July 5, 2000. Copyright 2000. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

BRITAIN AND U.S. ACCUSED IN SPY ROW

LONDON, July 5, Graphic News: FRANCE, backed by MEPs from most states, has launched a preliminary judicial investigation into the workings of the U.S.-led Echelon spy network, in which Britain is suspected of involvement in worldwide economic espionage.

The investigation could spark a diplomatic row with the United States, a spokesman for state prosecutor Jean-Pierre Dintilhac told reporters on Tuesday.

Dintilhac has ordered the state counter-intelligence agency DST to find out whether EchelonÕs activities could be qualified under French law as Òharmful to the vital interests of the (French) nation.Ó

The European Airbus consortium and Thomson CSF of France are among the reported losers, allegedly having been shut out of a $6 billion (£4 billion) airplane deal with Saudi Arabia in 1994 in favour of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas Corp. Following the loss of the sale France expelled five U.S. diplomats and officials, one of them the alleged Paris station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

James Woolsey, CIA director at the time said earlier this year that Washington had found that Airbus agents were offering bribes to a Saudi official.

ÒThatÕs right, my continental friends, we have spied on you because you bribe,Ó Woolsey wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

ÒWe havenÕt said a word to the U.S. companies in the competition,Ó he said. ÒInstead we go to the government youÕre bribing and tell its officials that we donÕt take kindly to such corruption,Ó Woolsey wrote.

The Echelon surveillance system, which globally monitors telephone, fax and e-mail communications, is a legacy of the Cold War. Canada, Australia and New Zealand joined the 1947 London-Washington alliance to pool security information.

At least 10 Echelon stations operate around the world, but the British GCHQ spy centre in Cheltenham and the sprawling Menwith Hill listening station in North Yorkshire are the most important sites outside America. The National Security Agency (NSA), the lead player in Echelon, operates the biggest data-collection centre at its headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, with a second listening station in Sugar Grove, West Virginia, about 250 miles from Washington.

The monitoring stations are capable of processing millions of messages an hour. The messages are reportedly sifted by so-called ÒdictionaryÓ super-computers that check messages against a database of targets such as names, topics, addresses and telephone numbers. If there is a match, the intercepts are displayed on-screen for security agents to analyze.

According to insiders the NSA -- which has a $4 billion (£2.7 billion) budget and employs 40,000 people -- eavesdropped on Diana, Princess of Wales over her work to ban land mines and Mark Thatcher, son of BritainÕs former prime minister, over arms deals with Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. Other targets included Amnesty International, Christian Aid and Greenpeace and even messages sent by the Pope and the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta were secretly spied on.

Coincidentally, the European Parliament is due to decide in Strasbourg on Wednesday (July 5) whether to set up a commission to investigate Echelon, despite the opposition of most British MEPs and strenuous lobbying by the UK government.
/ENDS

Sources: Reuters, Associated Press, Mario Profaca