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French Prosecutor Opens Echelon Probe 188

Posted by timothy from the j'accuse! dept.
gillbates writes: "A French prosecutor is conducting an investigation into the workings of the Echelon system. The article is here, and it details how France is concerned that Echelon is being used for invading its citizens' privacy. France lost a contract with Saudi Arabia due to Echelon, and knows it. How much else will they learn? My question is: What's going to happen to U.S./European relations when they find out the truth about Echelon?" SWroclawski [Updated 6 July 2000 by timothy: sorry 'bout the spelling, Serge! :) ] points out this link to BBC Coverage, noting "France's laws on privacy are very strict and in a world where one's rights of privacy are being challenged all the time, it's good to see one country taking a stand."
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French Prosecutor Opens Echelon Probe More

French Prosecutor Opens Echelon Probe

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  • This is yet another piece of French petulance because their repeated requests to join the UKUSA pact have been rejected (UKUSA is the 1948 treaty under which signals intelligence is shared between the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.) They refused to join in the last bit of nastiness against Iraq because of it. In comparison, the Australians assisted immediately - but then, they already *knew* what was going on in Iraq because of - yes - the UKUSA pact. I'll leave the readers to surmise as to why the French don't get allowed to have the priceless primary intelligence. --
  • Somebody ought to be investigating this. If it's the French, so be it.

  • I can't really tell from your post what you're trying to say. But just in case, have a look at this:

    Main Entry: humor
    Pronunciation: 'hyü-m&r, 'yü-
    Function: noun
    Etymology: Middle English humour, from Middle French humeur, from Medieval Latin & Latin; Medieval Latin humor, from Latin humor, umor moisture; akin to Old Norse vokr damp, Latin humEre to be moist, and perhaps to Greek hygros wet
    Date: 14th century
    ...

    3 a : that quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous b : the mental faculty of discovering, expressing, or appreciating the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous c : something that is or is designed to be comical or amusing

    synonym see WIT

    --

  • One thing that seems to be forgotten is that you can wear an echelon proof condom...

    It's called PGP, which is short for Pretty Good Privacy, and at high encryption levels, it is uncrackable (in public knowledge, and very likely still uncrackable by the government).

    I would heartily recommend you use PGP or some related encryption software on your email, and recommend all your associates to do so - it's not that hard - check out www.pgpi.com.

    That said, one must have good network & physical security to prevent our brilliant law 'protection' agencies from just hopping onto your computer and stealing your secret key, otherwise the whole exercise has been a waste of time.

    "A PGP a day keeps the NSA away"
  • >French foreign policy since WWII has mostly been
    >based on repeated iterations of the
    >question "Will it piss off the English-speakers?"
    >I'll admit that this approach is probably as
    >valid as anything else, and they have certainly
    >been consistent and fair in its application, but
    >basing relations with the rest of the world on a
    >grudge over holding a losing ticket in the
    >dominant culture sweepstakes is not terribly
    >praiseworthy. Sorry

    Well ! what some (not all) Americans fail to understand (in fact mostly those who still believe that the earth is flat) is that there are many cultures around the world and many many other ways to view the world ! not necesserly the way America view it.

    What France is trying to do, is to simply protect it's language and culture in a world perceived as more and more English-speaking and Ensglis dominated, can you understand that ? I hope so, as you are hanging in a minority (open source)forum. America has it's own minorities and it tring to respect them, "some" americans must learn how to respect other minorities in the world and be less arrogant and imperialistic!.

    Note : I am not even French, but as myself a member of minority I pefectly understand the way the french act.
  • It seems more likely that the UK would spy on Ireland for hisorical reasons than share spy data with it :)

    I agree with your point about nicking secrets. Whatever we (meaning the UK) do as far as espionage goes, it should be for the interests of this country. Seems a bit funny to me.


    --
  • Being devils advocate I would like to mention a few things:

    France really isn't a country that has a right to cry foul over anything. Using their nuclear weapons research as an example, France simply wants to stall the progress of others until they can catch up. How long was it before they finally halted nuclear testing???

    Nor is the USA, but it still does. If I remember rightly the French asked the USA for the necesary information that would have made the nuclear tests unnecessary, but the USA refused - nice to see NATO members sharing info ;-)

    The French are also sensitive about their language for the same reasons. When there is a perfectly good English word for something, they must wait until a suitable French word can be used in its place.

    As if a big noise isn't made about spanish words leaking into American English!

    At the end of the day the USA is in no position to complain about the French and vice versa - they are as bad as each other. They are both defending their national pride.

  • Before we all get on the "France is standing up to government intrusion" bandwagon, let's remember that France is well-known for "borrowing" travelling executives' laptops at customs, long enough to copy the entire hard drive. And they have, at least once, completely trashed the hotel rooms of major aerospace executives during the Paris airshow to gather information.

    Further, their "invading our citizens' privacy" complaints are ironic in light of their own law requiring private encryption keys to be held by third parties so the government can snoop [telecom.gouv.fr].

    Hell, they took a privacy-killing concept we invented and have repeatedly discarded as a bad idea, and implemented it as law. Fix that before you bitch about us, France.

    EPIC [epic.org] has called France's encryption policies "perhaps the most restrictive in the world next to Russia".

    They require a license to *IMPORT* crypto, and even DES keys are required to be deposited with the government.

    Yeah, big on privacy, those French.

    --
  • It's easy for countries with no experience of fascism to take the moral high ground. Just another opportunity to pontificate about Liberty in pompous tones.
  • You're overlooking the fact that most of Europe would probably like a way to chuck us obstructive Brits out so they can go ahead with becoming a Federation of States.
  • > BTW, do any Brits think it is a gross breach of sovereignty to have foreign bases in the UK? I
    > mean, how would Americans feel if foreigners set up a military base here?

    Well, if Britain had bailed America out in WWII, I'd cut y'all some slack, o "This means peace in our time!" people...
  • Most of the time, americans are OK, but when it comes to politics... Why do you flame any contry taking actions about some silly gov agency of yours ?

    First, it's not France, it's some attorney, as justice is independant there. What is pointed there isn't industrial spying, it's the lack of concern for citizen's privacy, WTH don't you get it clear !

    And the ease to get informations justifying ECHELON, something whose existence has been covered up for so long, should warn you.

    About french laws about privacy check out
    http://www.cnil.fr/
  • the whole problem with this lies in the fact that if an ISP is doing its job properly, then their dial up sever (or whatever) should be secure against hax4ors and other nasties. if the bill goes ahead, then the ISP's are going to have to provide effectively root access to all their servers. This is much easier to tap and trace information than the traditional phone and letter thingys, and it can be automated.

    {shhhhh... the froggies are asleep.}
    spam-proofing?

  • Not uncommon for Euro Countries... (Score:3)

    by don_carnage ( 145494 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @04:07AM (#957126) Homepage

    France is just twanked because Echelon caught them on a little deal with Brazil not too long ago. (read it here [one.net])

    If you are included in the ECHELON network, like the UK and Ireland, then everything is just peachy...else, you cry foul. What of the countries that are in the "network" that are spying on their own companies? Is this suddenly OK?
    --
  • Didn't they send us the Statue of Liberty?

    Why are they so bitter now? Maybe they should take it back?

  • France taking a stand? (Score:3)

    by reemul ( 1554 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @04:07AM (#957128)
    If France was actually taking the path of righteousness here, I'd applaud them. However, they are primarily upset because it's not their system. Most of their civil service is wildy inefficient - often by design, since it allows them to hire more civil servants - but their own spies are top notch. And they don't have laws against bribery to gain foreign contracts, such as the US has for its companies. Its not the privacy concerns that bother the French here, its getting caught.

    French foreign policy since WWII has mostly been based on repeated iterations of the question "Will it piss off the English-speakers?" I'll admit that this approach is probably as valid as anything else, and they have certainly been consistent and fair in its application, but basing relations with the rest of the world on a grudge over holding a losing ticket in the dominant culture sweepstakes is not terribly praiseworthy. Sorry.

    -reemul
  • Thank you for being so (Informative: +1) and (Insightful: +1). What you fail to realize is that Slashdot is merely nature's way of making sure ignorant people like you don't affect the political state of the country.

  • Echelon used by US for unfair trade advantage (Score:3)

    by WhyteRabbyt ( 85754 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @04:08AM (#957130) Homepage

    There was an item [independent.co.uk] in the UK newspapaper "The Independent" last Sunday which dealt with habitual US usage of Echelon and the American intelligence services to give unfair trade advantages to American companies in competition with European countries.

    Are they scared American companies can't succeed on their own merits, or something?


    Pax,

    White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++

  • It's operational expenses are paid by it's onStar [onstar.com] division.
  • We're talking about the country whose court system told Yahoo they have to ban the sales of Nazi paraphenalia to their citizens through their auction site, and stop listing hate sites.

    Hey, I can't abide prejudice or bigotry at all, but censorship is obviously not the solution and it never has been. Now all the same posters who keep crying for free speech are going to ignore the fact that France is the leading censor in Europe? Give me a break.

    French industrial espionage is a well-documented fact of life and even the article here stresses that what the US might have uncovered was evidence that Airbus was trying to bribe their way into the Saudi Arabian market because they couldn't sell into it any other way. F**k the French...they are the supreme hypocrites of Europe and nobody really gives a shit what their impotent courts do...not even Jerry Yang. If Yahoo feels confident in ignoring their rulings, how do you think the US government feels about it?

  • So two wrongs do make a right, eh?
  • Well, i just spent half a hour reading replies to this story, and all i can say is... very sad... this is all very sad... there are so much messages of hatry here against the french or the EU, i can't believe i'm reading slashdot...

    I'm a french guy working for an US company... so what ? we're all the same... and we all would like some privacy ! So it's not just because its the french who are showing the way that it MUST be a bad way, with some evil goal behind that...

    So is it like 'If the french do/did something wrong, then fuck them, let's do something even worse!' Is that thinking ?

    Future french generations will be very happy if the US one day does something to raise the french population against a government which would just pee on their rights... and i guess americans may be happy in the future if what comes of all this france vs echelon story makes things a little better for them.

    I'm not saying that france does that for the US people, i'm not that naive, but if everyone (US, France/EU, China, etc etc) is keeping an eye on each other, only good can come of it!

    We're supposed to be geeks, firsts of a generation of people that can think without frontiers... live up to that, start actually doing it.

    While we're sitting on our geek self satisfaction, a very small group of people are taking advantage of a technology we all own.
  • Take a look at
    http://www.penguinpowered.org.uk/stand/hoc2.jpg

    This is a letter from my MP on the RIP issue. The first line states :

    The Bill is designed to ensure that the intercept regime, which already exists, takes proper account of technological developments.

    This is a letter from a member of parliament in England, on official House of Commons letterhead paper. (take a look at hoc1.jpg for proof)

    So what's to investigate ? =:-0
    /* Wayne Pascoe
  • I wrote a couple of questions to try and get you to tell me why you think me ignorant or how you think Slashdot affects my political action, but then I read your User Info and determined you to be a troll.
  • Only (?!) one person lost their life in the Rainbow Warrior bombing, a photographer if my memory serves me correct. And they DGSE agents got caught.
  • They could likewise turn a significant part of the US to a glowing pile....Plus, they seem to buying a lot of US companies now!

  • this whole "Echelon is bad" is fairly hypocritical.

    Hypocritical or not, two wrongs don't make a right. Let 'em fight Echelon. I think that if my government is spying on French civilians, then they are probably spying on American civilians too.


    ---

  • Re:France taking a stand? (Score:3)

    by Zan Zu from Eridu ( 165657 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @06:01AM (#957140) Journal
    Ok, we all know France has got dirty hands too. But why is reporting you're going to investigate on other nations' spying activities wrong? Lets look at it the other way around, imagine an eavesdropping network, run by France, Canada and some french speaking states in Africa. I bet you the US would investigate it, at the very least!

    Another point is that discussions like this obscure the fact that ECHELON eavesdrops on everyone -yes, this means you too- it makes no difference wether you live in France or the US. Sure the first nations to complain about it are the ones that have some issues with the US, but this does not mean ECHELON all of a sudden becomes a good thing because it can be used to spy on them.

    Then there is the paranoid "if they wheren't hiding anything, they wouldn't be whining" argument. It has been discussed over and over in endless crypto threads. This isn't any different.

    French foreign policy might not be the best in the world, but the US keeps "pissing off" (to put it in your terms) various nations all over the world too, with its endless trade wars and embargos. The only difference is the US being capable of and willing to take firm, even violent, action to enforce its policies. This raises the question wether it's better to be an 'irritating whiner' like France or a 'big bully' like the US.
    -><-
    Grand Reverence Zan Zu, AB, DD, KSC

  • I wouldnt say anti-Europe, more anti-Federalism.

    I agree that most of the heat for this will fall on the UK, as we're the ones hosting the base(s) that are used for the majority of the EU espionage. This worries me quite a bit, as I'm one of the people who believes in further EU integration.

    Ultimately, this could be used by nations like France and Germany to keep the UK at arms distance in Europe, and by that weaken our economy (which would probably be strengthened by further integration) and strengthen theirs.


    --
  • The congress/senate don't know ? how the hell do you think an agency like this gets funding. They are prolly better funded than the social security agency and the FBI and CIA..

    Secrets are what the government wants. They don't care about whose secrets they are.

    <rant on>
    I swear.. I think its time for another revolution in this country where we correct the errors from the constitution (term limits, no "professional" politicians, the abolishment of the Federal Tax, reworking of the Social Security System, rework/abolishment of the welfare system).

    As an aside, most people don't realize that the Federal Income Tax wasn't ratified by all the states and is therefore unconstitutional.. They don't realize any of the power they hold on the US Govt.

    We elect these bozos and if they stay in office its our fault... If they aren't voting for the common good, then get them out of office and put someone in who will !
    <rant off>

  • Well, is there actual, physical proof that the system exists? I remeber reading about it some time ago on /., but I don't have the time (or the patience) right now to look it up.
  • "France's laws on privacy are very strict and in a world where one's rights of privacy are being challanged all the time, it's good to see one country taking a stand."

    Yeah, and encryption is so tightly regulated there that nobody can keep a secret. So, they seem to want to at least be able to listen in.
  • I have to say, I've always harbored concerns about the FISA courts (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), which are essentially a shadow judiciary that supposedly oversees, reviews, and approves FED intelligence wiretapping within the US. Congress has been looking into it sporadically since the 1997 wiretap report, but though they find abuses left and right, and issue sternly worded rebukes, they haven't taken any action yet.

    The last I heard, the FISA court had never refused a single one of the 15,000 requests for domestic surveillance made of it, and only a tiny handful (under 10, IIRC) had even had to resubmit, and requests have been skyrocketing since 1993 (averaging about 250/yr in the 15 years from 1978-1993, but currently at 1000+/yr per Freedom of Information Act documents) Meanwhile, 'normal court' wiretap warrants have grown only several percent a year. (*)

    The NY Times and other newspapers have written about the FISA system, but the Web has made me lazy (and besides, how many of you would look up a dead tree citation) so here are two URLs [Artcle I [mediafilter.org]] [Article II [mediafilter.org]]. You can find much more info with a G oogle Search for [FISA wiretap] [google.com] (without brackets).

    BTW, if you're interested in such things, you should look at the many articles on the huge increase in state wiretaps [jya.com]and the LA County DA's investigation of massive illegal wiretapping [la.ca.us] by the LAPD
  • Absolutely nothing. Why you ask? Because Tony Blair is our little bitch!
  • As a friend of mine says, the description politically ambitious prosecutor is redundant.

  • NSA Testimony on Espionage against US Citizens (Score:4)

    by CrusadeR ( 555 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @03:44AM (#957148) Homepage
    Saw this at the Cryptome [cryptome.org]... General Hayden basically gives a rundown of all the legislation and external oversight which prevents them from spying on every John Foo and James Baz in the US:
    As stated on the scan, this was made in the spring of this year, presumably do to Echelon-related fallout.
  • What else is new?
    Doesn't the US-goverment and many US company's do the same?
    Ever heard about that problem with Lockheed and the Dutch government?
    Had something to do with Prince Bernhard too.......
  • I wonder if this particular attorney thought citizens had the right to privacy via strong crypto ?

    Pot/Kettle ?

    Who remembers "That's why I hate the French" a classic song from Not the Nine O'clock News.

    richard

  • The answer is easy - all French companies can use strong encryption for their internal communications! Er, wait a minute...
  • You're right of course. S'funny how UKUSA gets ignored and gets rediscovered as a great conspiracy every so often. The existence of the treaty is not classified in itself, as I'm sure you're aware. Sadly, the most outraged by it are those whose freedoms are a direct result of it . . .
  • Yes, and a communications disruption can mean only one thing -- invasion.

  • Re:Uhh, WHAT? (Score:3)

    by maroberts ( 15852 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @03:45AM (#957155) Homepage Journal
    I believe France has recently 'lightened up' on the use of encryption, just as us Brits are clamping down and (trying to) regulate it.

    However, I understand that the French were placing bribes to back up their contracts so in this case I'd say 'score one for Echelon'!! If more general use of Echelon were proved, i.e passing commercial secrets where no wrongdoing is taking place, then I think they would have a legitimate case.

  • If france is restricting encryption and such why should they be the country to probe the USA's privacy? doesnt sound like france is actually in a position to do this and where do they get there authority to do this from?
  • What will they find? Oh, I have a pretty good idea. It's sitting on top of a flag pole outside the parliament. Etched in .15 microns inside the chip is the words: Gee, took you long enough. ~ uncle sam
  • It is the right of the United States, and Great Britain (which shares the information, and has the European Echelon headquarters), in order to defend their industries.

    No, it is not the right of the United States. If a company wants to spend its own money on industrial espionage, fine, it should do what needs to be done in order to maximize shareholder value. But don't tell me I have some kind of moral obligation to support corporate interests with my tax dollars, either through Echelon or the countless existing corporate tax breaks.
  • France has been in the forefront of government-sponsored economic espionage for some time, so this whole "Echelon is bad" is fairly hypocritical

    So in other words, they're saying "Echelon is bad", but what they really mean is, "Echelon is cool and effective, and we're really pissed the US didn't include us in it".

    Sigh. Everytime I read an article similar to this one, I become more and more convinced that I must be a Libiterian. The Horror! :) Still, if even half of the stuff I've read about Echelon's capabilities are true...it's kinds frightening to realize that my weekly calls to Mom could possibly be in the voice analyzer right now. Perhaps it's time to take a cue from another slashdot posters Sig...

    president bomb threat Iraq Oklahoma City fertilizer diesel Waco
  • BTW, do any Brits think it is a gross breach of sovereignty to have foreign bases in the UK?

    I don't know for the brits but we had US bases in France (NATO bases) but it didn't please us very much so De Gaulle told them to go back home and went out of NATO. Now we are alone and well.

  • Well, of course I got onto this thread on a tangent: I was irritated
    by your attitude towards French anti-fascist censorship. The French
    laws do not try to make general distinctions between good speech and
    bad speech, they specifically target Nazi propaganda (including Nazi
    and Vichy memorabilia) and holocaust denial.

    If the KKK had tyrannised the US in the same way that Fascists did
    in Germany and France, I would not take a smugly superior attitude
    towards anti-KKK censorship in the US.

    Back to the thread, I think it would be hypocritical for the French
    intelligence services to complain about the CIA. It is right and
    proper for the French justice system to do the same.

  • I think its high time someone constructs a simple substitution language based on key words that Echelon picks up....

    for example:

    Bomb assassinate Libya

    Would be "how are you?"

    This way those of us with nothing to hide who just don't like the whole East German-esque gestapo tactic of recording any conversation/E-mail I make... can ensure that our rights as human beings to have some sembelance of privacy are thoroughly destroyed.

    The East German regime used to do this to its citizens... only it would store physical things, saliva, mucus, hair, skin samples, etc... this is worse, it is intellectual sampling... I don't want to slide down any slippery slopes, but the implications of this are wide spread. The best and most opressive tyrannies slide slow on you...
  • I apologize for giving you the impression that I am a troll. I also apologize for singling you out of the 20 posts that had the misspelling of libertarian as their only topic. I consider it rather pathetic that this is what Slashdot has been reduced to (not that Slashdot has ever been a great intellectual community).

    I will attempt to answer the questions you wrote (but didn't post, and yet still managed to express...). I considered your post ignorant in the sense that you dismiss people you disagree with as stupid and confused.

    As for claiming that Slashdot is a way of preventing you from affecting the political situation in the country, that is more a slam of Slashdot. Specifically the frequently observed phenomenon of a story being posted that draws the outrage of ten thousand Slashdot readers in what the editors hope will be a way of igniting true action against some injustice. In reality, Slashdot serves primarily as a way for its readers to let off steam and forget all the myriad terrible ways in which their rights are being taken away and instead focus all of their engery on the minor irritation of the trolls.

  • >nice to see NATO members sharing info

    Last I heard France was not fully integrated into NATO (didn't participate in the military C&C structure), periodically contemplated withdrawing from NATO and generally disagreed with U.S. involvement in Europe.

    Basically, they're in it for their own purposes.

    >As if a big noise isn't made about spanish words leaking into American English!

    While we do periodically get our panties in a bunch over whether or not the gov't should publish documents multi-lingually, we don't have a gov't group making up English names for foreign words that are commonly used and then out-lawing those foreign words from publication. Nor do we have laws requiring businesses to only use English words.
  • I considered your post ignorant in the sense that you dismiss people you disagree with as stupid and confused.

    I've met a lot of people who say they are libertarians, and no two of them agree on what it means to be a libertarian. Some of them have political views that I agree with, some of them have political views that I disagree with. But if all libertarians have different political views, being a libertarian means absolutely nothing.
  • Coincidentally, the European Parliament is due to decide in Strasbourg Wednesday whether to set up a commission to investigate whether Echelon infringes the rights of European citizens and industries.

    Anyone know of any investigations on how it infringes on the rights of US citizens?

    Or do we supposedly still not know about it?
  • Uh.. Two words: Campaign contributions. Wonder why they're investigated all the time. Could it be that all those people weren't just giving money away for nothing..
  • all gorerments do this stuff

    ALL? That's pretty strong. What about Sealand? what about the local village of Mazomanie? I don't recall any village board appointed spies "borrowing" any laptops and copying hard drives or ransacking any hotel rooms at conventions.

    Well, now that I think of it our village cops fairly suck. There was that one incident where six cops with guns burst into my buddy's house and practically beat everybody up looking for somebody to arrest who wasn't there and to my knowledge had never been there, and they never even apologized because these were the town "potheads". So forget everything I just said.

    Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
    Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
  • Let's see now. Most likely it was Eschelon that allowed the US to identify that Kadafi and company were responsible for the bombing of the nite club in Germany that killed some US service men. Then France didn't allow over-flight of our bombers because they didn't want to upset the Colonel.

    So now you come along and tell me that the system was used to beat out France in a business competition where the French were dropping bribes?

    Uhm - Good! ;-)

    I do, however, get concerned when such technology is turned on US citizens going about their legal business primarily because the CIA, et al is prohibited against operating against it's own citizens. THAT needs to be watched closely.

  • The RIP bill requiring ISPs to fit the often-mentioned "black boxes" is, I'm afraid, a myth. The bit of bill which has been taken as requiring black boxes (section 12.1) [the-statio...fice.co.uk] reads "The Secretary of State may by order provide for the imposition by him ... of such obligations as it appears to him reasonable to impose for the purpose of securing that it is and remains practicable for requirements to provide assistance in relation to interception warrants to be imposed and complied with."
    Apart from the fact that this is in appallingly bad English, it seems to say that if the police need an ISP to help them tap someone's traffic then the ISP must comply. Is it really that shocking? Okay the wording "measures which appear reasonable to the Secretary of State" is a bit open-ended, but it only applies to the execution of particular warrants. I dislike the bill very much, I have written to my MP to protest about it, it is flawed in a thousand different ways, but it does not require the installation of any "black boxes" to copy all net traffic to GCHQ.
  • Check out this :

    Australia Admits to sigint [slashdot.org]

    Good on the aussies.


    --
  • Crypto is allowed with keys up to 128 bits - only the software used has to be registered with the gov (as is PGP). Crypto used to be limited to 40 bits keys only a while ago, and Netscape had a 40 bits key version available for France. But it still had crypto.

  • Frenchelon (Score:3)

    by cbquist ( 155100 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @04:36AM (#957180)
    Before everyone gets on the "France is defending us from Echelon" bandwagon, what about their listening network - "Frenchelon?"

    Paper by Kenneth Neil Cukier, Communications Week International on Frenchelon [itwar.com].
    Also mentioned in this issue of Cryptome [cryptome.org].

  • For that matter, neither does Jesus.

    Actually there was a guy named Jesus who was crucified in Palastine. Maybe you meant that he wasn't a deity, but he did exist.
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • ISPs, do not as a rule, monitor their own users. Section 12. (1) will oblige them to invent the technology to do so, and build it into their equipment, just in case Mr Straw or one of his successors asks.

    For the act of creating this trap-door, the Home Secretary has gracefully agreed to reimburse them via a government grant. The current Bill makes no specification as to the what this equipment will consist of.

    The trap-door is not specified yet (as far as we know), but like all trap-doors into any system, its mere existence should raise hairs on the backs of necks of any right minded system manager. After all, we expect ONLY the following people to potentially use it:

    (a) the Director-General of the Security Service;
    (b) the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service;
    (c) the Director of GCHQ;
    (d) the Director General of the National Criminal Intelligence Service;
    (e) the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis;
    (f) the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary;
    (g) the chief constable of any police force maintained under or by virtue of section 1 of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967;
    (h) the Commissioners of Customs and Excise;
    (i) a Permanent Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence;
    (j) a person who, for the purposes of any international mutual assistance agreement, is the competent authority of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom;


    Given that 'tipping off' that a surveillance is happening is also an imprisonable offence under the RIP Bill, who do you talk to if you suspect that Mr Hacker has come through the trap-door ?

    What we also know is that MI.5 are building a purpose built office block to plumb all of these taps into. We also know that this building was demolished and had to be started again, because an employee of the original building contractor had links with the IRA. Gives you a warm comforting glow that does - the government department in charge of vetting key staff can't even vet their own contractors !

    The fact is this - UK ISPs will have some back-door foisted on them by legislation. Other nations ISPs will not. The effect will be to drive e-commerce out of the UK to more sensibly regulated places. This bill is flawed, and will damage both the economy and the privacy rights of individuals in the UK.
  • ...or rather, half-facts

    I remember reading a lot about Echelon (mostly suspicions, though) a while ago in c't magazine (German).
    If you like, you can try to find it somewhere on http://www.heise.de/ct/

    From what I remember, Echelon is believed to have enormous computer systems and electronic spy stations (in England; Germany; Australia; US (obviously) and somewhere else).
    They said they only spied on the East Bloc and assured the German government they weren't spying on Germans at all, but interestingly enough they had rented the rooms right above the Frankfurt main post (including huge telephone arrays) for decades and only moved out a few years ago.

    I think it has also been proved (at least there are strong rumors) that the NSA (which is not mentioned in the US constitution, controlled directly by the President and financed through black accounts) was used to gather information about 10.000s of anti-Vietnam activists in the 70s; this information was then used to sue them.

    The French aren't all nice guys either. Remember the Rainbow Warrior? This was the original Greenpeace Ship which was bombed and sunk by French agents.
    Two people lost their lives.
    When the US wanted an high-speed train, there were two possibilities: the French TGV or the German ICE. Strangely, the French always offered slightly lower prices than the Germans although in the selectins neither party was supposed to know the other's prices. The US bought the TGV. It has since been discovered that the French secret service found out about the prices.

    Also, the CEO and the board of the French government-owned Oil company Elf are traditionally ex-secret service types. If you look at your newspapers, you can find their works now. In Germany, there's a huge scandal at the moment because ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl obviously has ordered important documents about the vending of the East-German Leuna refinery to Elf to be destroyed.

    It's the same wherever you look, just that not everybody gets caught.

    It makes me sick.
  • So in other words, they're saying "Echelon is bad", but what they really mean is, "Echelon is cool and effective, and we're really pissed the US didn't include us in it".

    Actually what happend was that the United States flat out told the French ambassador that either (a) France must stop these black bag jobs, or (b) the United States will turn over it's survellance information gathered on French companies (and French companies only) to US companies, in order to keep the playing field level.

    France did not stop.
  • How could those lovable Gendarmes de Saint-Tropez [imdb.com] possibly be involved in something as insidious as international corporate espionage?

    Seriously, can you imagine Gendarme Ludovic Cruchot [imdb.com] pulling off what you're implying?

    That must be the French strategy... export lots of comical caricatures of your police and in the meantime build up your secret police into an international menace. Much like Canada [yesterdayland.com].

    =)

    --

  • Echelon and the People of the U.S. (Score:5)

    by Tiro ( 19535 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @04:37AM (#957195) Journal
    What's going to happen to US-EU relations when they find out the truth about Echelon?"

    Another important question is, what's going to happen when Americans find out what is going on? Less than a year ago, on 60 Minutes, a woman stated that she had heard Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina on a telephone wire tap in an Echelon center (I believe it was in Britain). Any such intrusion is not only in breach of Echelon's internal policy as stated by the NSA (no spying on US citizens) but a severe breach of the Senator's civil rights.

    If I recall correctly, the basic point of that story was that American intelligence is using Echelon stations in Britain (and the foreign agents running them) to get around the rule that bans surveillance on U.S. citizens.

    After this current round of accusations, the story has been all over the mainstream media outlets.

    The answer to the question above is nothing. On the whole, Americans just don't give a damn. In fact, they seem to like the idea of their intelligence looking after them, despite the inherent risks and problems it creates.

    I have talked with all my friends, some of them extremely well-informed and intelligent people, and I could barely get an ounce of concern out of them.

  • This is not a France's move (Score:3)

    by piking ( 157151 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @04:38AM (#957197)
    The investigation is not led by the french government. The state prosecutor doesn't do this on behalf of the french govt, he is pretty much independant. I don't think he asked anything to the department of justice. And the department of justice

    The prosecutor's move is quite demagogic, he only wants people to think "Hey, look at me, I'm not afraid to fight Echelon !". But his action is bullshit, he already knows he can't do anything : Do you think he can go to Washington DC and invetigate in the Pentagon, or to London to invetigate the MI5 ?

    come on guy, this is the story of a prosecutor who is looking for fame !

    By hthe way, I think the French govt and the French secret service don't support him, they are rather embarrassed by his action. Legal action is not the way things are done in the secret service world.

  • Fecking exactly, all this Echelon stuff came to my attention originally because as far as I remember the listening station that Britain used to listen into our phones was decommissioned and the site put up for sale, which prompted a few stories in the local newspapers into how the IDA had gotten terribly suspicious at some Scottish undercutting of their offers and had started getting very security conscious in communication with potential investers under the assumption that they were actively under surveilence

    Of couse there are listening stations and there are listening stations, and who knows what is part of what network, nevertheles...

    Hell I think what particularly annoys people about Echelon is that it looks like Britain helped nick secrets from their fellow EU partners for the benefit of America, not even for themselves. For instance if the French are correct that Echelon was used to nick stuff from Airbus then it would have been used by Britain to steal from itself as Airbus is part owned by British Aerospace. That would be particularly insane if true.

    C.

  • I actually don't disagree, it's just the smug attitude of `we're so
    right and we love to tell you so' that pisses me off. The KKK may not
    be nice, but they are not in the same league as the Fascists: the
    experience is just not comparable. Hate literature, especially tied
    to historical revisionism and pseudo-science, is one of the better
    arguments against free speech, and it does not do good to be
    complacent about it.

    It's like explaining why it is right that a violent rapist should
    go free on an issue of due process to his victim: that just might be
    right, but only an asshole would say that it is all due to High
    Principles of Justice.

  • If you call France small, what is your definition of large?

    France has the worlds 4th largest economy (after US, Japan and Germany) - larger than China, India and Russia combined according to The Economist book of Vital World Statistics I have on my desk.

    Plus it's a nuclear power, the world's leading commercial satellite launcher and the second largest producer of commercial aircraft. World's most popular tourist destination. Huge energy, water, electronics and comms industry (can you say Vivendi?)

    And it can call (sort of) on the backing of the other EU states.

    So how is it small? Can't imagine you would say that if China or Russia pulled the same stunt...

    Nick

  • I'm sorry that I keep going on about this, but I have a thing about it
    :-
    I don't think that the advantage of free speech in opposing hate
    crimes lies in `defeating bad ideas'. I think it is mostly
    ineffective in this regard. The great strength of freedom of speech
    is that it avoids giving these groups the advantage of appearing to be
    persecuted.

    Today, I think the holocaust denial laws in France and Germany
    should be struck of the statute books. But when they were drafted,
    surviving fascists were still dangerous in Europe (not least due to
    the enlightened policy of the US in supporting them as good
    anti-communists).

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ...the French are kicking up a fuss? Sure, they (and every other country) plays dirty, runs covert surveillence operations, breaks International laws (Rainbow Warrior!), carries out political assassinations (Rainbow Warrior!) and all sorts of other black ops, but is that the point?

    In the end, if them kicking up a fuss can result in ALL nations co-existing and co-habiting the same planet WITHOUT waging full-scale wars over who's turn it is to take the trash out, then I don't give a damn who complains or why, only that they did.

    Sure, I'm a dreamer to think that nations can ever move out of the social stone age. But it's not from a lack of ability. It's a lack of want. If there were votes to be had, by creating sane nations, then they'd do so. And if this continuing scandal persuades voters that sanity is worth the effort, that could happen. Maybe.

  • France is protecting state interests not individual rights. Just consider that France recently passed a law [nettime.org] that requires ISPs and other access providers to gather the full names of their users, effectively making it impossible to use a French services to publish anything anoymously.

  • Great Echelon Link (Score:5)

    by nstrug ( 1741 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @05:16AM (#957227) Homepage
    Some of you may have seen this before but it's worth repeating - Mark Thomas has set up a company that runs balloon flights over the Menwith Hill NSA facility in Yorkshire, England. The balloons are equipped with parabolic microphones and binoculars so that you can spy on the spies. Check here [menwithhill.com].

    BTW, do any Brits think it is a gross breach of sovereignty to have foreign bases in the UK? I mean, how would Americans feel if foreigners set up a military base here? Maybe there are foreign bases in the US and it's just a NATO thing...

    Nick

  • ISP (Score:2)

    by British ( 51765 )
    I find it funny that there is an ISP/ld provider/telephone provider called Eschelon.

    I can just imagine the slogan. "Eschelon telecom. We're listening"

  • French Black Bag Jobs (Score:5)

    by dschuetz ( 10924 ) <.gro.tensad. .ta. .divad.> on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @03:49AM (#957234)
    "France's laws on privacy are very strict and in a world where one's rights of privacy are being challanged all the time, it's good to see one country taking a stand."

    Before we all get on the "France is standing up to government intrusion" bandwagon, let's remember that France is well-known for "borrowing" travelling executives' laptops at customs, long enough to copy the entire hard drive. And they have, at least once, completely trashed the hotel rooms of major aerospace executives during the Paris airshow to gather information.

    France has been in the forefront of government-sponsored economic espionage for some time, so this whole "Echelon is bad" is fairly hypocritical.

    For further information, check out Secure Computing's April 1998 issue (the first hit I got from google, I'm sure there's plenty more out there): http://www .westcoast.com/securecomputing/1998_04/cover/cover .html#French [westcoast.com].

    david.

  • Yeah, and encryption is so tightly regulated there that nobody can keep a secret. So, they seem to want to at least be able to listen in.

    According to the recent report [epic.org] by EPIC, France is now far more well-disposed towards crypto than they used to be.

  • It's Trade War! (Score:3)

    by The Akond of Swat ( 205939 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @03:53AM (#957240)
    or it will be if the allegations of espionage are verified. Thanks to US willingness to invoke WTO regulations and charge penalties for Europe's just support of carribean banana farmers, the game is hotting up. United, even only economically, Europe now has plenty of stick to make the Boss of the World take note. As well, and this is unfortunate, there's an almost bigoted suspicion of America's intentions inside Europe, and plenty of people/lawyers/officials willing to "take up arms" against the US. If these allegations prove true it will only verify what a lot of Europeans have belived a long time: that you can't trust Uncle Sam.

  • We have it right in the UK ....... (Score:5)

    by Lowther ( 136426 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @03:53AM (#957242)
    The UK government's Regulation of Investigatory powers (see notes on it here [stand.org.uk]) has got it exactly right. It going to insist that every UK ISP fits hooks to their infrastructure to allow them to tap e-mails and web traffic, at the ISPs expense. Not only that, but they are enshrining it in law, and talking about it publicly !

    Now that's open government for you....... It dosen't solve the problem of your diminishing privacy, but, being British, they are nice enough and fair enough to tell you about it first.

    (.....Sh*t - where is the HTML irony tag when you need it ....)
  • 1) UKUSA/ECHELON is hardly 'new news'. I can recall being aware of it in '78-79 and James Bamford wrote about it in his highly regarded 1981 best-seller "The Puzzle Palace [amazon.com]", the book that first 'revealed' the NSA to the public. (This book has been revised/reissued several times since original publication in '81) You can read one suitable chapter here [jya.com] . Bamford also published an edition subtitled "America's National Security Agency and its special relationship with Britain's GCHQ [amazon.com]" -- and his books are far from the only ones in the field. I vaguely recall that the mid=70's bestseller "The Falcon and the Snowman [amazon.com]", about the young American spies Christopher Boyce and Dalton Lee, mentioned it too, though perhaps the public didn't notice because it didn't make it into the movie [imdb.com] (starring Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn, and reputed to be pretty good -- I haven't seen it)

    2) In the 70's/80's, there was (and is) a pervasive attitude of denial and stubborn skepticism (both in the public and the intelligence community itself) regarding ECHELON, the NSA -- the CIA was the 'designated bad guy' in the post Watergate/Allende/Whitlaw era:
    • Claiming the existence of an agency with "twice the manpower and [official] budget of the CIA" prior to Bamford's book would get you labeled as a loon -- even at MIT, where the NSA actively recruited.
    • Among those in the US intel community who didn't work with Echelon-type intel, there was a fair degree of skepticism about the scope, value, or even continued existence of UKUSA.

    3) Without meaning any criticism of France, the fact is that they have been very well aware of ECHELON for decades. Like most governments, they often use such "investigations" for public relations purposes. Does anyone really think that the French (oe anyone) conducts *genuine* intel review/investigation in the public eye like this? Or that a federal prosecutor is the best qualified to ferret out these facts?

    4) (personal observation, possibly unjustified) It's always seemed to me that the SDECE is far more adept -- and interested -- in espionage than counter-espionage. I can only speculate on why that is (*if* it is), but it's beem something that I've been noticing consistently since I learned (in the late 70's) about the theft of the Concorde plans from France in the late 60's (to forestall the inevitable rejoinders: yes, I know there were some significant aerodynamic differences between the Concorde and the 'Concordski' (TU-144), but the former Soviet team leaders have admitted to using the design as a basis, they just couldn't utilize the plans properly, as they have admitted in Western interviews such as this one on the PBS show, Nova [transcript [pbs.org]], and many earlier ones I'm not going to bother tracking down). Paradoxically, the Concordski flew before the Concord did.)

    Comments, clarification, and additional details are solicited, as always.
  • I'm curiouse what makes ANYONE think that suddenly the US government will make all sorts of information about Echelon, that will allow them to gain information regarding the functionality, type of data it expects, etc??

    Let them inquire. It'll be denied. Nothing more to say, really.

    'Common guys, we KNOW you do it, fess up.'

    'Nope, we don't. Never heard of such a thing.'

    'But we KNOW!!'

    'Nope, we don't. Never heard of such a thing.'

    (continue untill france gets bored)
  • Which is in inexcusable breach of UK sovereignty...
  • What do the Yakuza have to do with this?? :)

    Pope

    Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
  • British and NATO forces are often based on the US mainland - usually for a very short period of time, as there's no strategic benefit to it.

    Having the US based in the UK was very good during the Cold War, although it is considerably less beneficial now. But there are a whole host of diplomatic and economic reasons why we should let them stay - certainly a major US base boosts the local economy of the village or town there.

    The UK has major bases in Cyprus, the Falklands, Sardinia, Germany and a few other places. Small detachments exist all over the place.

    Cyprus is a good point in case - we're still in Cyprus because it's an ideal location for listening (electronically) to the Middle East.

    So no, I'm not all that fussed by the American presence here. The degree of brown-holing by our Government is unrelated and far more annoying.

  • Monitoring me? sure you can but... (Score:3)

    by davebooth ( 101350 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @05:27AM (#957260)

    If Big Bro is watching me then I hope he's getting a cheap thrill. They are going to get a whole load of noise before they find any signal in my life. If I'm using such easily intercepted stuff as email for anything critical or secret (like, for example, details of a bid for a contract or anything like that) then of course its going to be GNUPGed with the highest key length my version can generate. In the absence of back doors in the algorithm (which is why I prefer open source - better coders than I have already looked at it in detail and if there were holes I'd have read about it on BUGTRAQ) then the data I'm protecting is not invulnerable but by the time anyone has managed to crack it I'd hope it would be obsolete. Somebody wants to wiretap me? Good luck hearing anything to make it worth your while. Of course, unless you're the government and able to make the laws fit whatever you want to do if you get caught you're in a world of hurt. I can live with that. Government agencies already have so many resources for finding out about people that the addition of things such as Echelon doesnt really make that much difference although it may improve their accuracy.

    Dont know about you but I'd rather if folks were going to be looking over my shoulder they got it right rather than confusing me with somebody that has the same name that happens to be a serial goat-rapist believed to be hiding out somewhere in Montana. In all seriousness, with minimal info to start from any governmental agency can find out all they need about you. Provided there are controls in place to ensure the info is accurate and open to challenge it doesnt really matter how they get it, because they COULD find it out anyway, Echelon or not. Unfortunately with recent reports of the use of "secret evidence" by government agencies in the US it seems those controls are not in place... The problem is not Echelon or any other info-collecting tool, its what is done with the info afterwards. Do you trust 'em? I sure dont.
    # human firmware exploit
    # Word will insert into your optic buffer
    # without bounds checking

  • That's why you should definitely become a Libiterian. Thus you can have your own individual spelling and not care a damn what the grammar police thinks about.

    And always remember: freedom and linguistic inventiveness grow out the barrel of a gun.

  • No, not at all. The phone companies don't give the police department full rein of their systems, and neither does an need to. It's rather simple to redirect all trafic going in and out of a dialup location to a 'black box', without requiring handing over a back door. It would be something that would need to be manually setup BY the ISP, which adds no more of a security risk then would already exist, aka, individuals with the power to do such a thing.
  • What if they find out that Eschelon is real and responsible for them losing out on those contracts? What will they do about it? Maybe they'll pass a law requiring all French to be rude to US citizens. Oh... wait...
  • Before we all get on the "France is standing up to government intrusion" bandwagon, let's remember that France is well-known for "borrowing" travelling executives' laptops at customs, long enough to copy the entire hard drive.

    Yes, France dose a lot of nasty shit.. all gorerments do this stuff, but their is diffinitly a very good reason we should all get on the "France is standing up to government intrusion" bandwagon.

    Our goal should not be to maintain some twisted sence of "fairness" in our yelling at governments to reform, i.e. we should not say "Ok, France has been doing this stuff so it's ok for the U.S. to do it." Our purpose should be to reduce our chances of being spied on period. I'd say that means we should just on the bandwagon when it's here to jump on. We must make U.S. ellected officials and the NSA's budget hurt for this Echelon crap. The French can help us do this. We can deal with the French in a few years when people are pissed at them once more.

    Anyway, our goal should be to kill Echelon (and reduce the NSA's power), we need all the allies we can have for that. This is how you play the game of polotics.
  • Nothing will happen, becouse we (Us americans) will never know what's going on. If you can't prove it, then you simply can't do anything about it.

    Heck, look at the governments stance on area 51. Technically, they continue to deny that there is even a base there, when it's just PLAIN as day there. All UFO jokes aside, it's an example of what will happen with Echelon. We'll never know, and hence, speculation will abound..
  • What's going to happen to U.S./European relations ?
    The real question is rather What's going to happen to GB/European relations ?
    Indeed the whole mess is rather directed toward GB.

    Because of its situation inside Europe (as a member)and the fact that communications were intercepted for the US from Great britain is really perceive as a trahison...

    All European knows that each country practise Economic Intelligence (French DGSE was even pointed out before) the problem isn't really Intelligence but rather the real commintment of GB in the Europe.

    Especially in those times were the French President M. CHIRAC) is proposing the idea of a pionneer group (France and Germany) dedicated to make Europe grow faster and stronger...
    The real commitment of GB (which has a special status in Europe and has never hide its anti-Europe opinions) is the real question...

  • And the French don't? (Score:4)

    by BobandMax ( 95054 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @03:58AM (#957289)
    Anyone who believes that the French are not engaged in espionage against the United States and that information does not make it to state-owned or quasi-governmental entities like Airbus, is naive. My sense is that they don't like the scale, style and effectiveness of the eavesdropping.

    All countries engage in espionage. Due largely to resources, some are more effective than others. It is also meet to remember that nation-states do not have friends, but national interests. I'm not saying that I like the Echelon program, just that we are not alone in the pursuit.

    "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."

  • Re:This ought to be good... (Score:5)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @03:58AM (#957290)
    Well, considering that Congress held a session regarding Echelon (if I recall?)... I would tend to say it more than likely exists. The last people to know are those that are being spied upon (aka: the American population itself).

    I'd like to see all of the patriotic American nationalists that we have in this country, flying their red white and blue on their pick-up trucks and snapping at any two-bit 'hippy' that dares suggest America isn't the greatest nation in the world, react to having every bit of communication recorded and played back to them, from their email and letters to their phone calls.

    And - damn it, I'm going to pimp this book again. DATABASE NATION [slashdot.org] by Simson Garfinkel. This book should be read by every geek, grocery clerk, grandmother, businessman and government official. While it is not the most in-depth book, it is the best brush with which to paint a general over-view of the demise of privacy to those who are otherwise completely oblivious to it.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • The BBC article states that Echelon is "used principally by the United States, but Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand also have access to it." Being an Australian, this is the first time I have personally heard of this allegation, but I am not surprised at all when I consider it in account with the recent passing of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment Bill [aph.gov.au] as well as The Telecommunications (Interception) Legislation Amendment Bill. This was recently covered by a Y ahoo! article [yahoo.com], but shunned by the mainstream media in June. (Is there a regime of censorship occuring here too?)

    This bill allows the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to enter, modify, delete or copy data as well as disabling any cryptography one may be running, in order to make it easier for them to get future data. Despite the Attorney General, Daryl William's reassurances that the legislation was "designed to ensure an appropriate balance between individual privacy and the public interest in effective law enforcement and national security;" and that an access warrant is required in these cases, I am fearful of the abuses that are bound to follow. Under this act, ASIO will be allowed to cover up the fact that they hacked into the system and will not be subject to the Crimes Act that forbids computer hacking in Australia surely raising the possibility of framing dissenters and now under the auspices of business, perhaps conduct industrial espionage.

    Have these recent laws been instituted in order to legitimise hacking by the Australian Government and pave the way for the legal usage of Echelon by the Australian government? Is there some greater conspiracy I am failing to foresee? I hope not, otherwise my future civil liberties online are already under great jeopardy.

  • I was going to ask that. All I've ever seen is websites and the odd TV coverage, from conspiracy-nut types. I've never seen any reasonable, rationally presented evidence about it.

    At time, the claims made about Echelon's capabilities defy belief - can we really be expected to believe that, for example, they've have automatic monitoring of calls since the mid-70s, or anything similar?
  • Who is deciding what is wrong and right? And who is going to monitor them?

    The fact remains that they invaded someones privacy nomatter what they found out.

    In another way: would you allow video cameras to be installed in every room of your house. Ofcourse only for monitoring you for 'criminal activity'? I don't think so.
    Freedom is a very important right but most people are to easy in giving it away for a little bit of false security.

    Jeroen

  • Re:Uhh, WHAT? (Score:5)

    by Tet ( 2721 ) <.ku.oc.enydartsa. .ta. .todhsals.> on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @04:00AM (#957298) Homepage Journal
    I believe France has recently 'lightened up' on the use of encryption

    Yes, they have. In fact, they've gone quite a long way, much further than was needed to pacify French businesses. As a result, they've changed from being one of the most oppressive countries in Europe with regards to encyption, to one of the most liberal. See http://www.info-sec.com/cr ypto/99/crypto_020699a_j.shtml [info-sec.com].

  • To answer the question... (Score:3)

    by 11223 ( 201561 ) on Wednesday July 05, 2000 @04:02AM (#957300)
    What's going to happen to US/European relations when they find out the truth about Echelon?

    Two words: Absolutely Nothing.

    Why? First of all, the British were willing co-conspirators in all of this. There's a scapegoat inside the European community waiting for us.

    Secondly, every other European nation that counts has just as barbaric national security measusers as Echelon. They may not actually be Echelon, but they're concerned about the almighty National Security as much as we are too. They understand why we need Echelon.

    Thirdly, France is a muckracker. Nobody else in the community cares, and France can't do anything on its own without the support of the community.

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