NSA headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland, United StatesASIO central office, Canberra, AustraliaGCHQ, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United KingdomCSE headquarters, Ottawa, Ontario, CanadaNZSIS headquarters, Wellington, New Zealand
TheFive Eyes (FVEY) is anAnglosphereintelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[1] These countries are party to the multilateralUKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation insignals intelligence.[2][3][4] Informally, "Five Eyes" can refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries. The term "Five Eyes" originated as shorthand for a "AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US Eyes Only" (AUSCANNZUKUS)releasability caveat.[5]
The origins of the FVEY can be traced to informal, secret meetings during World War II between British and Americancode-breakers that took place before the US formally entered the war.[6] The alliance was formalized in the post-war era by the UKUSA Agreement in 1946. As theCold War deepened, the intelligence sharing arrangement was formalised under theECHELON surveillance system in the 1960s.[7] This system was developed by the FVEY to monitor the communications of theSoviet Union andEastern Bloc; it is now used to monitor communications worldwide.[8][9] The FVEY expanded its surveillance capabilities during the course of the "war on terror", with much emphasis placed on monitoring theInternet. The alliance has grown into a robust global surveillance mechanism, adapting to new domains such as internationalterrorism,cyberattacks, and contemporary regional conflicts.
The alliance's activities, often shrouded in secrecy, have occasionally come under scrutiny for their implications on privacy and civil liberties, sparking debates and legal challenges. In the late 1990s, the existence ofECHELON was disclosed to the public, triggering a debate in theEuropean Parliament and, to a lesser extent, theUnited States Congress andBritish Parliament. FormerNSA contractorEdward Snowden described the Five Eyes as a "supra-national intelligence organisation that does not answer to the known laws of its own countries".[10]Disclosures in the 2010s revealed FVEY was spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other, although the FVEY nations maintain this was done legally.[11][12]
Five Eyes is among the most comprehensive espionage alliances.[13] Since processed intelligence is gathered from multiple sources, the information shared is not restricted to signals intelligence (SIGINT) and often involvesmilitary intelligence (MILINT),human intelligence (HUMINT), andgeospatial intelligence (GEOINT). Five Eyes remains a key element in the intelligence and security landscape of each member country, providing them a strategic advantage in understanding and responding to global events.
The cover page of the first version of the secretUKUSA Agreement in 1946, which was disclosed to the public in 2011
The informal origins of the Five Eyes alliance were secret meetings between British and US code-breakers at the British code-breaking establishmentBletchley Park in February 1941, before the US entry into the war.[14] The first record of these meetings is a February 1941 diary entry fromAlastair Denniston, head of Bletchley Park, reading "The Ys are coming!" with "Ys" referring to "Yanks". An entry from 10 February reads "Ys arrive". British and US intelligence shared extremely confidential information, including that the British had broken the GermanEnigma code and that the US had broken the JapanesePurple code. For the rest of the war, key figures like Denniston and code-breaking expertAlan Turing travelled back and forth across the Atlantic. The informal relationship established for wartime signals intelligence developed into a formal, signed agreement at the start of theCold War.[15]
UKUSA was extended to include Canada in 1948, followed by Norway in 1952, Denmark in 1954, West Germany in 1955, and Australia and New Zealand in 1956.[17] These countries participated in the alliance as "third parties". By 1955, a newer version of theUKUSA Agreement officially acknowledged the formal status of the remaining Five Eyes countries with the following statement:
At this time only Canada, Australia and New Zealand will be regarded as UKUSA-collaboratingCommonwealth countries.[17]
During theCold War,GCHQ and theNSA shared intelligence on theSoviet Union, China, and several eastern European countries known as "Exotics".[18] Over the course of several decades, theECHELON surveillance network was developed to monitor the military anddiplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and itsEastern Bloc allies.[19]
Over a period of at least five years in the 1970s, a senior officer named Ian George Peacock, who was in the counterespionage unit of Australia'sASIO, stole highly classified intelligence documents that had been shared with Australia and sold them to theSoviet Union. Peacock held the title of supervisor-E (espionage) and had top-secret security clearance. He retired from the ASIO in 1983 and died in 2006.[33]
During theFalklands War in 1982, the United Kingdom received intelligence data from its FVEY allies as well as from third parties like Norway and France.[34][35][36]
By the end of the 20th century, the FVEY members had developed theECHELON surveillance network into a global system capable of collecting massive amounts of private and commercial communications includingtelephone calls,fax,email, and otherdata traffic. The network's information comes from intercepted communication bearers such as satellite transmissions andpublic switched telephone networks.[38]
Two of the FVEY information collection mechanisms are thePRISM program and theUpstream collection system. The PRISM program gathers user information from technology firms such asGoogle,Apple, andMicrosoft; while the Upstream system gathers information directly from civilian communications as they travel through infrastructure likefiber cables.[39] The program was first disclosed to the public in 1972 when a formerNSA communications analyst reported toRamparts magazine that the Agency had developed technology that "could crack all Soviet codes".[40]
In a 1988 piece in theNew Statesman called "Somebody's listening",Duncan Campbell revealed the existence ofECHELON, an extension of theUKUSA Agreement on globalsignals intelligence. The story detailed how eavesdropping operations were not only being employed in the interests of 'national security,' but were regularly abused forcorporate espionage in the service of US business interests.[41] The piece passed largely unnoticed outside of journalism circles.[42]
Three months later, the European Parliament established theTemporary Committee on ECHELON to investigate the ECHELON surveillance network. However, according to a number of European politicians such asEsko Seppänen of Finland, theEuropean Commission hindered these investigations .[45]
In the United States,congressionallegislators warned that the ECHELON system could be used to monitorUS citizens.[46] On 14 May 2001, the US government cancelled all meetings with the Temporary Committee on ECHELON.[47] According to aBBC report from May 2001, "The US Government still refuses to admit that Echelon even exists."[19]
During the run-up to theIraq War, the communications ofUN weapons inspectorHans Blix were monitored by the Five Eyes.[48][49] Around the same time,British agents bugged the office ofUNSecretary-GeneralKofi Annan.[50][51] AnNSA memo detailed Five Eyes plans to increase surveillance on the UN delegations of six countries as part of a "dirty tricks" campaign to pressure these six countries to vote in favour of using force against Iraq.[50][52][53]
As of 2010[update], Five Eyes-affiliated agencies also have access toSIPRNet, the US government's classified version of the Internet.[59]
In 2013, documents leaked by the formerNSA contractorEdward Snowden revealed the existence of numerous surveillance programs jointly operated by the Five Eyes. The following list includes several notable examples reported in the media:
In March 2014, theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Australia to seal documents and data seized byASIO in a raid on the office of East Timor's lawyer,Bernard Collaery. The material related to theTimor Sea Treaty negotiations between East Timor and Australia and included legal documents, electronic files and a statement by a former ASIS agent alleging thatAustralia eavesdropped on East Timor during negotiations. This was the first time the court had imposed restrictions on the spy agencies of a Five Eyes state.[67]
On 1 December 2018, Canadian authorities arrestedMeng Wanzhou, aHuawei executive, atVancouver International Airport to face charges of fraud and conspiracy in the United States.[68] China responded by arresting two Canadian nationals. According to theSouth China Morning Post, analysts saw this conflict as the beginning of a direct clash between China's government and governments of the Five Eyes alliance.[69] In the months that followed, the United States restricted technology exchanges with China.[70] The newspaper reported that these events were seen by Beijing as a "fight ... waged with the world’s oldest intelligence alliance, the Five Eyes."[71]
In November 2020, the Five Eyes alliance criticised China's rules disqualifying elected legislators in Hong Kong.[74]
In mid-April 2021, theNew Zealand Foreign MinisterNanaia Mahuta issued a statement that New Zealand would not let the Five Eyes alliance dictate itsbilateral relationship with China and that New Zealand was uncomfortable with expanding the remit of the intelligence grouping. In response, the Australian Government expressed concern that Wellington was undermining collective efforts to combat what it regarded as Chinese aggression.[75][76]New Zealand Prime MinisterJacinda Ardern echoed Mahuta's remarks and claimed that while New Zealand was still committed to the Five Eyes alliance, it would not use the network as its first point of communication for non-security matters. WhileThe Telegraph's defence editorCon Coughlin and BritishConservative Member of ParliamentBob Seely criticised New Zealand for undermining the Five Eyes' efforts to present a united front against Beijing, the ChineseGlobal Times praised New Zealand for putting its ownnational interests over the Five Eyes.[77][78][79] Following the2023 New Zealand general election, the new New Zealand Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime MinisterWinston Peters promised closer cooperation with Five Eyes partners.[80] According toThe Economist andForeign Policy magazine, New Zealand foreign policy under the newNational-led coalition government had shifted away from China in favour of closer relations with its traditional Five Eyes partners.[81] During an interview withThe Economist, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said that he was looking to "diversify New Zealand's diplomatic and trade relationships away from itsreliance on China".[82]
In late April 2021, theGlobal Times reported that China'sMinistry of State Security will monitor employees of companies and organisations considered to be at risk of foreign infiltration while they travel to the Five Eyes countries. These employees will be required to report their travel destinations, agendas, and meetings with foreign personnel to Chinese authorities. Other security measures include undergoing "pre-departure spying education", and using different electronic devices while at home and while abroad.[83][84]
The Five Eyes alliance is sort of an artifact of the postWorld War II era where theAnglophone countries are the major powers banded together to sort of co-operate and share the costs of intelligence gathering infrastructure. ... The result of this was over decades and decades some sort of asupra-national intelligence organisation that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries.
One of the Five Eyes' core principles is that members do not spy on other governments in the alliance. USDirector of National Intelligence AdmiralDennis C. Blair said in 2013, "We do not spy on each other. We just ask."[92]
However, in recent years, FVEY documents have shown that member agencies are intentionally spying on one another's private citizens and sharing the collected information with each other.[11][93]Shami Chakrabarti, director of theadvocacy groupLiberty, claimed that the FVEY alliance increases the ability of member states to "subcontract their dirty work" to each other.[94] FVEY countries maintain that all intelligence sharing is done legally, according to the domestic law of the respective nations.[95][12][96]
As a result of Snowden's disclosures, the FVEY alliance has become the subject of a growing amount of controversy in parts of the world:
In late 2013, Canadian federal judgeRichard Mosley strongly rebuked theCSIS for outsourcing its surveillance of Canadians to overseas partner agencies. A 51-pagecourt ruling asserts that the CSIS and other Canadian federal agencies have been illegally enlisting FVEY allies inglobal surveillance dragnets, while keepingdomestic federal courts in the dark.[97][98][99]
In 2014, New Zealand'sParliament asked theNZSIS and theGCSB if they had received any monetary contributions from members of the FVEY alliance. Neither agency responded to these inquiries, instead stating that they do not collect metadata on New Zealanders.David Cunliffe, leader of the Labour Party, asserted that the public is entitled to be informed of foreign funding if the disclosure does not compromise the agencies' operations.[100]
In early 2014, theEuropean Parliament'sCommittee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs released a report that confirmed that the intelligence agencies of New Zealand and Canada have cooperated with theNSA under the Five Eyes programme and may have been actively sharing the personal data ofEU citizens. The EU report did not investigate if any international or domestic US laws were broken by the US and did not claim that any FVEY nation was illegally conducting intelligence collection on the EU. The NSA maintains that any intelligence collection done on the EU was in accordance with domestic US law and international law.[101][102]
In 2013, the BritishParliament'sIntelligence and Security Committee (ISC) conducted an investigation and concluded that theGCHQ had broken no domestic British laws in its use of data gathered through the NSA'sPRISM. According to the ISC report, The GCHQ provided documents which "conformed with GCHQ's statutory duties" and authority as established by theIntelligence Services Act 1994. Requests made to the US corresponded with extant warrants for interception in accordance with theRegulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The ISC also questioned whether the UK's legal framework was sufficient.[103]
As of April 2024, no court case has been brought against anyUSintelligence community member claiming that they went around US domestic law by soliciting foreign countries to spy on US citizens and give that intelligence to the US. This may change as attention is paid to the anticipated public releases regardingOperation Lobos 1,Operation Trojan Shield, andProject Habitance. These operations received information from foreign governments for spying on US citizens. TheFBI did initiate Operation Trojan Shield, which was illegal in the US and so relied on theAustralian government. Seventeen U.S. citizens have been charged in U.S. federal court between 2021 and 2024, but none of the cases as of April 2024 had proceeded past the initial pretrial stages.[clarification needed][citation needed]
Beginning with its founding by the United States and United Kingdom in 1946, the alliance expanded twice, inducting Canada in 1948 and Australia and New Zealand in 1956, establishing the Five Eyes as it is today. Additionally, there are nations termed "Third Party Partners" that share their intelligence with the Five Eyes despite not being formal members. While the Five Eyes is rooted in a particular agreement with specific operations among the five nations, similar sharing agreements have been set up independently and for specific purposes; for example, according to Edward Snowden, the NSA has a "massive body" called the Foreign Affairs Directorate dedicated to partnering with foreign countries beyond the alliance.[104][105][106]
Six Eyes (proposed) – Israel, Singapore, South Korea, Japan
Several countries have been prospective members of the Five Eyes including Israel,[107] South Korea and Japan, that have collaborated with FVEY.
NSA whistleblowerEdward Snowden leaked documents from the NSA that showed Singapore, one of the world's biggest digital telecommunications hubs, is a key “third party” working with the “Five Eyes” intelligence partners,[108] and continue to collaborate intensively with the alliance, though Singapore, Israel, South Korea and Japan are formally non-members.[109][110]
According to Frenchnews magazineL'Obs, in 2009, the United States propositioned France to join the treaty and form a subsequent "Six Eyes" alliance. The French President at the time,Nicolas Sarkozy, requested that France have the same status as the other members, including the signing of a "no-spy agreement". This proposal was approved by the director of the NSA, but rejected by the director of the CIA and by PresidentBarack Obama, resulting in a refusal from France.[111]
New York magazine reported in 2013 that Germany was interested in joining the Five Eyes alliance.[112][113] At the time, several members of the United States Congress, includingTim Ryan andCharles Dent, were pushing for Germany's entry to the Five Eyes alliance.[114]
As of 2018 through an initiative sometimes termed "Five Eyes Plus 3", Five Eyes has agreements with France, Germany, and Japan to introduce an information-sharing framework to counter China and Russia.[115][116] Five Eyes plus France, Japan and South Korea share information about North Korea's military activities, including ballistic missiles, in an arrangement sometimes dubbed "Five Eyes Plus".[117]
According to a document leaked by Edward Snowden, there is another working agreement among 14 nations officially known as "SIGINT Seniors Europe", or "SSEUR".[118] This "14 Eyes" group consists of the Nine Eyes members plus Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden.[105][106]
AsPrivacy International explains, there are a number of issue-specific intelligence agreements that include some or all of the above nations and numerous others, such as:[119][120]
A "focused cooperation" on computer network exploitation between the Five Eyes nations and Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey.
TheClub de Berne with 17, primarily European members.
The Counterterrorist Group, a wider membership than the 17 European states that make up the Club of Berne, including the United States.
Maximator, an intelligence alliance between Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden.[121]
The NATO Special Committee made up of the heads of the security services ofNATO's 32 member countries.[citation needed]
^Kerbaj, Richard (2022).The Secret History of Five Eyes: The untold story of the shadowy international spy network, through its targets, traitors and spies. London: John Blake. pp. 54–55.ISBN9781789465037.
^DeYoung, Karen; Walter Pincus (27 June 2007)."CIA Releases Files On Past Misdeeds".The Washington Post.Archived from the original on 21 January 2014. Retrieved2 February 2014.A one-paragraph memo recounts planning for a "project involving the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, then premier of the Republic of Congo.
^Anderlini, Jamil (1 June 2014)."Tiananmen Square: the long shadow".Financial Times.Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved2 June 2014.The extraction missions, aided by MI6, the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, and the CIA, according to many accounts, had scrambler devices, infrared signallers, night-vision goggles and weapons.
^יוסי מלמן, קירבה יוצאת דופן: על שיתוף הפעולה המודיעיני בין ישראל לארצות הברית, מעריב השבוע, 11 בספטמבר 2013 (Google translates as "Yossi Melman, an unusual closeness: about the intelligence cooperation between Israel and the United States, Maariv this week, September 11, 2013")
Smith, Michael (2022).The Real Special Relationship : The True Story of How The British and US Secret Services Work Together. London: Arcade.ISBN978-1-4711-8679-0.
Williams, Brad. "Why the Five Eyes? Power and Identity in the Formation of a Multilateral Intelligence Grouping."Journal of Cold War Studies 25, no. 1 (2023): 101-137.
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