Canada Listens To World As Partner In Spy System

Every day, billions of telephone calls, e-mails, faxes, radio transmissions, even Internet downloads are captured by orbiting satellites monitoring signals on Earth, then processed by high-powered computers. A minute percentage of the traffic is "tagged" for transcription, translation if necessary, and analysis. The ordinary messages of ordinary people get caught up in the sweep, but aren't generally tagged. The likes of a U.N. secretary-general are. "Echelon is an electronic vacuum cleaner, but it is finely tuned," says Canadian intelligence specialist Wesley Wark. "They have to be precise to get what they want." But who is--or are--"they?" The high-tech Echelon system is operated by five nations known as the UKUSA alliance: the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Referred to in some circles as the "Anglo-Saxon Mafia," the U.S.-led network has existed for 58 years, emerging out of the Allies' successful signals-intelligence, or "sigint," operations during World War II. Its original primary job was to spy on the Soviet Union and win the Cold War. Today, it is counterterrorism. In a series of still-classified bilateral agreements - each country has a deal with the U.S. - UKUSA members pledged to jointly acquire and share all signals and communications intelligence. Common procedures, targets, equipment and methods were spelled out, along with a commitment to secrecy about the alliance's operations. The world was split into regions: Britain got Africa and Europe east to the Urals; Australia and New Zealand got Oceania; and the U.S. got the Soviet Union and wherever else it wanted. As of 1946, Canada, through the newly created Communications Security Establishment (CSE), would home in on the northern latitudes and polar regions. It had shown its expertise there during the war. "In the war, Canada had the best antennas for listening to the Soviet Union," says John Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, an anti-global violence think tank in Toronto. "And we had prime listening posts, such as Alert." Canadian Forces Station Alert, on Ellesmere Island in present-day Nunavut, is still an important ground station in Canada's network of "sigint" posts. It mainly intercepts satellite military communications. The other three are CFS Leitrim, south of Ottawa, which intercepts diplomatic traffic in and out of Canada; and CFS Masset off the coast of B.C. and Canadian Forces Base Gander, Nfld., both of which primarily tap into maritime transmissions. The high-tech Echelon listening system was devised in 1971 by the American National Security Agency (NSA), which was, and remains, the dominant UKUSA member and contributor of technology. Today, it is believed to operate 120 intercept stations in up to a dozen countries; their giant antennas all point at the communications satellites continuously circling the planet. With the end of the Cold War, Echelon's priorities moved to monitoring rogue states and international organized crime. Since the 9/11 attacks, however, its emphasis is on fighting terrorism, and all that comes under that rubric - attitudes inside the U.N. Security Council toward the Iraq War, for example. The intelligence gleaned is shared among the five alliance partners and often with other participants: Germany, Norway, Denmark, and Turkey have all signed secret "third-party" UKUSA agreements. Though Echelon is by far the biggest monitoring network in the world, other nations have their own satellite-based listening systems. Russia, China, France, Israel, India and Pakistan all use "sigint" as a major source of intelligence. "Everybody listens to everybody else non-stop," says John Thompson. "The public does not realize it, but Canada has been doing it for decades. It's an important part of our defence." The only countries that don't monitor global communications, he says, are "the poor ones who can't afford the technology." Canada's low-profile CSE collects foreign intelligence in the name of national security, but also attempts to block electronic interception by other states. After the Anti-Terrorist Act was passed in 2001, the agency's budget was boosted to about $300 million. Its staff - known as "291ers" after their military occupation code - was increased to 1,300, making it the country's second biggest spy force, after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Full Story: http://www.propagandamatrix.com/080304canadalistens.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on May 4, 2005]