'An unencrypted email is like a letter without an envelope': "how do we know that Saddam has WMD? Because we've still got the receipts"--Bill Hicks, the late British comedian.

"Imagine the scene--it is the bishop's first day in Heaven; dinner is over, he is relaxing in his room and there is a knock on the door and the Archangel Gabriel enters. "Sorry to disturb you Sir, but are you the bishop who told old Mrs Jones that there would be animals in Heaven?" "Yes," the bishop replies, "that is my firm belief." "Good," his visitor says, "the turkey you had for dinner last Christmas is outside and wants a few words with you." Well, these are not my words. The copyright is owned by a Mr Ray Smith of Faversham in Kent, England. That was his letter to The Times on 12 May 2000, urging people to stop telling fibs.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Thank God, my headline (above) is not a fib. "An unencrypted email message is like a letter without an envelope." And these are not my words either. They come from the European Union (EU), in its 194-page landmark report of 11 July 2001 "on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system)".

Just imagine, you and I sending a letter without an envelope down the post, and yet this letter contains some of our most sensitive messages? Would you even allow such a letter to be hand-delivered--by an intermediary--to the addressee? Have you done it before? I know you will say "No, never!". But we do it every day with our emails. Unencrypted! Each one of us! We are even worse with our telephone calls. Knowing what I know now, we say things on the phone that we shouldn't be saying on the phone. Fortunately, we now have the EU belatedly confirming that a global spy system called Echelon, operated by the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and their allies, has been intercepting our emails, fax, telephone and internet messages since the 1970s.

And not only that, Echelon also "steals firms" business secrets and passes them on to competitors [in the Echelon home countries] to give them an advantage. "New evidence shows that Echelon has existed since the 1970s and was greatly enlarged between 1975 and 1995," says Duncan Campbell, the British journalist and Echelon expert who was commissioned by the EU to write two seed reports in 1999 that formed the basis of the EU report of July 2001. According to him, "Echelon is a system used by the US National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept and process international communications via communications satellites. It is part of a global surveillance system that is now over 50 years old. Other parts of the same system intercept messages from the internet, from undersea cables, from radio transmitters, from secret equipment installed inside embassies, or use orbiting satellites to monitor signals anywhere on the earth's surface."

Campbell continues: "The first reports about Echelon in Europe credited it with the capacity to intercept 'within Europe, all email, telephone and fax communications'. This has proven to be erroneous; neither Echelon nor the signals intelligence (SIGINT) system of which it is part, can do this. Nor is equipment available with the capacity to process and recognise the content of every speech message or telephone call. But the American and British-run network can, with sister stations, access and process most of the world's satellite communications, automatically analysing and relaying it to customers who may be continents away."

In 1998, the EU, which likes to think of itself as a very knowledgeable Union, was shocked to its foundations when it learned that such a spy system had existed for so long and 99.99% of the world did not know about it, including the EU itself! The disbelief was so complete that even today it still leaps at you from the pages of the EU report of July 2001. Speaking for the European Commission back in 1998 when the European Parliament debated the Echelon issue, a shocked Commissioner Bangeman told the hushed House: "If this system were to exist, it would be an intolerable attack against individual liberties, competition and the security of the states." Notice his use of the conditional tense, "were"--meaning he still could not fathom that such a spy system could exist! But it existed! In fact, the genesis of the Echelon network goes back to 1947. Since then, we've all been ECHELONed. You, me, everybody! And we continue to be so ECHELONed! According to Duncan Campbell: "The full details of Echelon would probably never have come to serious public attention but for six years of research by New Zealand writer, Nicky Hager, who assiduously investigated the new Echelon station that started operating at Waihopai on the South Island of New Zealand in 1989. His 1996 book, Secret Power, is based on extensive interviews with and help from members of the New Zealand SIGINT organisation. It remains the best informed and most detailed account of how Echelon works."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

So how did it all begin? Please come with me to the EU, and read its report of July 2001:

"The historical development of Echelon," the EU says, "goes back to a top secret UKUSA Agreement signed by the UK and USA in June 1948. It was the Americans who instigated the establishment of a SIGINT [signals intelligence] alliance at a meeting with the British in London in 31 August 1940 ... The US Army representative, Brig-Gen George V. Strong, reported that 'it had recently been arranged in principle between the British and the United States governments that periodic exchange of information would be desirable' and that 'the time had come for a free exchange of intelligence'.

"In February 1941, US codebreakers delivered a cipher machine (PURPLE) to the UK. Cooperation in the sphere of code-breaking began in spring 1941. Intelligence cooperation was stepped up in response to the joint fleet operations in the North Atlantic in summer 1941. In June 1941, the British broke the German fleet code, ENIGMA. America's entry into the Second World War led to SIGINT cooperation being stepped up. In 1942, US codebreakers from the Naval SIGINT Agency began work in the UK ...

"In spring 1943, the BRUSA-SIGINT Agreement was signed, and personnel were exchanged ... Following the War, the UK was the prime mover behind the continuation of the SIGINT alliance. The foundations were laid in the course of a world tour undertaken in spring 1945 by British intelligence agents. One aim was to transfer SIGINT personnel from Europe to the Pacific to take part in the war against Japan. In that connection, an agreement was reached to provide the Australian intelligence services with resources and (British) personnel. The intelligence agents returned to the US via New Zealand and Canada. In September 1945, [American president] Harry S. Truman signed a top secret memorandum whose provisions formed the cornerstone of a peacetime SIGINT alliance ... Truman ordered the US military to 'continue collaboration in the field of communication intelligence between the US Army and Navy and the British, and to extend, modify or discontinue the collaboration, as determined to be in the best interests of the US'. Immediately thereafter, negotiations on an agreement opened between the British and Americans.

"In addition, a British delegation made contact with the Canadian and Australians with a view to discussing their involvement. In February and March 1946, a top-secret Anglo-American SIGINT conference took place, at which the details of an alliance were discussed. The British were authorised by the Canadians and Australians to act on their behalf. The conference produced what is still a classified agreement, running into some 25 pages, which laid down the detailed arrangements for a SIGINT agreement between the US [as the first party] and the British Commonwealth--the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand--[as the second party]. Further discussions took place during the two following years, culminating in the signing of the definitive text of the UKUSA Agreement in June 1948."

Later, as Duncan Campbell's investigations have unearthed, other countries including Norway, Denmark, Germany and Turkey signed secret signals intelligence agreements with the US and became "third parties" participating in the UKUSA network.

But essentially, the main beneficiaries of the UKUSA Agreement are: America's National Security Agency (NSA), UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Australia's Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).

For a long time, the signatory states refused officially to acknowledge the existence of the UKUSA Agreement, until 1999 when the Australian government inadvertently confirmed that its Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) "does cooperate with counterpart signals intelligence organisations overseas under the UKUSA relationship".

"Besides UKUSA," says Duncan Campbell, "there are at least 30 other nations operating major communications intelligence (COMINT) organisations. The largest is the Russian FAPSI, with 54,000 employees, FAPSI operates large ground collection sites at Lourdes, Cuba, and at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. China maintains a substantial SIGINT system. The UKUSA nations currently operate between them at least 120 satellite-based collection stations."

Under UKUSA, the world is divided into five main surveillance zones: Britain's zone covers Africa, Europe and east of the Ural Mountains of the former Soviet Union. Canada covers northern latitudes and Polar Regions. Australia covers Asia and Oceania, New Zealand the Pacific regions, and the US--the mother of Echelon--covers the Americas and the Caribbean regions.

In short, no one can escape Echelon and its many tentacles. It is frightening! But let's stop here and continue next issue.