I raise the questions: "What the hell is NSA? Echelon'" and you beg for some answers.

The NSA, aka National Security Agency, is the cryptologic organization of the United States of America. Cryptology is the scientific study of cryptography or the enciphering and deciphering of messages in secret code. The NSA's mission statement is to "coordinate, direct, and perform highly specialized activities to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence information."  (www.nsa.gov/ about_nsa/index.html).

A January 1998 report to the European Parliament titled An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control, declared that "within Europe, all e-mail, telephone, and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency, transferring all target information from the European mainland to Fort Meade in Maryland." The NSA's headquarters are located in fort Meade.  Like a skilled maestro the NSA is orchestrating its mission statement with the utmost perfection.

Echelon is the code name of NSA's global system for intercepting phone calls, faxes, e-mails and other     electronic communications. Echelon, which has existed since 1971, was specifically designed to intercept non-military communications of go-vernments, private organizations and businesses to benefit the USA and its partners in crime. Its direct partners include the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These countries form the decades-old UKUSA signals intelligence alliance.

The UKUSA alliance was initially a cooperative effort during World War II to intercept radio transmissions. In 1948, the cooperation effort was formalized into the UKUSA agreement and primarily aimed at spying on the USSR. The intelligence agencies that form the UKUSA alliance are the largest intelligence organizations in their respective countries. The NSA leads the alliance in conjunction with the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) in Canada, the Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), Britain's Government Communications Head-quarters (GCHQ) and New Zealand's largest intelligence agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).

Claude Turmes, member of Luxembourg's Green Party and member of the European Parliament, has been very active in pushing for an investigative committee (co-mite d'enquete) to analyze the real impact of the Echelon network, which he sees as "violating the fundamental rights of any European citizen." Claude Turmes and the Green Party members of the European Parliament have also called for the creation of a legal framework to address any violation of our fundamental rights as European citizens. Opposition has been strong, especially from the UK, which hints that Britain is indeed benefiting from the Echelon network because of the UKUSA alliance.

The controversy is currently also being debated in the halls of the US Congress where hearings, launched by Republican Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia, are scheduled for the current session. Furthermore, Con-gressman Porter Goss of Florida, the Republican Chair of the House of the Permanent Select Commit-tee on Intelligence, has called upon the NSA to provide internal documents that would help determine if privacy rights of US citizens are being violated. Mean-while, Sweden's foreign minister vowed to start investigations to find out whether Swedish companies have been harmed by US spying.

How does Echelon work?

Echelon has the capability to monitor all major components of the international telecommunications networks. It collects data in various ways.

First, an armada of geosynchronous and low-earth orbiting satellites intercepts very large quantities of communications from around the globe. The US Natio-  nal Reconnaissance Office maintains this network of satellites. The collected data is then transferred to satellite ground stations. These ground stations are processing centers and the main stations are based in several countries, including in Menwith Hill, England and Bad Aibling, Germany. Military and civilian personnel run these ground stations.

Second, the US Air Combat Command and the US Navy constantly fly numerous planes with the mission of gathering communications and other electronic signals, while military ships and submarines are tapping undersea communication cables. US divers were able to attach special underwater de-vices into cables that carry phone calls across the seas. One of these taps was discovered in 1982, but numerous other devices continue to function undetected.

Third, surface traffic is also intercepted by massive ground-based radio antennas. These antennas reportedly are located in the United States, Italy, England, Turkey, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and several other places.

Fourth, Echelon also intercepts Internet transmissions through numerous ?sniffer? devices located at strategic junctions of the Internet. These sniffers collect information from data packets as they traverse the Internet via those key junctions. It also uses search software to scan for web sites that may be of interest.

Fifth, it is not yet known if fiber optic phone cables are under surveillance but several Echelon countries have apparently also trained special agents to install a variety of special data-collection devices at key strategic locations around the world.

 

The Echelon system was not designed to gather intelligence on a specific individual's phone, e-mail or fax but rather to collect a vast amount of raw data from various sources around the world. All this collected raw data, which ends up in the ground stations, is then constantly processed through a vast array of computers, which will extract messages of interest from the mass of unwanted ones. These computers are known as the Echelon dictionaries and items of intelligence value are selected by computer identification of pre-programmed keywords. Any country of the UKUSA alliance can request these keywords.

Specific telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, names, subjects and so on are automatically searched for. This huge amount of data is processed in ?real time?, meaning that the incoming information is examined hour after hour, day after day, until the computers find intelligence of value, which is then transmitted        to the authority that requested it.

In short Echelon links together all the intelligence gathering units and provides members of the UKUSA alliance with the ability to intercept and exploit a massive proportion of the world's communications to their own benefit.

La Grande Région

There is no doubt about the existence of Echelon and how it can potentially affect every person communicating between and within countries anywhere in the world. Privacy rights and other fundamental rights of European citizens are being violated, but the scope of this article was to determine the disadvantages faced by companies and businesses established in La Grande Région. Claude Turmes clearly stated that existing evidence demonstrates that US businesses have benefited from the Echelon network to gain intelligence in several contract negotiations over their European competitors.

The question is then raised: Should companies of La Grande Région fear Echelon' Vincent Ruck, information analyst at the New Media Group (NMG) thinks that Luxembourg has nothing to fear. He believes that Luxembourg's financial sector has security measures in place that give sufficient protection to sensitive information. Philippe Netter from the Technopole in Metz concurred: "I do not think that confidentiality issues are a major problem for the Grande Région. I even view the Luxembourg banking establishment as creating a much better environment here than in other parts of the world." Claude Turmes on the other hand informs us that the UKUSA alliance members are enjoying an unfair competitive advantage, which violates several WTO rules. Furthermore, he affirms that this competitive advantage of the US and its partners in crime is disrespectful of the Green idea of a fair trade system between all the countries of the world.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle ground of these two opposing views. While I agree with the fact that most financial institutions operating in Luxembourg enjoy a high level of security, very often security policies are misunderstood by the employees or are not adequate at all to prevent sensitive information from leaking out to unwanted parties. As Christmas approaches we shall be witnesses to how secure corporate information networks really are with the promise of a new wave of hacker attacks and the distribution of new viruses with seasonal flavors.

The US government has also been hiring security specialists in masses and has understood since long ago that, in the current globalization game, information is the deciding factor between losing and winning a key contract or market. In this zero sum game (one wins ? the others lose), there is only one first place to fight for.

What to do?

British investigative reporter Duncan Campbel first exposed the existence of Echelon in a New Statesman article that was published on August 12, 1988. In 1996 New Zealand peace activist Nicky Hager further dissected the inner workings of the network in his book Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network. Media exposure has increased exponentially since 1988 and the existence of such global intelligence systems has been debated in the European Parliament, the US Congress and in numerous other government bodies.

Philippe Netter expressed his surprise about the media coverage Echelon has gained these past weeks, saying "All countries have surveillance systems and Echelon is just one of them." Echelon has indeed gained extensive media attention recently. The reason is that people are not only becoming aware of these surveillance systems but are also starting to ask questions about the secret environment these agencies operate in.

Awareness is the first step. There are numerous sources of information detailing the Machiavellian plan put in place by the UKUSA alliance. Use these sources! Companies need to audit their communication networks to look for possible security breaches. Sound security policies need to be put in place and communicated to all levels in the corporate hierarchy, down to the weakest link in the communication chain.

Numerous European go-vernments, including Ger-many and France, are legalizing powerful encryption methods. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software, which allows users to protect their privacy on the Internet, is downloadable from various Internet sites.  It is up to you to make the first move; get up and get informed.  Last October, activists in the US and in Europe participated in a ?Jam Echelon Day? by sending a gigantic volume of communications containing words such as "terrorism', which was expected to be on the keyword list. The purpose was to overload the whole system.

Conclusion:

Globalization is the new tune the world is singing to. The USSR evaporated, the Wall crashed and the people of the world are uniting to consume. The power balance has shifted and the US is leading the Superpower bandwagon, making sure to keep the doors open for its fellow allies to join in or be left behind.

Though the US has pioneered a powerful intelligence network, Europe has not been left behind. Green Party members of the European Parliament have called for the creation of an investigative committee on this global intelligence-gathering network. Opposition across the political spectrum has been fierce and the matter is slowly fading into oblivion. Claude Turmes states that this opposition signals that "numerous members of the European Parliament are sharing the same opinion about creating a similar network."

As you read this article I guarantee you that countermeasures are being taken by European countries and a counteroffensive system is being or has already been built. Information is today's most valuable resource. Competition on economic fronts has escalated to galactic proportions. In the current information war computer scientists have replaced infantry soldiers, digital attacks have become the new missiles and the digital world has added a new dimension to our physical reality.

Pandora's box has been opened and I can not see the members of the UKUSA alliance stopping their intelligence-gathering activities. This position leaves Europe with no choice but to respond with a counter system. The Cold war has been replaced by a Digital war.

How rosy is our future? I leave it up to you to make up your own mind.