4 February 1998
The full STOA report from which the excerpt below was taken, "An Appraisal
of the Technologies of Political Control," is now available at:
http://jya.com/stoa-atpc.htm
(505K)
Zipped version:
http://jya.com/stoa-atpc.zip (314K)
25 January 1998
Thanks to Axel Horns and Ulf Möller
[*] Added 26 January 1998:
It is Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) of the European Parliament offering the report, not British MEP Glyn Ford, who was its sponsor. For a hardcopy to be sent by mail, fax a request to STOA in Luxembourg:
352-4300-22418
No electronic version is available from STOA. Draft reports remain in paper format until finalized by the European Parliament, which may take a while.
STOA's publications web site was last updated in July 1996, and its rep apologized for the trailing-edge tech.
http://www.europarl.eu.int/dg4/stoa/en/publi/publi.htm
Subject: European Parliament on Communications Interceptions Networks
To: jya@pipeline.com
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 21:45:02 +0100 (GMT+0100)
From: 3umoelle@informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Ulf Möller)
John,
Axel Horns scanned parts of a European Parliament document which may
be of interest for your web site.
[*]Printed copies are available from the staff of the British MEP Glyn
Ford (tel +322 2843748 fax +322 2849059, jford@europarl.eu.int).
The report covers
- The Role & Function of Political Control Technologies
- Recent Trends and Innovations
- Developments in Surveillance Technologies
- Innovations in Crowd Control Weapons
- New Prison Control Systems
- Interrogation, Torture Techniques and Technologies
- Regulation of Horizontal Proliferation
- Further Research
------------ BEGIN QUOTED TEXT ------------------
AN APPRAISAL OF TECHNOLOGIES OF POLITICAL CONTROL
Scientific and Technological Options Assessment
STOA
Working Document (Consultation version)
PE 166 499
Luxembourg, 6 January 1998
[...]
Editor: Mr. Dick Holdsworth
This is a working document. The current version is being circulated
for consultation. It is not an official publication of STOA or of the
European Parliament.
This document does not necessarily represent the views of the
European Parliament.
[...]
4.4 National & International Communications
Interceptions Networks
Modern communications systems are virtually
transparent to the advanced interceptions
equipment which can be used to listen in.
Some systems even lend themselves to a dual
role as a national interceptions network.
For example the message switching system
used on digital exchanges like System X in
the UK supports an Integrated Services
Digital Network (ISDN) Protocol. This
allows digital devices, e.g. fax to share
the system with existing lines. The ISDN
subset is defined in their documents as
"Signalling CCITT1-series interface for
ISDN access". What is not widely known is
that built in to the international CCITT
protocol is the ability to take phones 'off
hook' and listen into conversations
occurring near the phone, without the user
being aware that it is happening. (SGR
Newsletter, No.4, 1993) This effectively
means that a national dial up telephone
tapping capacity is built into these
systems from the start. (System X has been
exported to Russia & China) Similarly, the
digital technology required to pinpoint
mobile phone users for incoming calls,
means that all mobile phone users in a
country when activated, are mini-tracking
devices, giving their owners whereabouts at
any time and stored in the company's
computer for up to two years. Coupled with
System X technology, this is a custom built
mobile track, tail and tap system par
excellence. (Sunday Telegraph, 2.2.97).
Within Europe, all email, telephone and fax
communications are routinely intercepted by
the United States National 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 the North York Moors of the UK. The
system was first uncovered in the 1970's by
a group of researchers in the UK (Campbell,
1981). The researchers used open sources
but were subsequently arrested under
Britain's Official Secrets legislation. The
'ABC' trial that followed was a critical
turning point in researcher's understanding
both of the technology of political control
and how it might be challenged by research
on open sources.(See Aubrey, 1981 & Hooper
1987) Other work on what is now known as
signals intelligence was undertaken by
researchers such as James Bamford, which
uncovered a billion dollar world wide
interceptions network, which he nicknamed
'Puzzle Palace'. A recent work by Nicky
Hager, Secret Power, (Hager,1996) provides
the most comprehensive details to date of a
project known as ECHELON. Hager interviewed
more than 50 people concerned with
intelligence to document a global
surveillance system that stretches around
the world to form a targeting system on all
of the key Intelsat satellites used to
convey most of the world's satellite phone
calls, Internet, email, faxes and telexes.
These sites are based at Sugar Grove and
Yakima, in the USA, at Waihopai in New
Zealand, at Geraldton in Australia, Hong
Kong, and Morwenstow in the UK.
The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA
system but unlike many of the electronic
spy systems developed during the cold war,
ECHELON is designed for primarily non-
military targets: governments,
organisations and businesses in virtually
every country. The ECHELON system works by
indiscriminately intercepting very large
quantities of communications and then
siphoning out what is valuable using
artificial intelligence aids like Memex to
find key words. Five nations share the
results with the US as the senior partner
under the UKUSA agreement of 1948. Britain,
Canada, New Zealand and Australia are very
much acting as subordinate information
servicers. Each of the five centres supply
"dictionaries" to the other four of
keywords, phrases, people and places to
"tag" and the tagged intercept is forwarded
straight to the requesting country. Whilst
there is much information gathered about
potential terrorists, there is a lot of
economic intelligence, notably intensive
monitoring of all the countries
participating in the GATT negotiations. But
Hager found that by far the main priorities
of this system continued to be military and
political intelligence applicable to their
wider interests. Hager quotes from a
"highly placed intelligence operatives" who
spoke to the Observer in London. "We feel
we can no longer remain silent regarding
that which we regard to be gross
malpractice and negligence within the
establishment in which we operate." They
gave as examples GCHQ interception of
three charities, including Amnesty
International and Christian Aid. "At any
time GCHQ is able to home in on their
communications for a routine target
request," the GCHQ source said. In the case
of phone taps the procedure is known as
Mantis. With telexes its called Mayfly. By
keying in a code relating to third world
aid, the source was able to demonstrate
telex "fixes" on the three organisations.
With no system of accountability, it is
difficult to discover what criteria
determine who is not a target.
In February, The UK-based research
publication Statewatch reported that the EU
had secretly agreed to set up an
international telephone tapping network via
a secret network of committees established
under the "third pillar" of the Mastricht
Treaty covering co-operation on law and
order. Key points of the plan are outlined
in a memorandum of understanding, signed by
EU states in 1995.(ENFOPOL 112 10037/95
25.10.95) which remains classified.
According to a Guardian report (25.2.97) it
reflects concern among European
Intelligence agencies that modern
technology will prevent them from tapping
private communications. "EU countries it
says, should agree on "international
interception standards set at a level that
would ensure encoding or scrambled words
can be broken down by government agencies."
Official reports say that the EU
governments agreed to co-operate closely
with the FBI in Washington. Yet earlier
minutes of these meetings suggest that the
original initiative came from Washington.
According to Statewatch, network and
service providers in the EU will be obliged
to install "tappable" systems and to place
under surveillance any person or group when
served with an interception order. These
plans have never been referred to any
European government for scrutiny, nor one
suspects to the Civil Liberties Committee
of the European Parliament, despite the
clear civil liberties issues raised by such
an unaccountable system. We are told that
the USA, Australia, Canada, Norway and Hong
Kong are ready to sign up. All these but
Norway are parties to the ECHELON system
and it is impossible to determine if there
are not other agendas at work here. Nothing
is said about finance of this system but a
report produced by the German government
estimates that the mobile phone part of the
package alone will cost 4 billion D-marks.
Statewatch concludes that "It is the
interface of the ECHELON system and its
potential development on phone calls
combined with the standardisation of
"tappable communications centres and
equipment being sponsored by the EU and the
USA which presents a truly global threat
over which there are no legal or democratic
controls."(Press release 25.2.97)
Clearly, there needs to be a wide ranging
debate on the significance of these
proposals before further any further
political or financial commitments are
made. The following recommendations have
that objective in mind.
4. RECOMMENDATIONS
(i) All surveillance technologies,
operations and practices should be subject
to procedures to ensure democratic
accountability and there should be proper
codes of practice to ensure redress if
malpractice or abuse takes place. Explicit
criteria should be agreed for deciding who
should be targeted for surveillance and who
should not, how such data is stored,
processed and shared. Such criteria and
associated codes of practice should be made
publicity available.
(ii) All requisite codes of practice should
ensure that new surveillance technologies
are brought within the appropriate data
protection legislation.
(iii) Given that data from most digital
monitoring systems can be seemlessly
edited, new guidance should be provided on
what constitutes admissible evidence. This
concern is particularly relevant to
automatic identification systems which will
need to take cognisance of the provisions
of Article 15, of the 1995 European
Directive on the Protection of Individuals
and Processing of Personal Data.
(iv) Regulations should be developed
covering the provision of electronic
bugging and tapping devices to private
citizens and companies, so that their sale
is governed by legal permission rather than
self-regulation.
(v) Use of telephone interception by Member
states should be subject to procedures of
public accountability referred to in (i)
above. Before any telephone interception
takes place a warrant should be obtained in
a manner prescribed by the relevant
parliament. In most cases, law enforcement
agencies will not be permitted to self-
authorise interception except in the most
unusual of circumstances which should be
reported back to the authorising authority
at the earliest opportunity.
(vi) Annual statistics on interception
should be reported to each member states'
parliament. These statistics should provide
comprehensive details of the actual number
of communication devices intercepted and
data should be not be aggregated. (This is
to avoid the statistics only identifying
the number of warrants, issued whereas
organisations under surveillance may have
many hundreds of members, all of whose
phones may be subject to interception).
(vii) Technologies facilitating the
automatic profiling and pattern analysis of
telephone calls to establish friendship and
contact networks should be subject to the
same legal requirements as those for
telephone interception and reported to the
relevant member state parliament.
(viii) The European Parliament should
reject proposals from the United States for
making private messages via the global
communications network (Internet)
accessible to US Intelligence Agencies. Nor
should the Parliament agree to new
expensive encryption controls without a
wide ranging debate within the EU on the
implications of such measures. These
encompass the civil and human rights of
European citizens and the commercial rights
of companies to operate within the law,
without unwarranted surveillance by
intelligence agencies operating in
conjunction with multinational competitors.
(ix) The Committee should commission a more
detailed report on the constitutional
issues raised by the National Security
Agency (NSA) facility to intercept all
European telecommunications and the impact
this supervisory capacity has on a) any
existing constitutional safeguards protecting
individuals or organisations from invasion
of privacy such as those extant for example
in Germany, b) the political, cultural and
economic autonomy of European member
states. This report should also cover the
social and political implications of the
EU/FBI proposals made to operate a global
telecommunications surveillance network as
discussed above. This report should also
analyse the financial and constitutional
implications of the proposals and provide
an update of the work undertaken so far and
the status of political approval.
(x) Relevant committees of the European
Parliament considering proposals for
technologies which have civil liberties
implications, for example the
Telecommunications Committee in regard to
surveillance, should be required to forward
all relevant policy proposals and reports
to the Civil Liberties Committee for their
observations in advance of any political or
financial decisions on deployment being
taken.