Thanks to Lal Shah Zada (email posting)
By DUNCAN CAMPBELL
Australia has become the first country openly to admit that it
takes part in a global electronic surveillance system that intercepts the
private and commercial international communications of citizens and companies
from its own and other countries. The disclosure is made today in Channel 9's
Sunday program by Martin Brady, director of the Defence Signals Directorate in
Canberra.
Mr Brady's decision to break ranks and officially admit the
existence of a hitherto unacknowledged spying organisation called UKUSA is
likely to irritate his British and American counterparts, who have spent the
past 50 years trying to prevent their own citizens from learning anything about
them or their business of "signals intelligence" - "sigint"
for short.
In his letter to Channel 9 published today, Mr Brady states
that the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) "does cooperate with counterpart
signals intelligence organisations overseas under the UKUSA relationship".
In other statements which have now been made publicly
available on the Internet (www.dsd.gov.au) <http://www.dsd.gov.au) , he also
says that DSD's purpose "is to support Australian Government
decision-makers and the Australian Defence Force with high-quality foreign
signals intelligence products and services. DSD (provides) important information
that is not available from open sources".
Together with the giant American National Security Agency (NSA)
and its Canadian, British, and New Zealand counterparts, DSD operates a network
of giant, highly automated tracking stations that illicitly pick up commercial
satellite communications and examine every fax, telex, e-mail, phone call, or
computer data message that the satellites carry.
The five signals intelligence agencies form the UKUSA pact.
They are bound together by a secret agreement signed in 1947 or 1948. Although
its precise terms have never been revealed, the UKUSA agreement provides for
sharing facilities, staff, methods, tasks and product between the participating
governments.
Now, due to a fast-growing UKUSA system called Echelon,
millions of messages are automatically intercepted every hour, and checked
according to criteria supplied by intelligence agencies and governments in all
five UKUSA countries. The intercepted signals are passed through a computer
system called the Dictionary, which checks each new message or call against
thousands of "collection" requirements. The Dictionaries then send the
messages into the spy agencies' equivalent of the Internet, making them
accessible all over the world.
Australia's main contribution to this system is an
ultra-modern intelligence base at Kojarena, near Geraldton in Western Australia.
The station was built in the early 1990s. At Kojarena, four satellite tracking
dishes intercept Indian and Pacific Ocean communications satellites. The exact
target of each dish is concealed by placing them inside golfball like "radomes".
About 80 per cent of the messages intercepted at Kojarena are
sent automatically from its Dictionary computer to the CIA or the NSA, without
ever being seen or read in Australia. Although it is under Australian command,
the station - like its controversial counterpart at Pine Gap - employs American
and British staff in key posts.
Among the "collection requirements" that the
Kojarena Dictionary is told to look for are North Korean economic, diplomatic
and military messages and data, Japanese trade ministry plans, and Pakistani
developments in nuclear weapons technology and testing. In return, Australia can
ask for information collected at other Echelon stations to be sent to Canberra.
A second and larger, although not so technologically
sophisticated DSD satellite station, has been built at Shoal Bay, Northern
Territory. At Shoal Bay, nine satellite tracking dishes are locked into regional
communications satellites, including systems covering Indonesia and south-west
Asia.
International and governmental concern about the UKUSA Echelon
system has grown dramatically since 1996, when New Zealand writer Nicky Hager
revealed intimate details of how it operated. New Zealand runs an Echelon
satellite interception site at Waihopai, near Blenheim, South Island. Codenamed
"Flintlock", the Waihopai station is half the size of Kojarena and its
sister NSA base at Yakima, Washington, which also covers Pacific rim states.
Waihopai's task is to monitor two Pacific communications satellites, and
intercept all communications from and between the South Pacific islands.
Like other Echelon stations, the Waihopai installation is
protected by electrified fences, intruder detectors and infra-red cameras. A
year after publishing his book, Hager and New Zealand TV reporter John Campbell
mounted a daring raid on Waihopai, carrying a TV camera and a stepladder. From
open, high windows, they then filmed into and inside its operations centre.
They were astonished to see that it operated completely
automatically.
Although Australia's DSD does not use the term
"Echelon", Government sources have confirmed to Channel 9 that Hager's
description of the system is correct, and that the Australia's Dictionary
computer at Kojarena works in the same way as the one in New Zealand.
Until this year, the US Government has tried to ignore the row
over Echelon by refusing to admit its existence. The Australian disclosures
today make this position untenable. US intelligence writer Dr Jeff Richelson has
also obtained documents under the US Freedom of Information Act, showing that a
US Navy-run satellite receiving station at Sugar Grove, West Virginia, is an
Echelon site, and that it collects intelligence from civilian satellites.
The station, south-west of Washington, lies in a remote area
of the Shenandoah Mountains. According to the released US documents, the
station's job is "to maintain and operate an Echelon site". Other
Echelon stations are at Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico, Leitrim, Canada and at
Morwenstow and London in Britain.
Information is also fed into the Echelon system from taps on
the Internet, and by means of monitoring pods which are placed on undersea
cables. Since 1971, the US has used specially converted nuclear submarines to
attach tapping pods to deep underwater cables around the world.
The Australian Government's decision to be open about the
UKUSA pact and the Echelon spy system has been motivated partly by the need to
respond to the growing international concern about economic intelligence
gathering, and partly by DSD's desire to reassure Australians that its domestic
spying activity is strictly limited and tightly supervised.
According to DSD director Martin Brady, "to ensure that
(our) activities do not impinge on the privacy of Australians, DSD operates
under a detailed classified directive approved by Cabinet and known as the Rules
on Sigint and Australian Persons".
Compliance with this Cabinet directive is monitored by the
inspector-general of security and intelligence, Mr Bill Blick. He says that
"Australian citizens can complain to my office about the actions of DSD.
And if they do so then I have the right to conduct an inquiry."
But the Cabinet has ruled that Australians' international
calls, faxes or e-mails can be monitored by NSA or DSD in specified
circumstances. These include "the commission of a serious criminal offence;
a threat to the life or safety of an Australian; or where an Australian is
acting as the agent of a foreign power". Mr Brady says that he must be
given specific approval in every case. But deliberate interception of domestic
calls in Australia should be left to the police or ASIO.
Mr Brady claims that other UKUSA nations have to follow
Australia's lead, and not record their communications unless Australia has
decided that this is required. "Both DSD and its counterparts operate
internal procedures to satisfy themselves that their national interests and
policies are respected by the others," he says.
So if NSA happens to intercept a message from an Australian
citizen or company whom DSD has decided to leave alone, they are supposed to
strike out the name and insert "Australian national" or
"Australian corporation" instead. Or they must destroy the intercept.
That's the theory, but specialists differ. According to Mr
Hager, junior members of UKUSA just can't say "no". "... When
you're a junior ally like Australia or New Zealand, you never refuse what they
ask for."
There are also worries about what allies might get up to with
information that Australia gives them. When Britain was trying to see through
its highly controversial deal to sell Hawk fighters and other arms to Indonesia,
(sorry, that's all I have...) |