[ALBSA-Info] An Electronic Spy Scare Is Alarming Europe

[Asti Pilika]

February 24, 2000


An Electronic Spy Scare Is Alarming Europe
By SUZANNE DALEY
 ARIS, Feb. 23 -- Fears that the United States,
Britain and other English-speaking countries are using
a cold-war eavesdropping network to gain a commercial
edge roused passions across Europe today, even after
Washington and London roundly denied the notion. 


 
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The subject kept the European Parliament in Brussels
entranced for hours and drew banner headlines across
the continent. One political cartoon showed Britain in
bed with the United States, despite Britain's
membership in the European Union. 

The hubbub grew from a report prepared for the
European Parliament that found that communications
intercepted by a network called Echelon twice helped
American companies gain an advantage over Europeans. 

Whatever the merits of the latest allegations,
suggestions of commercial spying have surfaced
regularly in recent years. They have infuriated many
Europeans who seem to have little trouble believing
that military espionage systems developed in the cold
war would now be used to help businesses in
English-speaking nations. 


Echelon is a network of surveillance stations stitched
together in the 1970's by the United States National
Security Agency with Australia, Britain, Canada and
New Zealand to intercept select satellite
communications, according to recently declassified
information in Washington. 

But Washington and Downing Street quickly rejected the
idea that they might be using any secret information
to bolster their own economies. 

"No is the short answer," Prime Minister Tony Blair of
England said in London. "These things are governed by
extremely strict rules, and those rules will always be
applied." 

In Washington, a spokesman for the State Department,
James P. Rubin, said, "U.S. intelligence agencies are
not tasked to engage in industrial espionage or obtain
trade secrets for the benefit of any U.S. company or
companies. Although we cannot comment on the substance
of the report, we can say that the N.S.A. is not
authorized to provide intelligence information to
private firms." 

The denials did little to quell European fury,
especially in France, where Justice Minister Élisabeth
Guigou said French companies were being encouraged to
encrypt sensitive information to avoid detection by
American espionage operations. 

She said that Echelon had been set up as a military
system, dating originally from 1948, to eavesdrop on
the Soviet Union and its allies in the cold war, but
that it had been converted to "economic espionage." 

"Today," Ms. Guigou said, "it appears that the network
has been diverted to the purposes of economic
espionage and for keeping a watch on competitors." 

The flare-up was prompted by the publication today of
a report commissioned by the European Parliament 18
months ago, after initial allegations of commercial
espionage. 

The 18-page report, which was written by a freelance
journalist, Duncan Campbell, and based in large part
on other newspaper accounts, said Echelon had been
used by the United States to gain the advantage in at
least two deals that involved major European
companies. 
 
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Fears that cold war technology is being converted to
commercial use.   

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Mr. Campbell described Echelon as a vast coordinated
system that includes a system of satellites and at
least 10 listening posts worldwide that can intercept
telephone calls, e-mails and faxes. 

The report drew skepticism from conservative
parliamentarians, some of whom said it had failed to
provide sufficient proof. 

Citing "well informed" press reports from 1995, Mr.
Duncan said information learned through Echelon had
been given to Boeing and the old McDonnell Douglas
when they were trying to win a $6 billion contract
from Saudi Arabia. His report said the spy network had
intercepted calls between Airbus, the European
consortium, and the Saudi airline and government
officials. 

Mr. Campbell also said spy information had helped an
American company, Raytheon, win a bid for a $1.3
billion surveillance system for the Amazon forest away
from Thomson-CSF, a French company. 

But few details were offered about how the information
was of any use to the American corporations. Each
example was described in just a short paragraph. 

In recent years, Echelon has been criticized in the
United States as an excessive intrusion into the
private communications of Americans and their allies.
Some critics said the system emerged from the cold war
as a Big Brother without a cause. 

R. James Woolsey Jr., who headed the C.I.A. from 1993
to 1995, said in Washington that "basically the United
States does not conduct industrial espionage." But he
said the government might look into some economic
areas, like questions of bribery. 

"You collect intelligence on bribery by some of our
friends abroad . . . and then you tell the U.S.
government so they can try to get the other government
not to award the contract," Mr. Woolsey said today at
the Council on Foreign Relations. 

"But you don't go to the American corporation and say
'Hey, you're about to lose,' " he said. 


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