The National Security Agency has its ear to the world, but doesn't listen to everyone at once.
That was one conclusion of a new report, Interception Capabilities 2000, accepted late last week by the European Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA).
The panel commissioned Duncan Campbell, a British investigative reporter, to prepare a report on Echelon, the US-led satellite surveillance network.
"I have no objection to these systems monitoring serious criminals and terrorists," said Glyn Ford, a British Labour Party member of parliament and a committee member of STOA. "But what is missing here is accountability, clear guidelines as to who they can listen to, and in what circumstances these laws apply."
Campbell was asked to investigate the system in the wake of charges made last year in the European Parliament that Echelon was being used to funnel European government and industry secrets into US hands.
"What is new and important about this report is that it contains the first ever documentary evidence of the Echelon system," said Campbell. Campbell obtained the document from a source at Menwith Hill, the principal NSA communications monitoring station, located near Harrogate in northern England.
The report details how intelligence agencies intercept Internet traffic and digital communications, and includes screen shots of traffic analysis from NSA computer systems.
Interception Capabilities 2000 also provides an account of a previously unknown, secret international organization led by the FBI. According to Campbell, the "secret" organization, called ILETS (International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar), is working on building backdoor wiretap capabilities into all forms of modern communications, including satellite communications systems.
"[The report] is undoubtedly the most comprehensive look at Echelon to date because of its attention to detail -- [and] the NSA's use of technology," said John Young, a privacy activist in New York.
Although the United States has never officially acknowledged Echelon's existence, dozens of investigative reports over the past decade have revealed a maze-like system that can intercept telephone, data, cellular, fax, and email transmissions sent anywhere in the world.
Previously, Echelon computers were thought to be able to scan millions of telephone lines and faxes for keywords such as "bomb" and "terrorist." But Campbell's report maintains that the technologies to perform such a global dragnet do not exist.
Instead, Campbell said that the system targets the communications networks of known diplomats, criminals, and industrialists of interest to the intelligence community.
