Nexus - 0606 - New Times Magazine-pages

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POLITICAL USES OF ECHELON AND UKUSA dozen VAX computers that powered the ECHELON computers at Several incidents of domestic spying involving ECHELON Menwith Hill, came forth with the stunning revelation that she have emerged from the secrecy of the UKUSA relationship. had actually heard the NSA's real-time interception of phone con- What these brief glimpses inside the intelligence world reveal is versations involving South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. that, despite the best of intentions by elected representatives, pres- Newsham was fired from Lockheed after she filed a whistle- idents and prime ministers, the temptation to use ECHELON as a blower lawsuit alleging that the company was engaged in flagrant tool of political advancement and repression proves too strong. waste and abuse. After a top-secret meeting in April 1988 with Former Canadian spy Mike Frost recounts how former British then Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made a request in February Intelligence, Rep. Louis Stokes, Capitol Hill staffers familiar with 983 to have two ministers from her own government monitored the meeting leaked the story to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.” when she suspected them of disloyalty. In an effort to avoid the While Sen. Thurmond was reluctant to pressure for a thorough legal difficulties involved with domestic spying on high-level investigation into the matter, his office revealed at the time that it governmental officials, the GCHQ liaison in Ottawa made a had previously received reports that the Senator was a target of request to CSE for them to conduct the three-week-long surveil- the NSA.* After the news reports, an investigation into the matter ance mission at British taxpayer expense. Frost's CSE boss, discovered that there were no controls or questioning over who Frank Bowman, travelled to London to do the job himself. After could enter target names into the Menwith Hill system.” the mission was over, Bowman was instructed to hand over the The NSA, under orders from the Reagan Administration, also tapes to a GCHQ official at head office.* targeted Maryland Congressman Michael Barnes. Phone calls he Using the UKUSA alliance as legal cover is seductively easy. placed to Nicaraguan of: ls were intercepted and recorded, As Spyworld co-author Michel Gratton puts it: including a conversation he had with the Foreign Minister of "The Thatcher episode certainly Nicaragua, protesting the implementa- shows that GCHQ, like NSA, found tion of martial law in that country. ways to put itself above the law and Seemingly non-controversial Barnes found out about the NSA's spy- did not hesitate to get directly organisations have ended up ing after White House officials leaked involved in helping a specific politi- transcripts of his conversations to cian for her personal political bene- in the fixed gaze of reporters. CIA Director William Casey, fit... ECH ELON later implicated in the Iran-Contra affair, "[T]he decision to proceed with the _ showed Barnes a Nicaraguan Embassy London caper was probably not put Among the targeted cable that reported a meeting between forward for approval to many people A A embassy staff and one of Barnes' aides. up the bureaucratic ladder. It was organisations...were Amnesty The aide had been there on a profession- something CSE figured they would get International, Greenpeace, al call regarding an international affairs away with easily, so checking with the and Christian Aid issue, and Casey asked for Barnes to fire higher-ups would only complicate the aide. Barnes replied that it was per- things unnecessarily." fectly legal and legitimate for his staff to Frost also told of how he was asked meet with foreign diplomats. in 1975 to spy on an unlikely target: Prime Minister Pierre Barnes commented: "I was aware that NSA monitored interna- Trudeau's wife, Margaret Trudeau. The Royal Canadian Mounted tional calls, that it was a standard part of intelligence gathering. Police's (RCMP) Security Service division was concerned that the But to use it for domestic political purposes is absolutely outra- Prime Minister's wife was buying and using marijuana, so they geous and probably illegal." contacted the CSE to do the dirty work. Months of surveillance in Another former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee cooperation with the Security Service turned up nothing of note. has also expressed his concerns about the NSA's domestic target- Frost was concerned that there were political motivations behind ing. "It has always worried me. What if that is used on American the RCMP's request: "She was in no way suspected of espionage. citizens?" queried former Arizona Senator Dennis DeConcini. "It Why was the RCMP so adamant about this? Were they trying to is chilling. Are they listening to my private conversations on my get at Pierre Trudeau for some reason or just protect him? Or telephone?"! were they working under orders from their political masters?"** Seemingly non-controversial organisations have ended up in the The NSA frequently gets into the political spying act as well. fixed gaze of ECHELON, as several former GCHQ officials con- Nixon presidential aide John Ehrlichman revealed in his published fidentially told the London Observer in June 1992. Among the memoirs, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years, that Henry targeted organisations they named were Amnesty International, Kissinger used the NSA to intercept the messages of then- Greenpeace, and Christian Aid—an American missionary organi- Secretary of State William P. Rogers, which Kissinger used to sation that works with indigenous pastors engaged in ministry convince President Nixon of Rogers' incompetence. Kissinger work in countries closed to Western, Christian workers.” also found himself on the receiving end of the NSA's global net. In another story published by the London Observer, a former Word of Kissinger's secret diplomatic dealings with foreign gov- employee of the British Joint Intelligence Committee, Robin ernments would reach the ears of other Nixon administration offi- Robison, admitted that Margaret Thatcher had personally ordered cials, incensing Kissinger. As former NSA Deputy Director the communications interception of Lonrho, the parent company William Colby pointed out: "Kissinger would get sore as of the Observer, after the Observer had published a 1989 exposé hell...because he wanted to keep it politically secret until it was charging that bribes had been paid to Thatcher's son, Mark, in a ready to launch." multibillion-dollar British arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Despite However, elected representatives have also become targets of facing severe penalties for violating his indoctrination vows, spying by the intelligence agencies. In 1988, Margaret Newsham, Robison admitted that he had personally delivered intercepted a former Lockheed software manager who was responsible fora Lonrho messages to Mrs Thatcher's office. Seemingly non-controversial organisations have ended up in the fixed gaze of ECHELON... Among the targeted organisations...were Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Christian Aid... NEXUS - 21 POLITICAL USES OF ECHELON AND UKUSA OCTOBER —- NOVEMBER 1999