being targeted by US intelligence agencies, but refuse to inform the companies involved.[80]
Bamford, James;The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, Doubleday,ISBN0-385-52132-4; 2008
Hager, Nicky;Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network; Craig Potton Publishing, Nelson, NZ;ISBN0-908802-35-8; 1996
Keefe, Patrick RaddenChatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping; Random House Publishing, New York, NY;ISBN1-4000-6034-6; 2005
Keefe, Patrick (2006).Chatter : uncovering the echelon surveillance network and the secret world of global eavesdropping. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.ISBN978-0-8129-6827-9.
^Given the 5 dialects that use the terms, UKUSA can be pronounced from "You-Q-SA" to "Oo-Coo-SA", AUSCANNZUKUS can be pronounced from "Oz-Can-Zuke-Us" to "Orse-Can-Zoo-Cuss".
^Nabbali, Talitha; Perry, Mark (March 2004). "Going for the throat".Computer Law & Security Review.20 (2):84–97.doi:10.1016/S0267-3649(04)00018-4.It wasn't until 1971 that the UKUSA allies began ECHELON
^Elkjær, Bo; Seeberg, Kenan (17 November 1999)."ECHELON Was My Baby".Ekstra Bladet. Archived fromthe original on 15 June 2006. Retrieved17 May 2006. "Unfortunately, I can't tell you all my duties. I am still bound by professional secrecy, and I would hate to go to prison or get involved in any trouble, if you know what I mean. In general, I can tell you that I was responsible for compiling the various systems and programs, configuring the whole thing and making it operational on mainframes"; "Margaret Newsham worked for theNSA through her employment at Ford and Lockheed from 1974 to 1984. In 1977 and 1978 Newsham was stationed at the largest listening post in the world atMenwith Hill,England ... Ekstra Bladet has Margaret Newsham's stationing orders from the US Department of Defense. She possessed the high security classification TOP SECRET CRYPTO."
^Poitras, Laura; Rosenbach, Marcel; Stark, Holger (20 December 2013)."Friendly Fire: How GCHQ Monitors Germany, Israel and the EU".Der Spiegel.Archived from the original on 25 January 2014. Retrieved30 January 2014.A map from the wealth of classified documents obtained by Snowden on the so-called "Fornsat" activities of the technical intelligence cooperation program -- informally known as the Five Eyes -- shows that the system of global satellite surveillance remained in operation.
^Ambinder, Marc (31 July 2013)."What's XKEYSCORE?".The Week.Archived from the original on 30 January 2014. Retrieved30 January 2014.FORNSAT simply means "foreign satellite collection," which refers to NSA tapping into satellites that process data used by other countries.
^abEames, David (19 March 2010)."Waihopai a key link in global intelligence network".The New Zealand Herald.Archived from the original on 3 February 2014. Retrieved28 January 2014.Both Waihopai and the Tangimoana radio listening post near Palmerston North have been identified as key players in the United States-led Echelon spy programme.
^Greisler, David S.; Stupak, Ronald J., eds. (2007).Handbook of technology management in public administration. CRC/Taylor & Francis. p. 592.ISBN978-1420017014.
^"Teufelsberg mirrors Berlin's dramatic history".Deutsche Welle.Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved28 January 2014.More than 1,000 people are said to have worked here around the clock, every day of the year. They were part of the global ECHELON surveillance network.
^Beddow, Rachel (19 April 2012)."Teufelsberg, Berlin's Undisputed King of Ghostowns, Set For Redevelopment".NPR.Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved28 January 2014.The Teufelsberg mission is still shrouded in secrecy, but it's generally agreed that the station was part of the ECHELON network that listened in to the Eastern Bloc.
^Die Zeit: 40/1999 "Verrat unter Freunden" ("Treachery among friends", German), available at"Zeit.de". Archived from the original on 9 October 2008. Retrieved19 August 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^"Pine Gap"(PDF). Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 8 June 2011. Retrieved19 August 2016., Official Committee Hansard, Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, 9 August 1999. Commonwealth of Australia.
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