Echelon in the Asia-Pacific: A Guided Tour

1
Echelon in the Asia-Pacific A Guided Tour

• Nicky Hager
• 8 September 2003
• (with thanks to Duncan Campbell)

2
Surveillance is surrounded with a sense of
unreality
3
My research began here, at a radio interception
station north of Wellington, New Zealand
4
The US liaison officer directed a very secret
late 1980s expansion
5
(No Transcript)
6
ECHELON network

• US National Security Agency (NSA)
• Britain GCHQ
• Canada Communications Security Establishment
  (CSE)
• Australia Defence Signals Directorate (DSD)
• New Zealand GCSB

7
Signals intelligence or SIGINT

• High-tech eavesdropping on communications and
  other signals (eg radar)
• The main form of international surveillance in
  the age of electronic communications
• The largest, most expensive and most secret
  intelligence agencies in many countries are the
  signals intelligence agencies.

8
New Zealand Echelon station
9
ECHELON system Industrial-scale spying

• Targets whole sections of the worlds
  telecommunications networks, not individuals
• Targets ordinary, civilian communications, not
  military ones as in the Cold War era
• Processes millions of communications e-mails,
  phone calls etc in real time searching for
  keywords and voice signatures.
• Cannot currently automatically search telephone
  (voice communications) for keywords

10
Intelsat satellites far above the equator relay
communications
11
Intelsat ground terminal at Etam, West Virginia
12
Echelon ground terminal nearby at Sugar Grove,
West Virginia
13
Legitimate vs covert receivers
14
New Zealands Waihopai station code-name
Flintlock
15
Each dish antenna automatically follows its
target satellite
16
Intelsat 701 coverage
17
Waihopai - the security is often cosmetic
18
A look inside an Echelon station
19
Main operations room with rows of demultiplexing
cabinets
20
Control terminals with window through to main
vault room
21
Fully automated, the station mostly runs itself
22
Intelsat manual on desk inside Echelon station
23
Staff I interviewed spoke of sister intercept
stations with which they worked . . .

• A station code-named COWBOY in the north-west
  United States.
• A station code-named GERANIUM on Hong Kong
  island.
• A sister station being built at Geraldton in West
  Australia

24
COWBOY the NSA Yakima station in Washington
State, with dishes facing the Pacific skies
25
GERANIUM a British GCHQ station in Hong Kong
26
GERANIUMs functions shifted in 1995 to the
(previously anti-Soviet) NSA Misawa base, Japan
27
The Kojarena station in West Australia targets
Asian Intelsats
28
Between them, the allied Echelon stations cover
all transmissions
29
Shoal Bay DSD station targets Asian regional
satellites
30
DSD headquarters in Canberra revelations of
controversial ops
31
New information from US Freedom of Information
Act 1999
32
(No Transcript)
33
Discovery of new Echelon sites
34
(No Transcript)
35
NSA HQ, Washington DC centre of the Echelon
system
36
Countries with regional communications
interception capabilities

• Russian, Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore,
  India and Pakistan
• India, for instance, has a large Echelon-style
  station at Jalna, north-east of Bombay
• Japan, South Korea and China host US signals
  intelligence stations
• Only the Echelon network has global reach

37
Other Echelon-style interception operations are
not so well documented

• Microwave networks across continents
• Space-based interception
• Ship-based interception
• Aircraft-based interception
• Submarine cables
• Special collection from embassy buildings

38
Microwave interception in Britain
39
Irish international communications

• Capenhurst sigint station

40
Spanish microwave interception incl. targeting
Basque region
41
Microwave is also vulnerable from space
42
Space-based interception
43
US sigint satellite ground station at Pine Gap,
central Australia
44
Menwith Hill station (NSA)
45
Many warships are floating sigint stations with
special secure areas
46
Submarine cable interception
47
(No Transcript)
48
Early cable tapping Ivy Bells
49
Tapping pod
50
USS Jimmy Carter cable tapping
51
Fibre-optic cable tapping
52
Special collection (embassy-based eavesdropping
operations)
53
(No Transcript)
54
European Parliament inquiry

• Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception
  System 2000 - 2001

55
The Echelon Committee urged EU countries to . . .

• Acknowledge the existence of Echelon system
• Inform their citizens about the threats to
  privacy
• Establish Europe-wide advisory agencies to
  provide practical assistance in protection
  against surveillance, including promoting
  encryption technology and development of
  open-source encryption software.
• Systematically encrypt their government e-mails
  so that ultimately encryption becomes the norm.

56
(No Transcript)
57
(No Transcript)
58
International Working Group on Data Protection
in Telecommunications

• March 2002 Working Paper on Telecommunications
  Surveillance http//www.datenschutz-berlin.de/doc
  /int/iwgdpt/wptel_en.htm

59
Nicky Hagernicky_at_paradise.net.nz