| publication: Christian ALT | Security NEWs Service: TLAnews |
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Security Service | publication: Christian ALT | Security NEWs Service: TLAnews |
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The letter, delivered on Feb. 24 by Kenneth Heath, chief of staff for NSA's Legislative Affairs Office, included attached documents about NSA and congressional oversight and a list of frequently asked questions concerning allegations that the agency is tuning in on private citizens' communications around the world and rifling through them with the help of mainframe computers at its Fort Meade, Md., headquarters. Echelon is NSA's Cold War-vintage global spying system, which consists of a worldwide network of clandestine listening posts capable of intercepting electronic communications such as e-mail, telephone conversations, faxes, satellite transmissions, microwave links and fiber-optic communications traffic. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are NSA's partners in the system. However, the European Union last year raised concerns that the system may be regularly violating the privacy of law-abiding citizens. NSA assured lawmakers that the agency's "activities are conducted in accordance with the highest constitutional, legal and ethical standards, and in compliance with statutes and regulations designed to protect the privacy rights of U.S. persons." The agency stopped short, however, of confirming the existence of any ongoing intelligence gathering operations. But in a speech delivered Feb. 17 at the Kennedy Political Union of American University, NSA director Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden acknowledged, "it is inevitable that NSA will inadvertently acquire information about U.S. citizens in the course of its foreign intelligence collection activities." Steven Aftergood, an intelligence specialist with the Federation of American Scientist's Project on Government Secrecy said the "60 Minutes" episode reflects poorly on Congress' oversight of intelligence operations. "Questions about Echelon have to be raised on '60 Minutes' because they are not publicly addressed in Congress," Aftergood said. "[Rep. Porter] Goss, [Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence], may be satisfied with the accountability he receives, but many members of the public obviously are not. This will have to change." |
Faced with a barrage of criticism from European government officials and some U.S. privacy advocates, the secretive National Security Agency has assured Congress it is breaking no laws.
"We want to assure you that NSA's activities are conducted in accordance with the highest constitutional, legal and ethical standards and in compliance with statutes and regulations designed to protect the privacy rights of U.S. persons," wrote Kenneth Heath, of the NSA Legislative Affairs Office in a letter to members of Congress.
On its Web site, the NSA also takes on allegations that it may be obtaining information on Americans through partner countries' spy agencies.
Under a list of "frequently asked questions" is this entry:
"Couldn't the Agency simply ask its allies to provide them with information about U.S. persons?
"We have been prohibited by executive order since 1978 from having any person or government agency, whether foreign or U.S., conduct any activity on our behalf that we are prohibited from conducting ourselves. Therefore, NSA does not ask its allies to conduct such activities on its behalf, nor does NSA do so on behalf of its allies."
A report to the European Parliament last week said that the United States, Britain and other English-speaking countries may be using an eavesdropping network called "Echelon" that was set up to spy on the Soviet Union to give U.S. companies a commercial edge over their European competitors.
The 18-page report cites "well-informed" news reports in 1995 saying information gathered through Echelon had been given to Boeing and the old McDonnell-Douglas company when they were trying to win a $6 billion contract to sell aircraft to Saudi Arabia.
In response, State Department spokesman James Rubin said, "The NSA is not authorized to provide intelligence information to private firms ... U.S. intelligence agencies are not tasked to engage in industrial espionage, or obtain trade secrets for the benefit of any U.S. company or companies."
Under Echelon, the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand run a network of surveillance stations to monitor billions of telephone conversations, e-mails, faxes and other communications in order to track terrorists, drug lords and hostile international governments.
Communications are run through super computers which search for key words, and then bring suspicious communications to the attention of NSA analysts.
1.3.2000
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