ECHELON Spies On The World:
Britain Drops Charge Against GCHQ Whistleblower
by Murray Horton
Peace Researcher 29 – June 2004
Just
when the build up to the 2003 US invasion and colonisation of Iraq was at its most
frenzied, in the middle of the whole showdown between the Americans and the
United Nations, came the revelation that American Intelligence was spying on
the UN. The British newspaper, the Observer,
published a leaked memo from Frank Koza, the head of the Regional Targets
section of the US National Security Agency (NSA), the biggest US spy agency.
The NSA is the major partner in the top secret UKUSA Agreement, which brings
together the electronic intelligence gathering agencies of the US, UK, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand (the Government Communications Security Bureau in our case).
Their most notorious project is codenamed Echelon, which trawls billions of
intercepted electronic communications for keywords (dictated by the Americans).
Koza’s
memo, dated January 31, 2003, “requested a ‘surge’ of surveillance activity
against the diplomatic communications of UN Security Council (UNSC) members,
such as Angola, Cameroon and Guinea. It also requested ‘attention to non-UNSC
members’, specifically all “UN-related and domestic communications’ containing
anything relating to the Security Council” (Listener,
22/3/03, “Spies Like Us”, Nicky Hager). Nobody doubts that the US routinely
spies on its allies and friends, but it is unusual to have it confirmed in writing.
“Leading international law expert, Professor John Quigley, of Ohio University
said that, while the bugging of foreign diplomats at the UN was permissible
under the US Foreign Intelligence Services Act, it breached the Vienna
Convention on Diplomatic Relations” (Observer,
published in the Press, 15/3/03, “US
Administration embarrassed by UN spying revelations”). At the same time,
electronic bugging devices were found in offices used by several countries,
including France and Germany (which staunchly opposed the US/UK-led invasion of
Iraq), in a Brussels building about to be used for a European Union summit
meeting.
The
revelation that the US was spying on these “swing voters” in the Security
Council had very serious repercussions for its attempt to bludgeon the UN into
providing a facade of international respectability for its illegal invasion.
The Chilean public still holds US Intelligence responsible for the 1973-90
Pinochet dictatorship (the murderous 1973 coup that brought him and the
military to power took place on September 11!). “In the days that followed the
disclosure, the Chilean delegation in New York distanced itself from the draft
second resolution (to give UN approval
for the invasion. Ed.), scuppering plans to go down the UN route” (Observer, published in the Press, 21/1/04, “Stars hail Iraq war
whistleblower”).
There
was a court sequel to the leaking of the NSA memo. The whistleblower was
Katharine Gun, an unassuming 29 year-old translator with the Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s electronic spying agency. Her job
was to translate Chinese into English and she was part of a team spying on the
Chinese delegation to the Security Council. It’s not clear how she came to be
in possession of the incriminating NSA memo, which could be very aptly
described as a smoking gun.
“…When the Prime
Minister first mooted the possibility of war, Ms Gun's reaction, and that of
many of her friends, was one of incredulity. ‘I felt at the time, when the
Government started mentioning Iraq, ‘you have to be joking’, and then suddenly
it snowballed into something everyone was agreeing with’, she said. But the
inexorable slide to war continued. It was in this atmosphere of recriminations
and accusations that Ms Gun found herself with information that she felt was so
worrying it must be made public…
“Ms
Gun recalled: ‘I was pretty horrified (by
the NSA memo. Ed.). I felt the British Intelligence services were being
asked to do something that would undermine the whole UN democratic process
itself’. After days of soul searching she told a friend what she had
discovered. She, in turn, passed it on to a freelance journalist, who
approached The Observer with the
information. …’When I originally leaked it I had no idea if anybody would be
interested in it. Personally, I felt very strongly about it and I hoped the
press would get their teeth into it. I was hoping to pour some cold water on
people's heated debate about the war. I wanted people to stop and have a
logical and dispassionate discussion about why we were going to war and what it
would mean. I am just baffled that in the 21st Century we as human
beings are still dropping bombs on each other as a means of resolving issues’
she said.
“Ms
Gun had been unprepared for the furore which followed. As a hunt started for
the source, she decided to confess. ‘I am a pretty emotional person and I felt
I just couldn't go on working there after what I had done. I went to my line
manager. I trusted her and respected her. She put her arm around me and I cried
on her shoulder. She was great about it’" (Independent, 26/2/04; “How a GCHQ translator uncovered an American
dirty tricks campaign”, Kim Sengupta).
The old
proverbial hit the fan, in March 2003. Gun was fired (I couldn’t resist the pun. Ed.) arrested and charged under the
Official Secrets Act (Britain has no Official Information Act or any law to
protect whistleblowers acting in the public interest). She was released on bail
but, if convicted, she faced up to two years in prison.
“…She
hoped that her actions would help save lives. She thought at the time that if
the Security Council did not vote in favor of an invasion, the United States
and Britain might not launch the war. In a statement last November (2003) she
said she felt that leaking the memo was ‘necessary to prevent an illegal war in
which thousands of Iraqi civilians and British soldiers would be killed or
maimed. I have only ever followed my conscience’" (New York Times, 19/1/04, “A Single Conscience V. the State”, Bob
Herbert, Op-Ed Columnist). The courts allowed her to plead an unusual “defence
of necessity”. She accused the US Government of seeking to subvert British
Intelligence services.
Her
pending case became very high profile in the charged atmosphere following the
highly controversial invasion and occupation of Iraq. She attracted celebrity
supporters, ranging from Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the seminal Pentagon
papers during the Vietnam War) to several Hollywood stars and American
politicians. A statement of support read: “We honour Katharine Gun as a
whistleblower who bravely risked her career and her very liberty to inform the
public about illegal spying in support of a war based on deception. In a
democracy she should not be made a scapegoat for exposing the transgressions of
others” (Observer, published in the Press, 21/1/04, “Stars hail Iraq war
whistleblower”).
The
case was due to be heard in February 2004. “…The crux of the defence was that Ms
Gun had taken the action because, she felt, the British government had acted
illegally, both in taking part in the war without UN backing, and being
involved in a plot to bug UN delegates. Ms Gun's legal team demanded disclosure
of Government documents pertaining to the legality of the war. On Tuesday, they
made a request for a full account of the advice Lord Goldsmith (the Attorney
General) had given about the legal justification for war - something ministers
had repeatedly refused to do.
“James
Welch, the Liberty solicitor acting for Ms Gun, said: ‘Our case was that any
advice the Government received on the legality of war was relevant to
Katharine's case and we were prepared to go before a judge and argue for it to
be disclosed. We served the document at lunchtime and just before 5pm yesterday
I received a phone call saying it was the intention to drop the case’. It took
just 18 minutes at Court 7 of the Old Bailey yesterday for the proceedings to
be formally ended after Mark Ellison, acting for the Crown, said no evidence
would be offered by the prosecution.
“Ms
Gun, who had pleaded not guilty, shook slightly after being discharged. ‘I feel
I have acted with decency and honesty throughout this whole affair and I have
absolutely no regrets about what I have done. I know it's very difficult and
people don't want to jeopardise their careers, or lives, but if there are
things out there that should really come out, hey, why not’ she said after
leaving court” (Independent, 26/2/04;
“How a GCHQ translator uncovered an American dirty tricks campaign”, Kim
Sengupta).
More
Spying On The UN
This was a very
public humiliation for the Blair government. Everything to do with the Iraq War
has turned into millstone around its neck. It can’t even count on the support
of its own spies. What’s worse, the dropping of the charge against Gun
coincided exactly with further revelations, from within its own ranks, that
American and British Intelligence routinely spy upon the UN, including the
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. This time the whistleblower was Clare Short, a
former Labour Cabinet Minister who had resigned in protest at Britain’s
invasion of Iraq (she remains a Labour MP). She said that, during the build up
to the war, when the US and Britain were pressuring the UN to approve the
invasion, Annan’s office and phones were bugged and that, as a minister, she
had read transcripts of his conversations. Unsurprisingly, Annan demanded that
the British stop spying on him, and a furious Tony Blair refused to confirm or
deny Short’s claims. The pro-war British press gave her short shrift (I couldn’t resist that pun either, I’m
afraid. Ed.), but nobody denied it. Some commentators shrugged off such
spying as routine. Spain’s UN Ambassador said: “If your mission is not bugged,
then you’re really worth nothing” (Press,
12/3/04, “Blair’s Gun affair”, Colin Espiner).
Unlike Gun, Short was not charged under the Official Secrets Act (or any
other Act).
“…The telephones
of former UN chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Richard Butler were also
tapped while on missions abroad… Speaking on Australia Broadcasting Corporation
(ABC) radio, Mr Butler said he was ‘well aware’ that his phone calls were being
monitored during his time as chief weapons inspector. Mr Butler told ABC: ‘Of
course I was bugged. I was well aware of it. How did I know? Because those who
did it would come to me and show me the recordings that they had made on others
to help me do my job disarming Iraq’…
“Mr Butler told
ABC radio that he was forced to hold confidential talks with contacts on walks
in New York's Central Park because of the phone tapping in his office at the UN
headquarters while he was investigating Iraq's weapons programme. Mr Butler,
who was chief weapons inspector in Iraq from 1997 to 1999, claimed at least
four permanent members of the UN Security Council monitored his calls. He said
that while he was weapons inspector he learned from unnamed sources that his
office was bugged. He said: ‘I was being listened to by the Americans, British,
the French and the Russians and they also had people on my staff reporting what
I was trying to do privately’” (Guardian,
27/2/04, “Weapons inspectors’ phones ‘bugged’. Blix, Butler ‘bugged’: Australia
Broadcasting Corporation”).
New
Zealand
New Zealand hasn’t
got clean hands in this grubby affair, either. “…ABC investigative reporter
Andrew Fowler also claimed that sources had told him that Australia's Office of
National Assessments had read transcripts of telephone conversations involving
Mr Blix, Mr Butler's successor in the role during the Iraq crisis last year,
while he was in Iraq. Fowler said: ‘That's what I'm told, specifically each
time he [Blix] entered Iraq his phone was targeted and recorded and the
transcripts were then made available to the United States, Australia, Canada,
the UK and also New Zealand’ (emphasis added. Ed.) It was reported
that he was bugged whenever he was in Iraq and the information shared between
the United States, Britain and their allies…” (ibid). That’s the good old UKUSA
Agreement in action, folks.
Green
MP, Keith Locke, demanded confirmation from Prime Minister Helen Clark whether
New Zealand knew about this spying operation against the UN. But Clark gave her
standard reply that she doesn’t comment on security matters. “…New Zealanders
are owed an explanation. Was our stand against the Iraq war being compromised
by involvement with US and British spying on Dr Blix? Was the Waihopai
satellite communications interception station, which is part of the US-run
Echelon system, involved in this spying? It could have been if Dr Blix’s phone
calls from Iraq passed through either of the two Pacific communications
satellites that the Waihopai dishes are pointed at. The US would only need to
put Dr Blix’s likely phone numbers into the Echelon system for the content of
his conversations to be automatically forwarded from Waihopai to the US
National Security Agency.
“New
Zealand also helps US espionage through its regular hosting of American
military supply flights through Harewood in Christchurch to the US spy base at
Pine Gap in central Australia. Yesterday the
Sydney Morning Herald reported an intelligence source had said ‘the bugging
was almost certainly undertaken - at least in part - by spy satellites linked
with the Pine Gap relay station outside Alice Springs’. We need to know if New
Zealand is so enmeshed in an intelligence arrangement with America that we are
helping it spy on the United Nations. Surely such a situation is inconsistent
with our support for the UN and multilateralism in the face of attacks from the
Bush administration?” (Keith Locke press release, 29/2/04; “Clark must answer
questions on NZ role in spying on UN”).
This
flurry of revelations led the international media to once again have a look at
Echelon. A very interesting article about Canada’s role in it appeared in the Toronto Star (7/3/04, “Canada listens to
world as partner in spy system”, Lynda Hurst). It went over the usual ground
concerning the five partners of the UKUSA Agreement (saying that it was
“referred to in some circles as the ’Anglo-Saxon Mafia’”) but added some new
details: “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...“. But it shed most light on
Canada’s role in Echelon, detailing its spybases. “Canadian Forces Station
Alert, on Ellesmere Island in present-day Nunavut, is still an important ground
station in the Canada's network of ‘sigint’ (signals intelligence) 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; CFS Masset off the coast of British Columbia, and Canadian Forces Base
Gander, Newfoundland, both of which primarily tap into maritime transmissions…”
.
The
Canadian electronic spy agency is the Communications Security Establishment
(CSE). “…After the Anti-Terrorist Act was passed in 2001, the agency's budget was
boosted to about $C300 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.
More computer power was added to headquarters and its’ other properties in
Ottawa, and extra antennas were installed at some of the listening stations.
Leitrim now has six...”. PR readers
already have some insight into the Echelon workings of the CSE in the service
of the American Big Brother because, in 2001, the Anti-Bases Campaign toured
former CSE agent, Mike Frost, through New Zealand. What he had to say about his
work during 34 years as a spy was fascinating in the extreme.
It’s
Cool To Be A Spy Again
It is sobering to
realise that British Intelligence didn’t do too badly out of the embarrassing
Gun case, reporting that about 3,000 people had applied to join MI5 (British
internal security and intelligence) “in the wake of the publicity, a recent
recruitment drive, and the screening of the television programme, '‘Spooks’.
Apparently it’s cool to be a spy again, after much of the gloss was taken off
at the end of the Cold War. It certainly isn’t the money that is attracting
applicants, with starting salaries as low as 20,000 pounds. Intelligence chiefs
credit the rush to a ‘wave of patriotism’ that has swept the nation. ‘They seem
genuinely to want to do something to help this country, instead of going for a
job with a much higher salary. They’re doing it out of idealism’, one senior
MI5 official has been quoted as saying. Either that, or the British public
believes that, going on recent events, doing a better job than the current
bunch of spooks wouldn’t be terribly difficult” (Press, 12/3/04, “Blair’s Gun affair”, Colin Espiner). But,
hopefully, the new intake will include yet more whistleblowers. To finish with
one final pun, Britain and the world definitely need some more young Guns.
Menwith
Hill Campaign
Fortunately we
don’t have to rely on the occasional British spy with a conscience (and there
have been a few of them). There is a very active campaign in Britain to
directly confront the multiplicity of spybases that blot the English landscape.
Nowhere more so than at the huge NSA base at Menwith Hill, North Yorkshire. This
is nominally a British base, but is, in fact, one of the very biggest American
spybases anywhere in the world. Not only do its numerous “golfball” domes
undertake electronic spying tasks, it is being turned into a key part of the
proposed Missile Defense System (the current version of the Star Wars project
that has obsessed the US military and politicians for more than two decades).
All sorts of
groups have a go at Menwith Hill on a regular basis. These range from
non-violent direction blockades by hundreds of people, as happened in March
2004, when dozens were arrested, to clandestine actions by a group calling
themselves Women with Bolt Croppers who got into the base in December 2002 and
caused several thousand pounds of damage by sabotaging equipment. Far and away
the most persistent campaigners are the Campaign for the Accountability of
American Bases (CAAB), in the persons of Lindis Percy and Anni Rainbow. They
give a whole new meaning to the word pigheaded. Lindis has been arrested
literally hundreds of times (mainly at Menwith Hill but also at other US bases
in Britain), and has fought umpteen courts cases, some of which she has
initiated. They are just absolutely unstoppable. Lindis’ most memorable recent
moment came when President Bush visited London, in October 2003, and stayed at
Buckingham Palace. There was a huge security operation in place – she simply
travelled to London, donned the fluorescent vest of a humble road worker,
strolled straight through the security cordon and scaled the front gate of the
Palace with her message for Bush and Blair. The extremely embarrassed cops had
to ask her nicely to come down so that she could be arrested (again).
You can contact them at: CAMPAIGN FOR THE ACCOUNTABILITY OF AMERICAN BASES (CAAB) 8 Park Row, Otley, West Yorkshire, LS21 1HQ, UK. Tel/fax no: +44 (0)1943 466405 0R +44 (0)1482 702033 email: anniandlindis@caab.org.uk or caab@btclick.com Website: http://www.caab.org.uk
Peace Researcher 29 – June 2004
Mordechai Vanunu was the technician in Israel’s top secret Dimona nuclear plant who, in the 1980s, blew the whistle on that country’s steadily growing arsenal of nuclear weapons. He took his story and photos to a British paper and rapidly became a target of Israeli intelligence. He was kidnapped, smuggled back to Israel, charged with treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He remained totally defiant, serving 12 years in solitary confinement, and refusing any parole so as not to compromise his credibility or his right to speak out upon release. He served the full 18 years and had to be released, in April 2004. The Israeli government imposed further restrictions on him – for example, he is not allowed to travel (nor leave the town he lives in), have any contact with foreigners, or talk about his work at Dimona (even though he last worked there nearly 20 years ago). For his part he wanted to revoke his Israeli citizenship and immediately leave the country (he had already renounced Judaism and converted to Christianity, which won him even more enemies in his Zionist homeland). Israel refused him permission to do either, and obviously wants to keep him under indefinite house arrest. There is an eerie similarity to the treatment that used to be meted out to Jewish dissidents in the former Soviet Union.
Vanunu is completely unrepentant and came out fighting. Before he was even out of the prison gate, he cut loose. ”I’ve suffered a cruel and barbaric treatment from the Shabak. But I say to the Shabak, to Mossad (respectively, Israeli internal and external security and intelligence agencies. Ed.): you didn’t succeed in breaking me. You didn’t succeed in making me crazy. I’m a symbol of the will of freedom. You can’t break the human spirit. To all those who are calling me traitor, I am saying I am proud, I am proud and happy to do what I did. Prepare to hear more from Vanunu Mordechai, defiant as ever… Israel doesn’t need nuclear arms, especially now that the Middle East is free of nuclear weapons. My message today to all the world is to open Dimona reactor to inspections” (Times, published in the Press, 23/4/04, “Vanunu free to shout defiance”, Ian MacKinnon).
That’s the last thing that Israel and the US are likely to do. American support for Israeli supremacy in the region has been a key feature behind all the war and suffering throughout the Middle East since Israel was created, more than 50 years ago. And nuclear weapons are seen as the ultimate guarantee of that continued supremacy. So don’t expect to see any US President demanding that weapons inspectors be unleashed on Israel anytime soon.
Which
is why someone like Vanunu is so vital. He paid a terrible price, and his
suffering is not yet over, but he performed an invaluable service in exposing
the secret arsenal held by one of the biggest threats to world peace. He was
the subject of a massive international campaign (including in New Zealand)
throughout the entire 18-year duration of his sentence, which focused attention
on the only nuclear power in the Middle East as never before. The world owes
Mordechai Vanunu an enormous vote of thanks. We need more whistleblowers like
him and Katharine Gun.
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