ECHELON - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement

UK–USA Security Agreement

The United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement is a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence among the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It was first signed in March 1946 by the United Kingdom and the United States and later...

(Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, known as AUSCANNZUKUS
AUSCANNZUKUS
AUSCANNZUKUS is a naval C4 interoperability organization involving the nations of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States...

or Five Eyes). It has also been described as the only software system which controls the download and dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communications.

ECHELON was reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

and its Eastern Bloc

Eastern bloc

The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...

allies during the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

in the early 1960s, but since the end of the Cold War it is believed to search also for hunts of terrorist plots, drug dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence

Intelligence (information gathering)

Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...

.

The system has been reported in a number of public sources. Its capabilities and political implications were investigated by a committee of the European Parliament

European Parliament

The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...

during 2000 and 2001 with a report published in 2001, and by author James Bamford

James Bamford

V. James Bamford is an American bestselling author and journalist who writes about United States intelligence agencies, most notably the National Security Agency.-Biography:...

in his books on the National Security Agency

National Security Agency

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...

of the United States.

In its report, the European Parliament stated that the term ECHELON is used in a number of contexts, but that the evidence presented indicates that it was the name for a signals intelligence collection system. The report concludes that, on the basis of information presented, ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone network

Public switched telephone network

The public switched telephone network is the network of the world's public circuit-switched telephone networks. It consists of telephone lines, fiber optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables, all inter-connected by...

s (which once carried most Internet traffic) and microwave links.

Bamford describes the system as the software controlling the collection and distribution of civilian telecommunications traffic conveyed using communication satellites, with the collection being undertaken by ground stations located in the footprint of the downlink leg.

Organization

The UKUSA intelligence community was assessed by the European Parliament in 2000 to include the signals intelligence agencies of each of the member states - the National Security Agency

National Security Agency

of the United States, the Government Communications Headquarters

Government Communications Headquarters

The Government Communications Headquarters is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces...

of Britain, the Communications Security Establishment

Communications Security Establishment

The Communications Security Establishment Canada is the Canadian government's national cryptologic agency. Administered under the Department of National Defence , it is charged with the duty of keeping track of foreign signals intelligence , and protecting Canadian government electronic...

of Canada, the Defence Signals Directorate

Defence Signals Directorate

Defence Signals Directorate is an Australian government intelligence agency responsible for signals intelligence and information security .-Overview:According to its website, DSD has two principal functions:...

of Australia, and the Government Communications Security Bureau

Government Communications Security Bureau

The Government Communications Security Bureau is an intelligence agency of the New Zealand government.The mission statement is given as:To contribute to the national security of New Zealand through:...

of New Zealand. The EP report concluded that it seemed likely that ECHELON is a method of sorting captured signal traffic, rather than a comprehensive analysis tool.

Capabilities

The ability to intercept communications depends on the medium used, be it radio, satellite, microwave

Microwave

Microwaves, a subset of radio waves, have wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF and EHF , and various sources use different boundaries...

, cellular or fiber-optic

Optical fiber

An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...

. During World War II and through the 1950s, high frequency

High frequency

High frequency radio frequencies are between 3 and 30 MHz. Also known as the decameter band or decameter wave as the wavelengths range from one to ten decameters . Frequencies immediately below HF are denoted Medium-frequency , and the next higher frequencies are known as Very high frequency...

("short wave") radio was widely used for military and diplomatic communication, and could be intercepted at great distances. The rise of geostationary communications satellites in the 1960s presented new possibilities for intercepting international communications. The report to the European Parliament of 2001 states: "If UKUSA states operate listening stations in the relevant regions of the earth, in principle they can intercept all telephone, fax and data traffic transmitted via such satellites."

The role of satellites in point-to-point voice and data communications has largely been supplanted by fiber optics. , 99% of the world's long-distance voice and data traffic was carried over optical-fiber. The proportion of international communications accounted for by satellite links is said to have decreased substantially over the past few years in Central Europe to an amount between 0.4 and 5%. Even in less-developed parts of the world, communications satellites are used largely for point-to-multipoint applications, such as video. Thus the majority of communications cannot be intercepted by earth stations, but only by tapping cables and intercepting line-of-sight microwave signals, which is possible only to a limited extent.

One method of interception is to place equipment at locations where fiber optic communications are switched. For the Internet much of the switching occurs at relatively few sites. There have been reports of one such intercept site, Room 641A

Room 641A

Room 641A is an intercept facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency, beginning in 2003. Room 641A is located in the SBC Communications building at 611 Folsom Street, San Francisco, three floors of which were occupied by AT&T before SBC purchased AT&T...

, in the United States. In the past much Internet traffic was routed through the U.S. and the UK, but this has changed; for example 95% of intra-German Internet communications was routed via the DE-CIX

DE-CIX

Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange is an Internet Exchange Point situated in Frankfurt ....

Internet exchange point

Internet Exchange Point

An Internet exchange point is a physical infrastructure through which Internet service providers exchange Internet traffic between their networks . IXPs reduce the portion of an ISP's traffic which must be delivered via their upstream transit providers, thereby reducing the average per-bit...

in Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

in 2000. A comprehensive worldwide surveillance network is possible only if clandestine intercept sites are installed in the territory of friendly nations, or local authorities cooperate. The report to the European Parliament points out that interception of private communications by foreign intelligence services is not necessarily limited to the U.S. or British foreign intelligence services.

Most reports on ECHELON focus on satellite interception; testimony before the European Parliament indicated that separate but similar UK-US systems are in place to monitor communication through undersea cables, microwave transmissions and other lines.

Controversy

Intelligence monitoring of people in the area covered by the AUSCANNZUKUS

AUSCANNZUKUS

AUSCANNZUKUS is a naval C4 interoperability organization involving the nations of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States...

security agreement has caused concern.
Some critics claim the system is being used not only to search for terrorist plots, drug dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence but also for large-scale commercial theft, international economic espionage and invasion of privacy

Privacy law

Privacy law refers to the laws which deal with the regulation of personal information about individuals which can be collected by governments and other public as well as private organizations and its storage and use....

. British journalist Duncan Campbell

Duncan Campbell (investigative journalist)

Duncan Campbell is a British freelance investigative journalist, author and television producer who, since 1975, has specialised in the subjects of intelligence and security services, defence, policing, civil liberties and, latterly, computer forensics. He was a staff writer at the New Statesman...

and New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager

Nicky Hager

Nicky Hager is an author and investigative journalist born in Levin, New Zealand and now resides in Wellington. He generally writes about issues involving intelligence networks, environmental issues and politics. He has degrees in physics and philosophy...

asserted in the 1990s that the United States was exploiting ECHELON traffic for industrial espionage, rather than military and diplomatic purposes. Examples alleged by the journalists include the gear-less wind turbine technology designed by the German firm Enercon

Enercon

Enercon GmbH, based in Aurich, Germany, is the fourth-largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world and has been the market leader in Germany since the mid-nineties. Enercon has production facilities in Germany , Sweden, Brazil, India, Canada, Turkey and Portugal...

and the speech technology developed by the Belgian firm Lernout & Hauspie

Lernout & Hauspie

Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, or L&H, was a leading Belgium-based speech recognition technology company, founded by Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, that went bankrupt in 2001...

. An article in the US newspaper Baltimore Sun reported in 1995 that European aerospace company Airbus

Airbus

Airbus SAS is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company. Based in Blagnac, France, surburb of Toulouse, and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners....

lost a $6 billion contract with Saudi Arabia in 1994 after the US National Security Agency

National Security Agency

reported that Airbus officials had been bribing Saudi officials to secure the contract.

In 2001 the Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System recommended to the European Parliament that citizens of member states routinely use cryptography

Cryptography

Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...

in their communications to protect their privacy, because economic espionage with ECHELON has been conducted by the US intelligence.

Bamford provides an alternate view, highlighting that legislation prohibits the use of intercepted communications for commercial purposes, although does elaborate on how intercepted communications are used as part of an all-source intelligence process.

Hardware

According to its website the US. National Security Agency is "a high technology organization ... on the frontiers of communications and data processing". In 1999 the Australian Senate

Australian Senate

The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...

Joint Standing Committee on Treaties was told by Professor Desmond Ball that the Pine Gap

Pine Gap

Pine Gap is the commonly used name for a satellite tracking station at, some south-west of the town of Alice Springs in the centre of Australia which is operated by both Australia and the United States. The facility has become a key part of the local economy.It consists of a large computer complex...

facility was used as a ground station for a satellite-based interception network. The satellites are said to be large radio dishes between 20 and 100 meters in diameter in geostationary orbit

Geostationary orbit

A geostationary orbit is a geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth's equator , with a period equal to the Earth's rotational period and an orbital eccentricity of approximately zero. An object in a geostationary orbit appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to ground observers...

s. The original purpose of the network was to monitor the telemetry

Telemetry

Telemetry is a technology that allows measurements to be made at a distance, usually via radio wave transmission and reception of the information. The word is derived from Greek roots: tele = remote, and metron = measure...

from 1970s Soviet weapons, air defense radar, communications satellites and ground based microwave communications

Microwave transmission

Microwave transmission refers to the technology of transmitting information or power by the use of radio waves whose wavelengths are conveniently measured in small numbers of centimeters; these are called microwaves. This part of the radio spectrum ranges across frequencies of roughly...

Name

The European Parliament's Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System stated: "It seems likely, in view of the evidence and the consistent pattern of statements from a very wide range of individuals and organisations, including American sources, that its name is in fact ECHELON, although this is a relatively minor detail." The U.S. intelligence community uses many code names (see, for example, CIA cryptonym

CIA cryptonym

CIA cryptonyms are code names or code words used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to reference projects, operations, persons, agencies, etc. The cryptonyms as described in this article were in use at least from the 1950s to the 1980s...

).

Margaret Newsham claims that she worked on the configuration and installation of some of the software that makes up the ECHELON system while employed at Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....

, for whom she worked from 1974 to 1984 in Sunnyvale, California, US and in Menwith Hill, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, UK. At that time, according to Newsham, the code name ECHELON was NSA's term for the computer network itself. Lockheed called it P415. The software programs were called SILKWORTH and SIRE. A satellite named VORTEX
Vortex (satellite)
Vortex, previously known as Chalet, is a class of spy satellite operated by the United States during the 1980s and 1990s to collect signals intelligence from high Earth orbit. The Vortex satellites were operated by the National Reconnaissance Office for the United States Air Force and listened to...

would intercept communications. An image available on the internet of a fragment apparently torn from a job description shows Echelon listed along with several other code names.

Ground stations

In 2001 the European Parliamentary (EP) report lists several ground stations as possibly belonging to or participating in the ECHELON network. These include:

Likely satellite intercept stations

The following stations are listed in the EP report (p. 54 ff) as likely to have a role in intercepting transmissions from telecommunications satellites:

Hong Kong (since closed)
Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station
Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station
The Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station is located at Kojarena, 30 km east of Geraldton, Western Australia. The ADSCS is part of the US signals intelligence and analysis network ECHELON...

(Geraldton, Western Australia
Geraldton, Western Australia
Geraldton is a city and port in Western Australia located north of Perth in the Mid West region. Geraldton has an estimated population at June 2010 of 36,958...

)
Menwith Hill (Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, UK) Map (reportedly the largest Echelon facility)
Misawa Air Base
Misawa Air Base
right|thumb|A US Navy C-2 at Misawa is a United States military facility located northeast of the railway station in Misawa, west of the Pacific Ocean, northeast of Towada, northwest of Hachinohe, and north of Tokyo, in Aomori Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region in the northern part of the...

(Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

)
GCHQ Bude, formerly known as GCHQ CSO Morwenstow, (Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, UK) Map
Pine Gap
Pine Gap
Pine Gap is the commonly used name for a satellite tracking station at, some south-west of the town of Alice Springs in the centre of Australia which is operated by both Australia and the United States. The facility has become a key part of the local economy.It consists of a large computer complex...

(Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

, Australia - close to Alice Springs) Map
Sugar Grove
Sugar Grove, West Virginia
Sugar Grove is an American government communications site located in Pendleton County, West Virginia operated by the National Security Agency. According to a in the New York Times, the site intercepts all international communications entering the Eastern United States.The site was first developed...

(West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

, US) Map
Yakima Training Center
Yakima Training Center
The Yakima Training Center is a United States Army training center located in south central Washington state. It is bounded on the west by Interstate 82, on the south by the city of Yakima, on the north by the city of Ellensburg and Interstate 90, and on the east by the Columbia River...

(Washington, US) Map
GCSB Waihopai
GCSB Waihopai
New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau operates what it describes as a satellite communications monitoring facility in the Waihopai Valley...

(New Zealand)
GCSB Tangimoana
GCSB Tangimoana
The New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau operates what it describes as a radio communications interception facility at Tangimoana, 30 kilometres west of Palmerston North, in New Zealand....

(New Zealand)
CFS Leitrim
CFS Leitrim
Canadian Forces Station Leitrim, also referred to as CFS Leitrim, is an important Canadian Forces Station located in the neighbourhood of Leitrim near Ottawa, Ontario...

(Ontario, Canada)

Other potentially related stations

The following stations are listed in the EP report (p. 57 ff) as ones whose roles "cannot be clearly established":

Ayios Nikolaos (Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

- UK)
Bad Aibling Station
Bad Aibling Station
The Bad Aibling Station was until 2004 a large monitoring base of the US intelligence organization NSA in Bad Aibling, Bavaria.- History :In 1936 a military airfield was established on the site...

(Bad Aibling
Bad Aibling
Bad Aibling is a spa town and former district seat in Bavaria on the river Mangfall, located some 35 miles southeast of Munich. It is a health resort .-History:...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

- US)
- - relocated to Griesheim
  Griesheim
  Griesheim is a town in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district, in Hessen, Germany. It is situated approx. 7 km west of Darmstadt.-History:...
  
  in 2004
Buckley Air Force Base
Buckley Air Force Base
Buckley Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in Aurora, Colorado, that was established by the U.S. Army in 1943. The base was named in honor of the World War I Army pilot 1LT John Harold Buckley.-Overview:...

(Aurora
Aurora, Colorado
City of Aurora is a Home Rule Municipality spanning Arapahoe, Adams, and Douglas counties in Colorado. Aurora is an eastern suburb of the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area . The city is the third most populous city in the Colorado and the 56th most populous city in the...

, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, US)
Fort Gordon
Fort Gordon
Fort Gordon, formerly known as Camp Gordon, is a United States Army installation established in 1917. It is the current home of the United States Army Signal Corps and Signal Center and was once the home of "The Provost Marshal General School" . The fort is located in Richmond, Jefferson, McDuffie,...

(Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

, US)
Gander
Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador
Gander is a Canadian town located in the northeastern part of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, approximately south of Gander Bay, south of Twillingate and east of Grand Falls-Windsor...

(Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada)
Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...

(Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

, US)
Kunia (Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

, US)
Lackland Air Force Base
Lackland Air Force Base
Lackland Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located west-southwest of San Antonio, Texas. The base is under the jurisdiction of the 802d Mission Support Group, Air Education and Training Command ....

, Medina Annex
Texas Cryptology Center
The United States National Security Agency has a satellite campus at the Medina Annex, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, which some in the media have called the Texas Cryptology Center...

(San Antonio, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, US)

Organization

Capabilities

Controversy

Hardware

Name

Ground stations

Likely satellite intercept stations

Other potentially related stations

See also

Further reading