Bagian Kedua
The ECHELON Dictionaries
The extraordinary ability of ECHELON to intercept most of the communications traffic in the world is breathtaking in its scope. And yet the power of ECHELON resides in its ability to decrypt, filter, examine and codify these messages into selective categories for further analysis by intelligence agents from the various UKUSA agencies.
As the electronic signals are brought into the station, they are fed through the massive computer systems, such as Menwith Hill's SILKWORTH, where voice recognition, optical character recognition (OCR) and data information engines get to work on the messages.
These programs and computers transcend state-of-the-art; in many cases, they are well into the future. MAGISTRAND is part of the Menwith Hill SILKWORTH super-computer system that drives the powerful keyword search programs.<24>
One tool used to sort through the text of messages, PATHFINDER (manufactured by the UK company, Memex),<**Be sure to read footnote for update 25 **> sifts through large databases of text-based documents and messages looking for keywords and phrases based on complex algorithmic criteria. Voice recognition programs convert conversations into text messages for further analysis. One highly advanced system, VOICECAST, can target an individual's voice pattern, so that every call that person makes is transcribed for future analysis.
Processing millions of messages every hour, the ECHELON systems churn away 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, looking for targeted keyword series, phone and fax numbers, and specified voiceprints. It is important to note that very few messages and phone calls are actually transcribed and recorded by the system.
The vast majority are filtered out after they are read or listened to by the system. Only those messages that produce keyword "hits" are tagged for future analysis. Again, it is not just the ability to collect the electronic signals that gives ECHELON its power; it is the tools and technology that are able to whittle down the messages to only those that are important to the intelligence agencies.
Each station maintains a list of keywords (the "Dictionary") designated by each of the participating intelligence agencies. A Dictionary Manager from each of the respective agencies is responsible for adding, deleting or changing the keyword search criteria for their dictionaries at each of the stations.<26>
Each of these station dictionaries are given codewords, such as COWBOY for the Yakima facility and FLINTLOCK for the Waihopai facility.<27> These codewords play a crucial identification role for the analysts who eventually look at the intercepted messages.
Each message flagged by the ECHELON dictionaries as meeting the specified criteria is sorted by a four-digit code representing the source or subject of the message (such as 5535 for Japanese diplomatic traffic, or 8182 for communications about distribution of encryption technology,)<28> as well as the date, time and station codeword.
Also included in the message headers are the codenames for the intended agency: ALPHA-ALPHA (GCHQ), ECHO-ECHO (DSD), INDIA-INDIA (GCSB), UNIFORM-UNIFORM (CSE), and OSCAR-OSCAR (NSA). These messages are then transmitted to each agency's headquarters via a global computer system, PLATFORM,<29> that acts as the information nervous system for the UKUSA stations and agencies.
Every day, analysts located at the various intelligence agencies review the previous day's product. As it is analyzed, decrypted and translated, it can be compiled into the different types of analysis: reports, which are direct and complete translations of intercepted messages; "gists," which give basic information on a series of messages within a given category; and summaries, which are compilations from both reports and gists.<30>
These are then given classifications: MORAY (secret), SPOKE (more secret than MORAY), UMBRA (top secret), GAMMA (Russian intercepts) and DRUID (intelligence forwarded to non-UKUSA parties).
This analysis product is the raison d'être of the entire ECHELON system. It is also the lifeblood of the UKUSA alliance.
The Problem
The ECHELON system is the product of the Cold War conflict, an extended battle replete with heightened tensions that teetered on the brink of annihilation and the diminished hostilities of détente and glasnost. Vicious cycles of mistrust and paranoia between the United States and the Soviet Empire fed the intelligence agencies to the point that, with the fall of communism throughout Eastern Europe, the intelligence establishment began to grasp for a mission that justified its bloated existence.
But the rise of post-modern warfare - terrorism - gave the establishment all the justification it needed to develop even greater ability to spy on our enemies, our allies and our own citizens. ECHELON is the result of those efforts. The satellites that fly thousands of miles overhead and yet can spy out the most minute details on the ground; the secret submarines that troll the ocean floors that are able to tap into undersea communications cables;<31> and all power the efficient UKUSA signals intelligence machine.
There is a concerted effort by the heads of intelligence agencies, federal law enforcement officials and congressional representatives to defend the capabilities of ECHELON. Their persuasive arguments point to the tragedies seen in the bombings in Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center in New York City.
The vulnerability of Americans abroad, as recently seen in the bombing of the American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, emphasizes the necessity of monitoring those forces around the world that would use senseless violence and terror as political weapons against the US and its allies.
Intelligence victories add credibility to the arguments that defend such a pervasive surveillance system. The discovery of missile sites in Cuba in 1962, the capture of the Achille Lauro terrorists in 1995, the discovery of Libyan involvement in the bombing of a Berlin discotheque that killed one American (resulting in the 1996 bombing of Tripoli) and countless other incidents that have been averted (which are now covered by the silence of indoctrination vows and top-secret classifications) all point to the need for comprehensive signals intelligence gathering for the national security of the United States.
But despite the real threats and dangers to the peace and protection of American citizens at home and abroad, our Constitution is quite explicit in limiting the scope and powers of government. A fundamental foundation of free societies is that when controversies arise over the assumption of power by the state, power never defaults to the government, nor are powers granted without an extraordinary, explicit and compelling public interest.
As the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan pointed out:
The concept of military necessity is seductively broad, and has a dangerous plasticity. Because they invariably have the visage of overriding importance, there is always a temptation to invoke security "necessities" to justify an encroachment upon civil liberties. For that reason, the military-security argument must be approached with a healthy skepticism: Its very gravity counsels that courts be cautious when military necessity is invoked by the Government to justify a trespass on [Constitutional] rights.<32>
Despite the necessity of confronting terrorism and the many benefits that are provided by the massive surveillance efforts embodied by ECHELON, there is a dark and dangerous side of these activities that is concealed by the cloak of secrecy surrounding the intelligence operations of the United States.
The discovery of domestic surveillance targeting American civilians for reasons of "unpopular" political affiliation - or for no probable cause at all - in violation of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution is regularly impeded by very elaborate and complex legal arguments and privilege claims by the intelligence agencies and the US government.
The guardians and caretakers of our liberties - our duly elected political representatives - give scarce attention to the activities, let alone the abuses, that occur under their watch. As pointed out below, our elected officials frequently become targets of ECHELON themselves, chilling any effort to check this unbridled power.
In addition, the shift in priorities resulting from the demise of the Soviet Empire and the necessity to justify intelligence capabilities resulted in a redefinition of "national security interests" to include espionage committed on behalf of powerful American companies.
This quiet collusion between political and private interests typically involves the very same companies that are involved in developing the technology that empowers ECHELON and the intelligence agencies.
Domestic and Political Spying
When considering the use of ECHELON on American soil, the pathetic historical record of NSA and CIA domestic activities in regards to the Constitutional liberties and privacy rights of American citizens provides an excellent guidepost for what may occur now with the ECHELON system.
Since the creation of the NSA by President Truman, its spying capability has frequently been used to monitor the activities of an unsuspecting public.
Project SHAMROCK
In 1945 Project SHAMROCK was initiated to obtain copies of all telegraphic information exiting or entering the United States. With the full cooperation of RCA, ITT and Western Union (representing almost all of the telegraphic traffic in the US at the time), the NSA's predecessor and later the NSA itself were provided with daily microfilm copies of all incoming, outgoing and transiting telegraphs.
This system changed dramatically when the cable companies began providing magnetic computer tapes to the agency that enabled the agency to run all the messages through its HARVEST computer to look for particular keywords, locations, senders or addressees.
Project SHAMROCK became so successful that the in 1966 NSA and CIA set up a front company in lower Manhattan (where the offices of the telegraph companies were located) under the codename LPMEDLEY. At the height of Project SHAMROCK, 150,000 messages a month were printed and analyzed by NSA agents.<33>
NSA Director Lew Allen brought Project SHAMROCK to a crashing halt in May 1975 as congressional critics began to rip open the program's shroud of secrecy.
The testimony of both the representatives from the cable companies and of Director Allen at the hearings prompted Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Frank Church to conclude that Project SHAMROCK was "probably the largest government interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken."<34>
Project MINARET
A sister project to Project SHAMROCK, Project MINARET involved the creation of "watch lists" by each of the intelligence agencies and the FBI of those accused of "subversive" domestic activities. The watch lists included such notables as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Jane Fonda, Joan Baez and Dr. Benjamin Spock.
After the Supreme Court handed down its 1972 Keith decision,<35> which held that -- while the President could act to protect the country from unlawful and subversive activity designed to overthrow the government -- that same power did not extend to include warrantless electronic surveillance of domestic organizations, pressure came to bear on Project MINARET.<36>
Attorney General Elliot Petersen shut down Project MINARET as soon as its activities were revealed to the Justice Department, despite the fact that the FBI (an agency under the Justice Department's authority) was actively involved with the NSA and other intelligence agencies in creating the watch lists.
Operating between 1967 and 1973, over 5,925 foreigners and 1,690 organizations and US citizens were included on the Project MINARET watch lists. Despite extensive efforts to conceal the NSA's involvement in Project MINARET, NSA Director Lew Allen testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1975 that the NSA had issued over 3,900 reports on the watch-listed Americans.<37> Additionally, the NSA Office of Security Services maintained reports on at least 75,000 Americans between 1952 and 1974.
This list included the names of anyone that was mentioned in a NSA message intercept.
Operation CHAOS
While the NSA was busy snooping on US citizens through Projects SHAMROCK and MINARET, the CIA got into the domestic spying act by initiating Operation CHAOS.
President Lyndon Johnson authorized the creation of the CIA's Domestic Operations Division (DOD), whose purpose was to,
"exercise centralized responsibility for direction, support, and coordination of clandestine operations activities within the United States...."
When Johnson ordered CIA Director John McCone to use the DOD to analyze the growing college student protests of the Administration's policy towards Vietnam, two new units were set up to target anti-war protestors and organizations: Project RESISTANCE, which worked with college administrators, campus security and local police to identify anti-war activists and political dissidents; and Project MERRIMAC, which monitored any demonstrations being conducted in the Washington D.C. area.
The CIA then began monitoring student activists and infiltrating anti-war organizations by working with local police departments to pull off burglaries, illegal entries (black bag jobs), interrogations and electronic surveillance.<38>
After President Nixon came to office in 1969, all of these domestic surveillance activities were consolidated into Operation CHAOS. After the revelation of two former CIA agents' involvement in the Watergate break-in, the publication of an article about CHAOS in the New York Times<39> and the growing concern about distancing itself from illegal domestic spying activities, the CIA shut down Operation CHAOS.
But during the life of the project, the Church Committee and the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States (the Rockefeller Commission) revealed that the CIA had compiled files on over 13,000 individuals, including 7,000 US citizens and 1,000 domestic organizations.<40>
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)
In response to the discovery of such a comprehensive effort by previous administrations and the intelligence agencies, Congress passed legislation (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978)<41> that created a top-secret court to hear applications for electronic surveillance from the FBI and NSA to provide some check on the domestic activities of the agencies. In 1995, Congress granted the court additional power to authorize surreptitious entries. In all of these actions, Congressional intent was to provide a check on the domestic surveillance abuses mentioned above.
The seven-member court, comprised of federal District Court judges appointed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice, sits in secret in a sealed room on the top floor of the Department of Justice building. Public information about the court's hearings is scarce; each year the Attorney General is required by law to transmit to Congress a report detailing the number of applications each year and the number granted. With over 10,000 applications submitted to the FISC during the past twenty years, the court has only rejected one application (and that rejection was at the request of the Reagan Administration, which had submitted the application).
While the FISC. This has allowed the FBI to use the process to conduct surveillance to obtain evidence in circumvention of the US Constitution, and the evidence is then used in subsequent criminal trials.
But the process established by Congress and the courts ensures that information regarding em>FISC was established to be the watchdog for the Constitutional rights of the American people against domestic surveillance, it quickly became the lap dog of the intelligence agencies. Surveillance requests that woulthe cause or extent of the surveillance order is withheld from defense attorneys because of the classified nature of the court.<42>
Despite Congress's initial intent for the FISC, it is doubtful that domestic surveillance by means of ECHELON comes under any scrutiny by the court.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar