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List:       isn
Subject:    U.S.-British Cyber-Spy System Puts European Countries on Edge
From:       mea culpa <jericho () DIMENSIONAL ! COM>
Date:       1999-08-20 16:03:27
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From: Zombie Cow <waste@zor.hut.fi>

http://www.latimes.com:80/excite/990816/t000072952.html

Monday, August 16, 1999
Digital Nation
U.S.-British Cyber-Spy System Puts European Countries on Edge
By GARY CHAPMAN

 OVERETO, Italy--It felt like there was a new Cold War developing at a
conference here last week on computers, networks and international
security, only this time the adversaries are the United States and Europe
and the field of conflict is cyberspace.

 The revelation last year about the collaborative electronic eavesdropping
system developed by the U.S. National Security Agency and British
intelligence agencies, a system known as Echelon, has become a huge topic
of discussion in Europe.

 The Echelon system can and does intercept "all e-mail, telephone and fax
communications" in Europe, according to a report delivered last year to
the European Parliament, and further investigations revealed that this
capability also covers Australia, New Zealand and other countries.

 The report's author, Steve Wright, director of Omega Foundation, a
British human rights group, was here last week and summarized his
investigation into Echelon.

 "The Echelon system forms part of the U.K.-U.S.A. system but unlike many
of the electronic spy systems developed during the Cold War, Echelon is
designed for primarily nonmilitary targets: governments, organizations and
businesses in virtually every country," states Wright's report, "An
Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control,"  (available on the Web at
http://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm).

 The report was prepared for the European Parliament's Scientific and
Technological Options Assessment (STOA) group. Its release in early 1998
shocked European government leaders.

[snip..]

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