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Techno Warfare/MACRO-USGOV
Espionage Operations
More on Page 2....

Techno Warfare/ MACRO-USGOV Espionage Operations - Page 1
 Techno Warfare/MACRO-USGOV Espionage Operations - Page 2
 Techno Warfare/MACRO-USGOV Espionage Operations - Page 3
Techno Warfare/MACRO-USGOV Espionage Operations - Historicals

ILETS

DIRT

ECHELON

ENCRYPTION/HACKER/VIRUS WARS

Privacy and Free Speech take a back seat

The following series of articles, posts and commentaries are in reverse order, from the latest news to the origin of our following this on going tale of intrigue, espionage and the trampling of civil liberties on a global scale. This is one story that the Ameri-Advocate has not only pursued from its discovery in mid 1998 but we have also unfortunately been victims of this electronic conflict along with, now millions of others. If you are new to this tale then please proceed to the bottom of this page and work your way up. Once caught up I'm sure your going to want to come back often to catch the latest on this series.

A late breaking item,... for a complete breakdown on these technologies, the history and the agencies behind them, please click over to "Interception Tech 2000" If you thought we were joking all this time I promise you, after you read this site you'll realize exactly far this has gone and how long its been in the making.

Ellis

The New York Times, July 28, 1999
U.S. Drafting Plan for Computer Monitoring System
By JOHN MARKOFF

The Clinton Administration has developed a plan for an extensive computer monitoring system, overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to protect the nation's crucial data networks from intruders.

The plan, an outgrowth of the Administration's anti-terrorism program, has already raised concerns from civil liberties groups.

A draft prepared by officials at the National Security Council last month, which was provided to The New York Times by a civil liberties group, calls for a sophisticated software system to monitor activities on nonmilitary Government networks and a separate system to track networks used in crucial industries like banking, telecommunications and transportation.

The effort, whose details are still being debated within the Administration, is intended to alert law enforcement officials to attacks that might cripple Government operations or the nation's economy.

But because of the increasing power of the nation's computers and their emerging role as a backbone of the country's commerce, politics and culture, critics of the proposed system say it could become a building block for a surveillance infrastructure with great potential for misuse.

They also argue that such a network of monitoring programs could itself be open to security breaches, giving intruders or unauthorized users a vast window into Government and corporate computer systems.

Government officials said the changing nature of military threats in the information age had altered the nature of national security concerns and created a new sense of urgency to protect the nation's information infrastructure.

"Our concern about an organized cyberattack has escalated dramatically," Jeffrey Hunker, the National Security Council's director of information protection, who is overseeing the plan, said Tuesday. "We do know of a number of hostile foreign governments that are developing sophisticated and well-organized offensive cyber attack capabilities, and we have good reason to believe that terrorists may be developing similar capabilities."

As part of the plan, networks of thousands of software monitoring programs would constantly track computer activities looking for indications of computer network intrusions and other illegal acts.

The plan calls for the creation of a Federal Intrusion Detection Network, or Fidnet, and specifies that the data it collects will be gathered at the National Infrastructure Protection Center, an interagency task force housed at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Such a system, to be put fully in place by 2003, is meant to permit Government security experts to track "patterns of patterns" of information and respond in a coordinated manner against intruders and terrorists.

The plan focuses on monitoring data flowing over Government and national computer networks. That means the systems would potentially have access to computer-to-computer communications like electronic mail and other documents, computer programs and remote log-ins.

But an increasing percentage of network traffic, like banking and financial information, is routinely encrypted and would not be visible to the monitor software. Government officials argue that they are not interested in eavesdropping, but rather are looking for patterns of behavior that suggest illegal activity.

Over the last three years, the Pentagon has begun to string together entire network surveillance systems using filters that report data to a central site, much as a burglar alarm might be reported at the local police station.

Officials said such a system might have protected against intrusions recently reported in computers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces information like the consumer price index that can affect the performance of the stock market.

The draft of the plan, which has been circulated widely within the executive branch, has generated concern among some officials over its privacy implications. Several officials involved in the debate over the plan said that the situation was "fluid" and that many aspects were still not final.

The report is vague on several crucial points, including the kinds of data to be collected and the specific Federal and corporate computer networks to be monitored. The report also lacks details about the ways information collected in non-Governmental agencies would be maintained and under what conditions it would be made available to law enforcement personnel.

Government officials said that the National Security Council was conducting a legal and technical review of the plan and that a final version is to be released in September, subject to President Clinton's approval.

The plan was created in response to a Presidential directive in May 1998 requiring the Executive Branch to review the vulnerabilities of the Federal Government's computer systems in order to become a "model of information and security."

In a cover letter to the draft Clinton writes: "A concerted attack on the computers of any one of our key economic sectors or Governmental agencies could have catastrophic effects."

But the plan strikes at the heart of a growing controversy over how to protect the nation's computer systems while also protecting civil liberties -- particularly since it would put a new and powerful tool into the hands of the F.B.I.

Increasingly, data flowing over the Internet is becoming a vital tool for law enforcement, and civil liberties experts said law enforcement agencies would be under great temptation to expand the use of the information in pursuit of suspected criminals.

The draft of the plan "clearly recognizes the civil liberties implications," said James X. Dempsey, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington civil liberties group, "But it brushes them away."

The draft states that because Government employees, like those of many private companies, must consent to the monitoring of their computer activities, "the collection of certain data identified as anomalous activity or a suspicious event would not be considered a privacy issue."

Dempsey conceded the legal validity of the point, but said there was tremendous potential for abuse.

"My main concern is that Fidnet is an ill-defined monitoring system of potentially broad sweep," he said. "It seems to place monitoring and surveillance at the center of the Government's response to a problem that is not well suited to such measures."

The Federal Government is making a concerted effort to insure that civil liberties and privacy rights are not violated by the plan, Hunker said.

He said that data gathered from non-Government computer networks will be collected separately from the F.B.I.-controlled monitoring system at a separate location within a General Services Administration building. He said that was done to keep non-Government data at arm's length from law enforcement.

The plan also has drawn concern from civil libertarians because it blends civilian and military functions in protecting the nation's computer networks. The draft notes that there is already a Department of Defense "contingent" working at the F.B.I.'s infrastructure protection center to integrate intelligence, counterintelligence and law enforcement efforts in protecting Pentagon computers.

"The fight over this could make the fight over encryption look like nothing," said Mary Culnan, an professor at Georgetown University who served on a Presidential commission whose work led to the May 1998 directive on infrastructure protection.

"The conceptual problem is that there are people running this program who don't understand how citizens feel about privacy in cyberspace."

The Government has been discussing the proposal widely with a number of industry security committees and associations in recent months.

Several industry executives said there is still reluctance on the part of industry to directly share information on computer intrusions with law enforcement.

"They want to control the decision making process," said Mark Rasch, vice president and general counsel of Global Integrity, a company in Reston, Va., coordinating computer security for the financial services industries.

One potential problem in carrying out the Government's plan is that intrusion-detection software technology is still immature, industry executives said.

"The commercial intrusion detection systems are not ready for prime time," said Peter Neumann, a computer scientist at SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., and a pioneer in the field of intrusion detection systems.

Current systems tend to generate false alarms and thus require many skilled operators.

But a significant portion of the $1.4 billion the Clinton Administration has requested for computer security for fiscal year 2000 is intended to be spent on research, and Government officials said they were hopeful that the planned effort would be able to rely on automated detection technologies and on artificial intelligence capabilities.

For several years computer security specialists have used software variously known as packet filters, or "sniffers," as monitoring devices to track computer intruders. Like telephone wiretaps, such tools can be used to reconstruct the activities of a computer user as if a videotape were made of his computer display.

At the same time, however, the software tools are routinely misused by illicit computer network users in stealing information such as passwords or other data.

Commercial vendors are beginning to sell monitoring tools that combine packet filtering with more sophisticated and automated intrusion detection software that tries to detect abuse by looking for behavior patterns or certain sequences of commands.

___________________________________________________

HOUSE COMMITTEE TO HOLD PRIVACY HEARINGS
BARR OBTAINS COMMITMENT FROM GOVERNMENT REFORM

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Representative Bob Barr (GA-7) announced today House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Dan Burton (R-IN) has agreed to hold hearings this fall on government surveillance programs, such as the National Security Agency's reported "Project Echelon." On several occasions, Barr has expressed concerns that both foreign and domestic surveillance operations may be violating the privacy rights of American citizens.

Earlier this year, Barr successfully amended the FY 2000 Foreign Intelligence Authorization Act to require the Department of Justice, the National Security Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency to submit to Congress a report detailing the legal standards the agencies use when they eavesdrop on American citizens. A similar amendment has also been passed by the United States Senate.

Barr's concerns were prompted by news reports indicating a system known as Project Echelon is conducting massive interception of the private phone calls, e-mails, faxes and data transmissions of American citizens.

"As advances make information much easier to acquire, store, and search, we must make absolutely certain our legal structure develops in tandem with our technological infrastructure. More importantly, Congress must remain vigilant in ensuring government agencies adhere to existing laws governing surveillance activities. These hearings will help reassure the American public this is a responsibility Congress takes seriously," said Barr.

Barr, a former United States Attorney, serves on the House Banking, Government Reform, and Judiciary Committees.

___________________________________________________

The following post is not mine but did cross my desk today.
Alot of this is quite accurate and of this I know. However,
the other half where it gets into wireless unsanctioned
access to computers and bio-monitoring/access is in
my mind just a bit questionable. Yet one must remember
a certian rule of thumb. When this country publically
releases a technology for public viewing, (like the stealth
fighter, a public show of power in revealing ones hand,
you never reveal your ace) they obviously have something
in the neighborhood of 10 years advancement held back
from view. So fwiw, this is anyones guess. Personally,
nothing surprises me anymore.

ellis

My knowledge of the National Security Agency's structure,
national security activities, proprietary technologies and
covert operations to monitor individual citizens:
The NSA's mission and the NSA's domestic intelligence
operation:
Communications Intelligence (COMINT):
Blanket coverage of all electronic communications in the
U.S. and the world to ensure national security. The NSA at
Ft. Meade, Maryland has had the most advanced computers in
the world since the early 1960's. NSA technology is
developed and implemented in part from private
corporations, academia, and the general public.
Signals Intelligence (SIGINT):
The Signals Intelligence mission of the NSA has evolved
into a program of decoding EMF waves in the environment
for wirelessly tapping into computers and tracking persons
with the electrical currents in their bodies. Signals
intelligence is based on the fact that everything in the
environment with an electric current in it has a magnetic
field around it which gives off EMF waves. The NSA/DOD has
developed proprietary advanced digital equipment which can
remotely analyze all objects whether (tran-maze?) or
organic that have electrical activity.
Domestic Intelligence (DOMINT):
The NSA has records on all U.S. citizens. The NSA gathers
information on U.S. citizens who might be of interest to
any of the over 50,000 NSA agents (HUMINT). These agents
are authorized by executive order to spy on anyone. The NSA
has a permanent National Security Anti-Terrorist
surveillance network in place. This surveillance network
is completely disguised and hidden from the public.
Tracking individuals in the U.S. is easy and can be
effectively implemented with the NSA's electronic
surveillance network. This network (DOMINT) covers the
entire U.S. and involves thousands of NSA personnel, and
tracks millions of persons simultaneously. Cost-effective
implementation of operations is achieved by NSA computer
technology designed to minimize operations costs.
NSA personnel serve in quasi-public positions in their
communities and run cover business and legitimate
businesses that can inform the intelligence community of
persons they would want to track. NSA personnel in the
community usually have cover identities such as social
workers, lawyers, and business owners.
Individual citizens occasionally targeted for
surveillance by independently operating NSA personnel.
NSA personnel can control the lives of hundreds of
thousands of individuals in the U.S. by using the NSA's
domestic intelligence network and cover businesses. The
operations independently run by them can sometimes go
beyond the bounds of law. Long-term control and sabotage of
tens of thousands of unwilling citizens by NSA operatives
is likely to happen. NSA DOMINT has the ability to covertly
assassinate U.S. citizens or run covert psychological
control operations to cause subjects to be diagnosed with
ill mental health.
NSA's domestic electronic surveillance network:
As of the early 1960's the most advanced computers in the
world were at the NSA, Ft. Meade. Research breakthroughs
with these computers were kept for the NSA. At the present
time the NSA has advanced technology computers that are 15
years ahead of present computer technology.
The NSA obtains blanket coverage of information in the
U.S. by using advanced computers that use artificial
intelligence to screen all communications, regardless of
medium, for key words that should be brought to the
attention of NSA agents/cryptologists. These computers
monitor all communications at the transmitting and
receiving ends. This blanket coverage of the U.S. is a
result of the NSA's Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) mission.
The NSA's electronic surveillance network is based on a
cellular arrangement of devices that can monitor the entire
EMF spectrum. This equipment was developed, implemented and
kept secret in the same manner as other electronic warfare
programs.
Signals Intelligence Remote Computer Tampering:
The NSA keeps track of all PCs and other computers sold in
the U.S. This is an integral part of the Domestic
intelligence network.
The NSA's EMF equipment can tune in RF emissions from
personal computer circuit boards (while filtering out
emissions from monitors and power supplies). The RF
emission from PC circuit boards contains digital
information on the PC. Coded RF waves from the NSA's
equipment can resonate PC circuits and change data in the
PCs. Thus, the NSA can gain wireless modem-(?) entry into
any computer in the country for surveillance or anti-
terrorist electronic warfare.
Detecting EMF Fields in Humans for Surveillance:
A subject's bioelectric field can be remotely detected, so
subjects can be monitored anywhere they are. With special
EMF equipment NSA cryptologists can remotely read evoked
potentials (from EEGs). These can be decoded into a
person's brain-states and thoughts. The subject is then
perfectly monitored from a distance.
NSA personnel can dial up any individual in the country on
the Signals Intelligence EMF scanning network and the NSA's
computers will then pinpoint and track that person 24 hours-
a-day. The NSA can pick out and track anyone in the U.S.
NSA Signals Intelligence Use of EMF Brain Stimulation:
NSA Signals Intelligence uses EMF Brain Stimulation for
Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM) and Electronic Brain Link
(EBL). EMB Brain Stimulation has been in development since
the MK Ultra program of the early 1950's which included
neurological research into "radiation" (non-ionizing EMF)
and bioelectric research and development. The resulting
secret technology is categorized at the National Security
Archives as "Radiation intelligence" defined as "information
from unintentionally emanated electromagnetic waves in
environment, not including radioactivity or nuclear
detonation."
"Signals Intelligence implemented and kept this technology
secret in the same manner as other electronic warfare
programs of the U.S. government. The NSA monitors available
information about this technology and withholds scientific
research from the public. There are also international
intelligence agreements to keep this technology secret.
The NSA has proprietary electronic equipment that analyzes
electrical activity in humans from a distance. NSA computer-
generated brain mapping can continuously monitor all of the
electrical activity in the brain continuously. The NSA
records and decodes individual brain maps (of hundreds of
thousands of persons) for national security purposes. EMF
Brain Stimulation is also secretly used by the military for
brain-to-computer links. (In military fighter aircraft, for
example.)
For electronic surveillance purposes electrical activity
in the speech center of the brain can be translated into
the subject's verbal thoughts. RNM can send encoded signals
to the brain's auditory cortex thus allowing audio
communications direct to the brain (bypassing the ears).
NSA operatives can use this to covertly debilitate subjects
by simulating auditory hallucinations characteristic of
paranoid schizophrenia.
Without any contact with the subject, Remote Neural
Monitoring can map out electrical activity from the visual
cortex of a subject's brain and show images from the
subject's brain on a video monitor. NSA operatives see what
the surveillance subject's eyes are seeing. Visual memory
can also be seen. RNM can send images direct to the visual
cortex, bypassing the eyes and optic nerves. NSA operatives
can use this to surreptitiously put images in a
surveillance subject's brain while they are in R.E.M. sleep
for brain-programming purposes.
Capabilities of NSA operatives using RNM:
There has been a Signals Intelligence network in the U.S.
since the 1940's. The NSA, Ft. Meade has in place a vast
two-way wireless RNM system which is used to track subjects
and non- invasively monitor audiovisual information in
their brain. This is all done with no physical contact with
the subject. RNM is the ultimate method of surveillance and
domestic intelligence. Speech and 3D sound, and subliminal
audio can be sent to the auditory cortex of the subject's
brain (bypassing the ears) and images can be sent into the
visual cortex. RNM can alter a subject's perceptions, moods
and motor control.
Speech cortex/auditory cortex link has become the ultimate
communications system for the intelligence community. RNM
allows for a complete audiovisual brain-to-computer link.
NSA Signals Intelligence Electronic Brain Link Technology:
NSA SIGINT can remotely detect, identify and monitor a
person's bioelectric fields.
The NSA's Signals Intelligence has the proprietary ability
to remotely and non-invasively monitor information in the
human brain by digitally decoding the evoked potentials in
the 30-50 Hz 5 milliwatt electro-magnetic emissions from
the brain.
Neuronal activity in the brain creates a shifting
electrical pattern that has a shifting magnetic flux. This
magnetic flux puts out a constant 30-50 Hz 5 milliwatt
electromagnetic (EMF) wave. Contained in the
electromagnetic emission from the brain are patterns called
"evoked potentials."
Every thought, reaction, motor command, auditory event,
and visual image in the brain has a corresponding "evoked
potential" or net of "evoked potentials". The EMF emission
from the brain can be decoded into the current thoughts,
images and sounds in the subject's brain.
NSA SIGINT uses EMF-transmitted Brain Stimulators as a
communications system to transmit information (as well as
nervous system messages) to intelligence agents and also to
transmit to the brains of covert operations subjects for a
non-perceptible level).
EMF Brain stimulation works by sending a completely coded
and pulsed electromagnetic signal to trigger evoked
potentials (events) in the brain, thereby forming sound and
visual images in the brains' neural circuits. EMF Brain
Stimulation can also change a person's brain- states and
affect motor control.
Two-way electronic Brain-Link is done by remotely
monitoring neural audiovisual information while
transmitting sound to the auditory cortex (bypassing the
ears) and transmitting faint images to the visual cortex
(bypassing the optic nerves and eyes). The images appear as
floating 2-D screens in the brain.
Two-way electronic Brain Link has become the ultimate
communications system for CIA/NSA personnel. Remote neural
monitoring (RNM, remotely monitoring bioelectric
information in the human brain) has become the ultimate
surveillance system. It is used by a limited number of
agents in the U.S. Intelligence Community.
RNM requires decoding the resonance frequency of each
specific brain area. That frequency is then modulated in
order to impose information in that specific brain area.
The frequency to which the various brain areas respond
varies from 3 Hz. to 50 Hz. Only NSA Signals Intelligence
modulates signals in this frequency band.

An example of EMF Brain Stimulation:
(Brain Area: Bioelectric Resonance Frequency: Information
Induced Through Modulation)
----------------------------------------------------
Motor Control Cortex: 10 Hz: Motor impulse coordination
Auditory Cortex: 15 Hz: Sound which bypasses the ears
Visual Cortex: 25 Hz: Images in the brain bypassing the eyes
Somatosensory Cortex: 9 Hz: Phantom touch sense
Thought Center: 20 Hz: Imposed Subconscious Thoughts
----------------------------------------------------

This modulated information can be put into the brain at
varying intensities from subliminal to perceptible.
Each person's brain has a unique set of bioelectric
resonance/entrainment frequencies. Sending audio
information to a person's brain at the frequency of another
person's auditory cortex would result in that audio
information not being perceived.
The Plaintiff learned of RNM by being in two-way RNM
contact with the Kinnecome group at the NSA, Ft. Meade.
They used RNM 3D sound direct to the brain to harass the
Plaintiff from 10/90 to 5/91. As of 5/91 they have had two-
way RNM communications with the Plaintiff and have used RNM
to attempt to incapacitate the Plaintiff and hinder the
Plaintiff from going to the authorities about their
activities against the Plaintiff in the last twelve years.
The Kinnecome group has about 100 persons working 24 hours-
a-day at Ft. Meade. They have also brain-tapped persons the
Plaintiff is in contact with to keep the Plaintiff
isolated. This is the first time ever that a private
citizen has been harassed with RNM and has been able to
bring a lawsuit against NSA personnel misusing this
intelligence operation method.
NSA techniques and Resources:
Remote monitoring/tracking of individuals in any location,
inside any building, continuously, anywhere in the country.
A system for inexpensive implementation of these
operations allows for thousands of persons in every
community to be spied on covertly by the NSA.
Remote RNM Devices:
NSA's RNM equipment remotely reads the evoked potentials
(EEGs) of the human brain for tracking individuals and can
send mental images through the nervous system to affect
their performance.
(End of material received)
_________________________________________________

Monday, August 16, 1999
Digital Nation
U.S.-British Cyber-Spy System Puts European Countries on Edge
By GARY CHAPMAN

OVERETO, Italy--It felt like there was a
new Cold War developing at a conference
here last week on computers, networks and international security,
only this time the adversaries are the United States and Europe and
the field of conflict is cyberspace.

The revelation last year about the collaborative electronic
eavesdropping system developed by the U.S. National Security Agency
and British intelligence agencies, a system known as Echelon, has
become a huge topic of discussion in Europe.
The Echelon system can and does intercept "all e-mail, telephone and
fax communications" in Europe, according to a report delivered last
year to the European Parliament, and further investigations revealed
that this capability also covers Australia, New Zealand and other
countries.
The report's author, Steve Wright, director of Omega Foundation, a
British human rights group, was here last week and summarized his
investigation into Echelon.
"The Echelon system forms part of the U.K.-U.S.A. system but unlike
many of the electronic spy systems developed during the Cold War,
Echelon is designed for primarily nonmilitary targets: governments,
organizations and businesses in virtually every country," states
Wright's report, "An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control,"
(available on the Web at http://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm).
The report was prepared for the European Parliament's Scientific and
Technological Options Assessment (STOA) group. Its release in early
1998 shocked European government leaders. * * *
The chief piece of news that angered European politicians and
business executives was the allegation that Echelon data intercepts
are used for economic intelligence, and that the U.S. and British
governments pass on this information to private companies for
competitive advantage in trade talks, financial deals or contract
negotiations, Simon Davies, head of Privacy International in London
and another participant in the conference, wrote in an Aug. 4
commentary piece in The Times.
This is a particularly sensitive and explosive allegation, as Britain
is a member of the European Union and therefore must abide by EU laws
and treaties, one of which, the Maastricht Treaty, is specifically
aimed at leveling the playing field in EU commerce.
Also worrisome is that the "special relationship" between the U.S.
and British governments could allow each country's intelligence agency
to rely on the other to circumvent national privacy laws, according to
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy
Information Center in Washington. When the National Security Agency is
prohibited from certain kinds of domestic surveillance, it may get the
information from its British counterparts, and vice versa.
The STOA report produced a firestorm of controversy in Europe, but
got very little attention in the United States, something Wright
attributes to the fact that throughout 1998 the U.S. news media was
saturated with the scandal in the White House. The European Parliament
took the unprecedented step of holding hearings on Echelon in
September of last year, just about the time our impeachment hearings
were getting underway. * * *
A common response among many people confronted with the news about
Echelon is incredulity--how on earth could any organization intercept
all the telephone calls, e-mail and faxes of several hundred million
people? How could that volume of information be processed or analyzed?
Immense banks of intelligence agency supercomputers search for
keywords that are part of electronic "dictionaries," according to
reports on Echelon. These dictionaries include words or phrases that
are of interest to intelligence analysts, and are used to filter the
Niagara-like flow of data into the system.
Of particular concern to civil liberties and privacy activists is
that these digital dictionaries reportedly contain the names of
organizations such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace.
A great deal about Echelon and electronic surveillance in Europe is
unknown, because the NSA is one of the most secretive organizations in
the world--it was once known as "No Such Agency." The British
government, with its Official State Secrets Act, has even more powers
of secrecy than the U.S. government.
Consequently, the European Parliament and individual European
governments are demanding that U.S. and British intelligence agencies
hand over information about Echelon and implement mechanisms of
accountability.
In the U.S., an investigation into Echelon has been initiated by an
unexpected critic: Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), one of the congressional
leaders of the impeachment movement against President Clinton. Barr is
apparently such a foe of the federal government that he is taking on
the federal intelligence agencies, organizations not accustomed to
being challenged by Republicans.
A member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
Barr arranged for the panel to demand information on Echelon from the
NSA, which, for the first time in its history, refused to turn over
information and documents, citing attorney-client privilege.
Barr is expected to initiate hearings on Echelon sometime in the near
future. Ironically enough, Barr's extreme conservative views and his
well-known style of fiery rhetoric have alienated longtime advocates
of civil liberties who might otherwise be supporters of this
investigation. * * *
The prospect that all e-mail, faxes and telephone calls in Europe may
be under surveillance has led to a significant increase in the market
here for digital encryption products. But the U.S. government still
seems intent on limiting the export of the strongest encryption
techniques available. Both the House Intelligence Committee and the
House Armed Services Committee recently reversed a trend toward
relaxing encryption export controls and revised such legislation
already passed in other House committees.
Thus from a European point of view, the U.S. government appears to be
committed to spying on European citizens, companies and organizations,
but is also bent on preventing Europeans from buying strong
protections against such spying.
Organizations such as the NSA and Britain's MI5 were set up to
provide intelligence on military adversaries, but there are relatively
few of those left. The new domain of cyberspace has unlimited
potential for surveillance and intelligence gathering, unless citizens
intervene and demand democratic accountability of institutions left
around from the Cold War. * * *
Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the
University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at

gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.

Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved

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__________________________________________________

Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 1999 1:06 PM

Reddy and Wladawsky-Berger Named Co-Chairs of the PITAC

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release August 18, 1999
PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES RAJ REDDY AND IRVING WLADAWSKY-BERGER
AS CO-CHAIRS OF THE
PRESIDENT'S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The President today announced his intent to appoint Raj Reddy and
Irving Wladawsky-Berger to serve as Co-Chairs of the President's
Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC).
Dr. Raj Reddy, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has been a member of
the PITAC since February 1997. Dr. Reddy has served at Carnegie Mellon
University in several capacities: from 1991 to July 1999, as Dean of the
School of Computer Science; from 1979 to 1991, as founding Director of
the Robotics Institute; in 1973, as a full professor; and in 1969 as an
associate professor. Additionally, from 1992 to the present, Dr. Reddy
has been a Simon University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics
in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. From 1960 to
1963, he worked as an applied science representative for IBM Corp. in
Australia. Dr. Reddy is the recipient of several awards: The ACM
Turning Award in 1994; The IBM Research Ralph Gomory Fellow Award in
1991; and the Legion of Honor awarded by President Mitterand of France
in 1984. Dr. Reddy received his BE from University of Madras, his Mtech
degree from the University of New South Wales, Australia and his Ph.D.
from Stanford University.
Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, of Westport, Connecticut, has been a
member of PITAC since December 1997. Dr. Wladawsky-Berger has served at
IBM Corporation in several capacities, including General Manager of the
Internet Division from December 1995 to the present; General Manager of
RISC Systems 6000 Division from May 1995 to December 1995; from December
1991 to May 1995, as General Manager, POWER Parallel Systems. From 1985
to 1991, he worked in various executive positions in IBM's large-systems
development organization. From 1984 to 1985, he was Vice President of
Computer Sciences at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center. From 1970 to
1984, he fulfilled various professional and management assignments at
the Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Additionally, from 1984 to 1987,
he served as member of the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics,
and Resources, also of the National Research Council. Dr.
Wladawsky-Berger received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from the
University of Chicago.
The High Performance Computing Act of 1991 (P.L. 102-94) was
enacted in 1991. As a part of the Act, the President is required to
establish an Advisory Committee to provide advice and information on
high-performance computing and communication. The President's
Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) is established by
Executive Order and provides valuable guidance to the Office of Science
and Technology Policy, and the agencies involved in the PITAC
Initiative. The PITAC Initiative is a one-billion dollar, multi-agency
research and development program authorized by the Act.
30-30-30

__________________________________________________

Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 1999 12:22 PM
Subject: 1999-08-17 President Signs Military Construction Appropriations Act


THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release August 17, 1999

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
Today I have signed into law H.R. 2465, the "Military Construction
Appropriations Act, 2000," which provides funding for military
construction and family housing programs of the Department of Defense
(DOD).
The Act funds the vast majority of my request for military
construction projects, the military housing program, and other
quality-of-life projects for our military personnel and their families.
The requested projects are critical to supporting military readiness
and the quality of life of our soldiers and their families. However,
I have several concerns with the bill:
- For the second consecutive year, the Congress has not provided
the requested level of construction funding for the Chemical
Weapons Demilitarization program. This year's reduction of
$93 million to my request substantially increases the risk
that the United States will not meet the 2007 Chemical Weapons
Convention deadline for the destruction of these chemical
weapons. The sooner these weapons are destroyed, the safer we
will all be.
- The Congress has chosen to add funds for projects that DOD has
not identified as priorities. In particular, $301 million is
provided for 40 projects that are not in DOD's Future Years
Defense Program (FYDP).
- The Congress has again included a provision (section 113) that
requires the Secretary of Defense to give 30 days advance
notice to certain congressional committees of any proposed
military exercise involving construction costs anticipated to
exceed $100,000. In approving H.R. 2465, I wish to reiterate
an understanding, expressed by Presidents Reagan and Bush when
they signed Military Construction Appropriations Acts
containing a similar provision, that this section encompasses
only exercises for which providing 30 days advance notice is
feasible and consistent with my constitutional authority and
duty to protect the national security.
I urge the Congress to pass all of the FY 2000 appropriations bills
as quickly as possible and send them to me in an acceptable form. As
of today, the Congress has finished its work on only two of the thirteen
appropriations bills. Moreover, many of the remaining bills would
require deep cuts in essential government programs, including education,
law enforcement, science and technology, the environment, and programs
to advance global security through the peaceful use of diplomacy,
helping minimize our chances of needing to use military force to the
same ends.
When it returns in September, the Congress still has a great deal of
work to do. I urge the Congress to approach this work responsibly in
order to pass funding bills which are sufficient to meet our Nation's
needs in the year 2000.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
August 17, 1999.

__________________________________________________

Excerpt: "On one of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial walls, there is an inscription that reads, "They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order." What will be contained in these pages for the most part is not new, but the words are for those who are bolder than those who are brazen enough to think that individuals rights for some Americans can be lessened. " ____08/12/99

Arguments For Human Research Subject Protection Without Waivers or Exceptions: An Analysis of Common Rule

by Anthony N. Lalli, Advocate and Volunteer for Informed Consent
September, 1997
Contents
copyrights 1997 - 1999 (c) Anthony N. Lalli, All Rights Reserved

Analysis:

Research Liability&Immunity

I nvoluntary Servitude

Specimen Exploitation

I nformed Consent:Chart

Waivers&Exceptions

Model

Learned Helplessmess

Contents

Introduction

The Problem

Exceptions

IRB

Temperament

Informed Consent

A Ruse & Abuse

L. Helplessmess

Conclusion

Bibliography

Keywords

In The Stacks

Gulf War Reports

Mind Control

Radiation Report

McKinney Report

Contents

Introduction

On one of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial walls, there is an inscription that reads, "They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order." What will be contained in these pages for the most part is not new, but the words are for those who are bolder than those who are brazen enough to think that individuals rights for some Americans can be lessened.

While ethics is the conscience of America, it is The United States Constitution that we entrust with our individual rights, yet in the case of human research subject protection, individual rights have been taken from some citizens, and without due process of law. We must recoup these protections for them, and we must not submit to the level of those who would put upon these individual research subjects as though they were some how lesser. This covert gash in America's side has festered long enough, and because most Americans are unaware (23) of this abuse, it does not make it any less shameful. Therefore, it is time that we find the resolve to fight back, and muster what it takes to pass human research subect protection legislation (3). However, it will take a wagon load of voices to stir of those hearts with sensitivity, and rumble the callousness in those with an onus to irresponsibility, and who have a propensity to contort the United States Constitution, which is not only unconstitutional, but flagrantly unconscionable.

The purpose of this paper is to show cause for concern in regard to the weakness that exist in Common Rule (1), especially, where there may be deficiencies in human research subject protection, within the areas of social experimentation, nonlethal weapons testing, military human research, and of which there may be joint interest. Moreover, while Legislation (3) is necessary, it should be understood that, it would really be a refinement of Constitutional Law. Yes, this paper is about making Common Rule (1) conform with The United States Constitution, which is the people's document for the protection of individual rights. Therefore, the notion of a Institutional Review Board (IRB) and what their function ought to be, rather than what their function is today, will be discussed. In this paper the concept of behavior modification will encompass any technique whether it be surgical, or from radiation, or from electronics, or from any other artificial means that are intended to affect the behavior of an individual. Stolz (6) defines it in relationship to measurement. "Behavior modification practice involves measuring the occurrence of the behavior to be changed and of the desired behavior; many persons believe that the emphasis on measurement is the distinguishing hallmark of behavior modification." Furthermore, a presentation of informed consent will be portrayed as the bedrock of human research subject protection. Finally, the overall goal of this paper is to educate those readers that are unaware of a subject that is largely unpublicized.

________________________________

The Problem

The Footnote

In 1974, through the leadership of Senator Edward M. Kennedy and others, a National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Experimentation was formed (9,3). Some of it's initial findings were this: _____

[1.]

[2.]

[3.]

There is a widespread and growing interest in the development of methods designed to predict, identify, control, and modify individual human behavior.

Few substantive measures have as yet been taken to resolve the important questions of freedom, privacy, and self-determination raised by behavior control technology

The Federal government is heavily involved in a variety of behavior modification programs ranging from simple reinforcement techniques to psychosurgery..

Now some five years later, in 1979, The Belmont Report dismissed many of these three findings in a footnote and virtually sanctioned a path to circumvent individual rights in the United States, and because of this type of shortcoming, Legislation (3) should be put in place to address this kind of flaw. Here is that footnote, "3Because the problems related to social experimentation may differ substantially from those of biomedical and behavioral research, the Commission specifically declines to make any policy determination regarding such research at this time. Rather, the Commission believes that the problem ought to be addressed by one of its successor bodies." Then at the December 1996 National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) conference, Dr. Mangel makes this statement (8) , "...some of the behavioral research may not be getting the kind of scrutiny that it should at least under the rules that exist today.", and while this was an important point, alerting those at that particular meeting of the possibility of abuse, the point virtually goes unnoticed and it appears it never merited discussion in that meeting, nor in the January, 1997 meeting that followed (10). It seems that the NABC is getting comfortable with deciding who and who is not covered under The United States Constitution. Here is what was troubling to Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., in 1974 when he chaired the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, "...Recently, however, technology has begun to develop new methods of behavior control capable of altering not just an individual's actions but his very personality and manner of thinking as well. Because it affects the ability of the individual to think for himself, the behavioral technology being developed in the United States today touches upon the most basic sources of individuality, and the very core of personal freedom." Some may wonder, is there still cause for concern , but as recent as 1993, the The Wall Street Journal(WSJ) (23) had this to say, " 'A wide range of disabling measures, technologies and applications now exists,' it states, 'this was not true 10 years ago.' " Yet, there is still more, US & News and World Report (16) confirms the WSJ's report and basically says the technology is still being pursued,____

But now that the cold war has ended and the United States is engaged in more humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, the search for weapons that could incapacitate people without inflicting lethal injuries has intensified. Police, too, are keenly interested. Scores of new contracts have been let, and scientists, aided by government research on the "bioeffects" of beamed energy, are searching the electromagnetic and sonic spectrums for wavelengths that can affect human behavior.

But, besides the so called non-lethal radiation based weaponry, there is a group of non-lethal chemical weaponry being researched (17). However, McKinney (7) made some significant points regarding the former type of technology.

Indeed, directed-energy technologies appear to have evolved at such a rapid rate that they are now being promoted as the "Final Solution" to crime -- preliminarily, at a classified conference sponsored by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, hosted by the John Hopkins Applied Physics, and supported by the American Defense Preparedness Association.

Clearly, given this conference, data concerning the efficacy of acoustical, how-power microwave, laser, ELF/RF weapons and "psychotropic" systems is sufficient to allow for their now being promoted as tools for law enforcement. What is note worthy in this sudden flurry of activity is that no one has bothered to ask the following very basic questions:

1.

2. Where is the test data being obtained?

What, so far, has prevented this government and its contractors from testing these technologies on U.S. citizens under involuntary circumstances?

Absent answers to -- or government interest -- these questions; and because the

symptoms experienced by those now in touch with this Project parallel those reported in the media as being the effects of directed-energy targeting, we conclude that no restraints have been placed on those charged with the development and testing of directed-energy systems; and the U.S. citizens are indeed being experimented upon under involuntary circumstances.

On the other hand, while we have to be very careful when it comes to protecting individual rights, yet, I find co-author (13) and Chairman of the NBAC Subcommittee on Human Research Subject Protection (8,10), Dr. James F. Childress, comments puzzling when he says in his book, "Coercion and controlling manipulation are occasionally justified, although these occasions are infrequent in medicine (by contrast to police work, where such techniques are more common and also more commonly justified)."

Are we justified to use coercive (7,6), as well as noncoercive (6), techniques without due process of the law? Later in this paper, this notion will be expanded under the topic informed consent and The United States Constitution. However, it is important to realize that these weapons are not necessarily all that non-lethal and they could be especially dangerous. Thomas E. Ricks of The Wall Street Journal comments on just how lethal these weapons are (23), "Despite the name, nonlethal weapons are hardly gentle, and in a few instances, they could even make war more grotesque. For example, powerful lasers designed to destroy an enemy tank's optics could also explode a soldier's eyeballs. Portable microwave weapons being field tested by the U.S. Special Forces can quietly cut enemy communications but also can cook internal organs." Furthermore, these technologies are beginning to be researched in law enforcement, again, Thomas E. Ricks goes on to say (23), "Some research is spilling into the civilian sector, too. The Justice Department's research arm is piggybacking several projects and expects within a few years to test foam and light immobilizes for use against everything from ordinary domestic disturbances to prison riots."

It appears that some of the spillage may be in the form of low tech incessant harassment and stalking techniques in combination, with high tech techniques (7), and this should be disturbing to any fair minded person, because it is a reminder of the United States' dark past, where there once were (24) human rights abuses in connection with the surveillance of Americans; albeit, it was undoubtedly more low tech methodology in those days, as compared to some of todays techniques, and while it was harmful then, the potential for harm today is on the scale of human torture, without the marks, and therefore, it is very justifiable to parallel these low tech surveillance methods of the past with the combined high/low tech techniques under development today, as described by McKinney (7). Here is a short excerpt that documents low tech surveillance methods in America's recent history (24), " The material is expected to put the FBI in the embarrassing position of being identified as a "state actor," a term used by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to describe informers and officials who helped the commission spy on citizens and civil rights workers more than 30 years ago."

Injustice

In The Belmont Report (2) there is mention of injustice in the following context.

[1.]

[2.]

[3.] "An injustice occurs when some benefit to which a person is entitled is denied without good reason or when some burden is imposed unduly." The words "or when some burden is imposed unduly," should be studied in terms of the present Common Rule (1) which states,

An IRB may approve a consent procedure which does not include, or which alters, some or all of the elements of informed consent set forth above, or waive the requirement to obtain informed consent provided the IRB finds and documents that: 1. the research or demonstration project is to be conducted by or subject to the approval of state or local government officials and is designed to study, evaluate, or otherwise examine: ( i ) public benefit or service programs;... 2. the research could not practically be carried out without the waiver or alteration.

Then Common Rule (1) goes on to say,

"The informed consent requirements in this policy are not intended to preempt any applicable Federal, State, or local laws which require additional information to be disclosed in order for informed consent to be legally effective."

Of the three quotes that have been just cited, it is the second that should baffle one's common sense and sense of justice. It appears to leave in the hands of a Institutional Review Board (IRB) the authority to waive the protection of The United States Constitution. In addition, how can waivers apply in Common Rule (1), when in the third quote it speaks to "not intended to preempt," where waivers and exceptions would most certainly preempt the Constitution, and where waivers and exceptions would most certainly preempt the concept of justice as defined in the first quote. There can be no place for waivers and exceptions when it comes to informed consent, and still have the Constitutional rights of the individual human research subjects protected. Mind you, this concept of no waivers or exceptions, is an absolutist's concept, but the notion of absolutism concerning adhering to the Constitution should not go unnoticed nor unchanged in it's resolve to protect all Americans, and certainly speaks to injustices in Common Rule (1) today.

Jurisdiction

During the December, 1996 NBAC meeting Dr. Ellis made an important point and a strong justification for Bill S.193 (3), here is Dr. Ellis's statement (8),_____

DR. ELLIS: There is no office in the federal government that is a central authority that has authority over all human subjects research across the federal government. Each agency is responsible for its own funds. OPRR in the Department of Health and Human Services could be described as first among equals because of the assurance process. So if there is an assurance with the Department of Health and Human Services in place at a research site that must be deferred to by other agencies. That is in the Common Rule.

...DR. ELLIS: But let me pursue it. If two agencies other than the Department of Health and Human Services were involved there certainly is no requirement that OPRR be notified about research they may be collaborating on. Although if it is occurring at a site that is assured by the Department of Health and Human Services we would be involved.

If Bill S.193 (3) were passed, it would bring to human research subject protection, a common central authority, based in law, covering both private and public research, and justifiably to include private research, whether or not it is funded (32,34,35) by the U.S. Government.

_________________________________

Exceptions to the Rule

Public Benefit

In Common Rule (1), in the next quote, the word " research" is emphasized because it is this kind of wording that leaves an opening for making exceptions where some could construe that there can be exceptions in the case of any research that is aimed at having a public benefit, and therefore, this gives enormous authority to the researcher and little protection to the human research subject. "46.101... (b)(5) Research and demonstration projections which are conducted by or subject to the approval of Department or Agency heads, and which are designed to study, evaluate, or otherwise examine: (i) Public benefit or service programs; (ii) procedures for obtaining benefits or services under those programs;..."

Final Judgment and Waivers

In the following quote, this notion of non-legal entities making judgments about the individual rights of Americans will be covered next, but the following words speak for themselves (1), "46.101... (c) Department or Agency heads retain final judgment as to whether a particular activity is covered by this policy."

Bill S.193 (3) should be a law where waivers and exceptions of informed consent do not apply. Presently in Common Rule (1) what follows is an example of waivers that seems to be very broad where the Department or Agency heads decide whether other laws are being breached. A single Bill S.193 (3), disallowing waivers and exceptions of informed consent would better protect human research subjects, and should over ride any other law that would exempt or waive informed consent. Here is how Common Rule (1) reads today, "46.101... (i) Unless otherwise required by law, Department or Agency heads may waive the applicability of some or all of the provisions of this policy to specific research activities or classes of research activities otherwise covered by this policy."

Notice again the words "Unless otherwise required by law,"(1) which suggests that "non-legals" who may be Department or Agency heads are interpreting what is legal and not legal. However, what is most perplexing about this practice, is that human subject protection is required by law, that is, human subject protection is covered under US Constitutional law, which is being ignored by those Departments and Agencies that are not getting proper informed consent.

_________________________________
Institutional Review Board

Researchers as Judges and Jury

Because individual rights can be threatened by human researchers, and because of the possibility of waivers and exceptions that are written into Common Rule (1), and especially because the IRB members are not a part of the judiciary, the IRB's primary responsibility should be as the name implies, to protect the institution and its members, while Bill S.193 (3) would protect the subject; and if it were to become law, it would penalize the principal researcher(s) who did not conform to the Bill; and if the IRB, acted responsibly, but was deceived by an individual researcher(s), then the IRB members and their institution would in essence be protected from liability, and the burden of penalty would fall on the principal researcher(s) who violated the Human Research Subject Protection Act of 1997 (3), and thus violators would be processed through the judicial system. Here is what was said, as far back as 1974 (9): _____

'...The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare must know that these committees have neither the capacity nor the time nor the resources nor the interest to confront this complex assignment. For that reason alone the proposed rules are dangerous to the welfare of the research subjects and to the objectives of science. The committee cannot fulfill the obligations which the proposed rules seek to impose on them. Moreover, evenif the committees could rise to this task, it would be a repetitive and burdensome assignment for each committee to formulate its own policies.'

Yet even today, members of the December 1996 NBAC (8) were echoing the same sentiment. Here is what Dr. Cassell had to say at that meeting: _____

Well, I do not know the regulatory structure well enough to answer the question above. But at the IRB level I think IRB directors have to be interviewed. I think, for example, the nontechnical members of the IRB have to be interviewed. They are always ready to talk to you privately and they are always expressing frustration that they do not know what the hell is going on until they have been there two years. And by the time they have been there two years they are about to rotate off again. So another ignorant person is about to come on and get educated for two years.

Evading the IRB

When the onus is on the individual researcher to get informed consent and to conform to other ethical practices, then this notion of evading the IRB would be moot, because if this type of tactic were used, the IRB would not be responsible, but the individual certainly should have to answer under Bill S.193 (3), for their evasive behavior. For instance, here are two examples of evasive tactics (11),

First, what is considered "delay" in the reviewing process may generate evasion techniques. At University Hospital and Research Center, it takes about a month from the time a protocol is submitted to the time it is considered by the review committee. Researchers racing to establish priority of discovery or those who feel that some case or situation presents them with "now or never" opportunities to do research may both feel that this is an unacceptably long time to wait (13). Instead of waiting, they go ahead without submitting a protocol for review at all or, alternatively, submit a protocol but go ahead before it is approved."

A second structural source of evasion of, or indifference to, peer review procedures arises from the genuine and not infrequent ambiguity regarding what is "clinical research"and what is a small, everyday variation on standard medical or surgical procedure.

_________

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

While most IRB members are probably not legally trained to protect the individual rights of human research subjects, when it decides on waivers and exceptions, yet what is more disconcerting is that a particular IRB could also be biased as an entire group in its judgment on these matters. For instance, here is what some research has indicated (11),

In sum, though our interviewees did not indicate that ethical standards are a conscious criterion for selecting their collaborators, in fact they do tend to select collaborators who have the same ethical standards as they do. This tendency to similarity in expressed standards, as we indicated earlier, tends to decrease the likelihood that one collaborator will disagree with ethical decisions made by another. That is fine where both collaborators have strict standards. But where collaborators tend to share permissive standards, they are not likely to enforce the stricter ethical norms of the majority of the wider research community on each other.

________________________________

Ethics and Temperament

Anecdote

Last winter I was sitting at a coffee bar reading, when a gentlemen sat next to me. I could not help but notice that he had a stack of military aircraft magazines that he was browsing. I was about to leave, but before I did, I struck up a conversation with the man. It turned out that he was a war modeler for the United States Department of Defense (DoD) (36), but we never did exchange introductions, so I did not get his name. However, since I have a interest in risk modeling, I became interested in what he had to say. One thing led to another, and then I asked him about the Gulf War as it related to President George Bush's decision, which was not to destroy the entire Republican Guard elite Iraqi Army that was in retreat. My view was that President Bush did the right thing by not killing an Army that was retreating, and a Army that was obviously a "siting duck." I said it would have been immoral. I then asked the man, if this was the kind of modeling that he did, and he said yes, but he was quick to add, morality was not factored into their modeling equations, and he also said that he disagreed with President Bush's decision.

In retrospect, and as a US Army Veteran myself, I am not shocked by the man's disregard for morality as a defense modeler. It is my view, that people, whether it be at the DOD, or in other protective type capacities, are not paid to think in terms of morality. They are paid to find ways to protect, and because of that, it is one reason we have civilian rule. The problem is, even in law enforcement today, there is a tendency to move more toward military tactics. For instance, there has been a increase in military style SWAT teams throughout the United States in an effort to combat crime (12). Where the problem lies, is in the temperament of the individuals running these Departments and Agencies. The question is, should these individuals, with this kind of moral temperament, be engaged in human research, or have authority over researchers engaged in human research? Furthermore, if this notion of birds of a feather indeed flock together holds credence, wouldn't civilian, as well as military researchers, involved in protection, have a tendency to recruit researchers that either believe in their value system, or at least, would adapt to their value system? It is in this kind of human research that especially requires Bill S.193 (3), and it should be a law that can not be bypassed by waivers, exceptions (1) or through the national security (19) umbrella. The individual rights of Americans should not be subjected to the whims and rationalizations of people who think the Constitution does not apply to them when enforcing the law or defending the Country. To give the reader a feel for the military mind set, here is how the Pentagon viewed the health and safety of the U.S. ground troops during the Gulf War, and who are , that is up to 100,000, complaining of Gulf War Syndrome; this is what James Tuite III, a former Senate investigator had to say (25) to USA Today, " 'The report conclusively establishes that the Pentagon had reason to believe prior to the war that our troops would be exposed to chemical agents," said Tuite. "It permanently tarnishes our image of the decision makers and top generals.' "

The same article (25) also describes why Risk Science and therefore Risk Assessment are very qualitative tools, because of the multi variants involved in determining risk.

He stressed that more sophisticated computer techniques have been developed in the seven years since the first report, that the recent CIA studies pushed "worstcase" scenarios but still couldn't get the exposure cloud over most of the combat theater, and that Pentagon_medical calculations show troops would have had to have been underneath a chemical plume for three days before showing even minimal symptoms.

The Pentagon's Gilroy noted: "The very first sentence of the Livermore report complains of _'a paucity of data regarding source terms' - meaning they didn't know anything about the number of rockets, types of gas, storage methods and such."

________

Physicians As Consultants

Yet, and beyond the battlefield theater of operations research, what is also worrisome is having had Government consulting physicians operating from some of our civilian university medical centers (19,29). When it comes to ethical loyalties, which standard do these Department and Agency medical consultants answer, and or, do they really answer to grant money that such associations would perhaps favor for their Institution? Furthermore, this idea of using doctors as consultants, and or researchers, under people who do not have the temperament to be ethical researchers has a dark history, here is an account in recent history where foreign governments employed doctors as consultants which can only be viewed as human rights abuses (19), "Nothing I had researched before could have prepared me for the dark reality of doctors who set out to deliberately destroy minds and bodies they were trained to heal."

Protecting Military Personnel

Presently, and as has been the case since the birth of this nation, Military personnel sacrifice a lot, but they should not have to sacrifice their rights to quality health care; and duty to Country (13), in this regard, should be strictly defined. I believe the the military doctor's duty should be to the patient, except only in the most narrow circumstances, such as in a field hospital, under desperate combat conditions, where every man is required to fight in order to survive. But to think for instance, that in a non-combat clinical scenario, or in human research under any conditions, that a doctor's duty is to his Country rather to the patient or to the human research subject, is irresponsible. One reason for concern lies in this excerpt from an abstract (14) published on the Internet and written by a fifteen year NBC investigative reporter, Jon Rappoport where he describes: _____

Distinguished investigative reporter JON RAPPOPORT brings his latest book to the public: US GOVERNMENT MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN. This expose' tears off the cover from suppressed testimony given in March, 1995, before the President's Advisory Committee on Radiation, in Washington. Three witnesses from New Orleans told the Committee that illegal and murderous radiation experiments on unwitting American citizens were just the BEGINNING of what happened to children under the control of CIA and US military doctors.

Bill S.193 (3) must cover all Americans without exception and it must include military personnel and their dependents, because the men and women who join the Military do not join to become human experimental subjects, that is, without informed consent.

_________________________________

Informed Consent

The Necessity For Human Subjects

There could be several reasons why a researcher may not get consent from a subject, or at the the very most, may get consent through the use of deceit or coercion. For instance, some subjects may simply refuse to participate in some types of research, or two, human subjects who are uninformed subjects are economical. For example, the closest relative to humans is the chimpanzee, and it is estimated to cost $300,000 to maintain a single chimp over it's life span (15). But one could argue that there are smaller and less expensive research animal alternatives. This may be true, but the problem is that eventually, at some stage in the research and development design intended for humans, human subjects will probably be required. Here is a point made by Dr. Albert Sabin on this subject (18), "1. Some of the most important preventative and therapeutic products in current use in human medicine could not have been developed without the use of adult human volunteers in nontherapeutic medical research, that is, research on persons who do not have the disease or disorder under study and are not in immediate danger of acquiring it." Bernard Barber (11) in essence suggested the same thing, "Although research starts in the laboratory and then proceeds to animal testing, eventually all new procedures, new techniques, new drugs have to be tested for efficacy in man. As Dr. Henry Beecher, a pioneer among those concerned for the ethics of research, has put it, man is 'the final test site.' Or, in other words, ' man is the animal of necessity' in this situation."

United States Constitution

Let us examine a minimal baseline case, for argument sake, where the expected outome is focused on reproducible results, within a repetitive design. If one were to take what might appear to be even the most benign example, where a artificial condition is set up; for example, where one is observing the behavior of another, that is, where there is some kind of bate or lure that is introduced. Even though the responses are not recorded specifically, the human subject is participating in an experiment, because of the artificial nature of the method, even though, in the broad sense, the documentation and the systematic process is masked deliberately or by ineptness, there is still an evaluation of the subject and therefore it is research (1,3). Thus, at least three Constitutional Amendment rights come into question when human experimentation on Americans is performed without informed consent. First, the Thirteenth Amendment (5,31) is violated, because the individual is being evaluated for a response without their consent, therefore that person is contributing to an overall knowledge, and someone is benefiting from that knowledge, at the expense of the human subject, consequently this can be construed as "involuntary servitude". One could even carry this argument into the Fifth and Sixth Amendments (5,31) , if for instance, the human subject is being monitored because he may fit some type of anti-social profile, and through directives initiated without "due process", one could conclude individual rights under the Fifth Amendment become an issue. Moreover, where the subject is not "informed of the nature and cause of the accusations" against him, then one could conclude his Sixth Amendment (5,31) rights are transgressed. All of these infractions of individual rights can be resolved, if the individual is informed, and thus we find another justification for Bill S.193 (3).

Here is how concerned Chairman Sam J. Ervin was in 1974, about absence of strict controls (9), and while he is talking about behavior modification, as he knew it then, he could just of easily have been talking about non-lethal weaponry (7, 17) experimentation and testing which actually is aversive behavior modification methodology. Here is the Chairman,

This is not to say that all behavior therapy is inherently evil. Many types of therapy which result in the modification of behavior have proved beneficial to our society. But whenever such therapies are applied to alter men's minds, extreme care must be taken to prevent the infringement of individual rights. Concepts of freedom, privacy and self-determination inherently conflict with programs designed to control not just physical freedom, but the source of free thought as well. Moreover, because the power of federal government is limited to the implementation of the Constitution and the protection of constitutional rights, there is a real question whether the government should be involved at all in programs that potentially pose substantial threats to our basic freedoms. The question becomes even more acute when these programs are conducted, as they are today, in the absence of strict controls.

Now, individual rights obviously are a big concern, and yet, while we are all equal, under the law, our public elected officials, because of their leadership role warrant a special comment. So, at this point, and not trying to sound like an alarmist, however I would like to make one editorial note which falls somewhere between research and application. This notion of strict controls, for instance, on nonlethal weaponry, especially comes into play when considering that these high tech agents of control, whether in the research testing or application phase, could conceivably be intentionally directed lethally at a public elected official, and perhaps leaving no signs or evidence of their use. Therefore the Chairman's call for strict controls merits a concern for this class of weapons (aversive behavior modification technology), and should perhaps even go beyond the bounds of research. For those who would dismiss this possibility, one should keep in mind that previous assassinations and disabling of public officials is really an attempt to shape the behavior of a people and thus a nation, and it is something I believe President Roosevelt was alluding to in his quote at the opening of this paper, albeit, he was not speaking to this concept, in a technological sense.

Declaration of Independence

Take another for instance, the Law Enforcement Assistant Administration in 1974, abolished aversive behavioral modification techniques, because at that time they did not have the personnel with the proper technical skills to carry out such methods adequately (6). However presently (32,37,38), while no culpable Department or Agency is definitively apparent, a pattern of human subject testimonial evidence (7) suggests that aversive behavioral modification methods are being practiced on the American public at large. Furthermore, these techniques (7) are affecting the " life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, (27,30)" of these Americans, and I charge it is because of waivers and exceptions in Common Rule (1), and furthermore, because of that attitude argued earlier in The Belmont Report's footnote (2).

A Massachusetts Case

First, a questionnaire was sent out to the researchers who from 1943 to 1973 performed radioactive tracer experiments on mentally impaired human subjects without informing their parents or guardians. Here is one of the consent questions that was sent to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where the studies took place as a result of an investigation (20), "Consent. The Task Force is closely evaluating the question of informed consent in connection with human subjects research. With regard to such project identified in your answer to Question 1, please state whether consent was sought and/or obtained for the study, and if so, from whom. Please describe how consent was obtained, and identify any documents ..."

Here is MITs response (20), " I am sorry to hear that at least some of the young people who participated in this research and their parents apparently were unaware that the study involved radioactive tracers. People should not unknowingly become the subjects of research studies of this type." I emphasized the words "this type," because it implies that there are types of experiments that MIT performs that informed consent is not necessary. Again, waivers and exceptions must be abolished under Common Rule (1).

Comprehension

While the NBAC is debating Common Rule (1), there must be emphasis not only requiring informed consent, but informed consent that requires disclosure with comprehension (3,8,21). Read what G. J. Annas had to say,

For example, Bradford Gray has demonstrated in his studies of women involved in trials using an experimental method of labor induction, that even though they had signed a consent form which indicated the experimental nature and risks of the study, forty percent did not realize that they were in an experimental study when their participation began and forty-one percent did not realize that any risks were involved. 43 If this is typical, and there is little reason to suppose it is not, new mechanisms must be developed to supplement oral and printed form disclosures to insure that the subjects comprehend the information disclosed."

Moreover, here are two separate points, in regard to States' statutes (21) and why a Federal statute would bring a single standard of protection to all Americans through national uniformity in a single Bill, furthermore, Common Rule (1) should be written to protect the human research subject, and not a researcher who violates the spirit of the policy.

Most of the statutes attempt, in one way or another, to make it more difficult for a patient to be successful in a suit against a physician for failure to obtain informed consent."

....What most legislatures that have acted on this question to date are concerned with is disclosure on the part of the physician, rather than understanding on the part of the patient.

In addition, the concept of risk should be evaluated by the subject, and it should be the human subject who decides what the subject views as risk, because in my view Risk Science, while it deals in numbers, it is very much qualitative. Therefore, informed consent should be required without exception, because even what might appear to be so called non-risk, such as some behavior modification methods, all risks should be disclosed because there can be unintended side affects as described in the next statement (6),

Measurement of the behaviors under study is a virtually universal characteristic of behavior modification practice. Because "side effects" ----changes in behaviors that are not the target of intervention------are possible in behavior modification, just as in other psychological interventions, a number of behaviors in addition to those targeted for change should be monitored. The published literature in behavior modification suggests that when behavioral procedures are used, both positive and negative changes may occur in the client's other behaviors.

_________________________________

A Ruse & Abuse

National Security

Another area of deception where Agencies and Departments should not conceal human research without obtaining informed consent is research that is masked under the umbrella of National Security. Gordon Thomas cites Bob Woodward, who alludes to this same subject (19), "Bob Woodward of the Washington Post has rightly reminded all of us of the need to try and distinguish between what should genuinely be kept secret for the sake of national security and what officialdom tries to hide under the guise of security, when what is really at stake is the uncovering of inept decision-making and unethical behavior."

It is too easy to bypass individual rights where some Agencies and Departments could simply classify a project as a part of National Security, where the projects would not be subject to peer review or publication, or, where getting informed consent could be at the discretion of researchers who may not have the temperament required for ethical research. Bill S.193 (3) would safe guard Americans against this possibility, where Americans' individual rights would be protected even when National Security is an issue, because Bill S.193 (3) would not allow for exceptions or waivers under Title II (3), and hopefully, before the arguments are concluded, the same will hold true for Title I (3). Furthermore, the National Security Act (33) was formed to protect America's security, which really translates into protecting Americans, so there is a inconsistency here when Americans' individual rights are not protected under a National Security setting, at least from a human research perspective.

Finally, while secrecy is important, it should not bypass civilian rule through Congressional oversight, and Congressional oversight should not be looked upon as mere snooping for the sake of curiosity. Thomas E. Ricks makes this point (23),

The Pentagon's nonlethal study group came away so enthusiastic that it not only recommended a major push into nonlethal weapons, but also suggested that President Bush announce a public initiative akin to President Reagan's unveiling of his Strategic Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars." That idea drew fire. Taking non lethality public "would have the effect of spurring our adversaries to look into this , "says one Pentagon policy maker. Other experts thought that a presidential declaration might make further development prone to political meddling." [bold italics for emphasis]

Later in the article, it goes on to say (23),

So Pentagon policy makers decided to intensify the non lethality effort but to do it even more secretly than previously. They also seem to have cut out Janet Morris and Ray Cline, who were perceived within the Pentagon as meddlesome and uncontrollable outsiders. To make non lethality even less visible, policy makers decreed that it henceforth would be referred to as "disabling systems" technologies.

_____

Psychology/Psychiatry Definitions

McKinney, in her 1994 report (7), suggests another reason how techniques, for instance, using microwave harassment, stalking and mind control methods, are sanctioned in the United States. Her reasoning is based on the Psychology/Psychiatric industry's negligence in their definitions. Here is her statement, _

It should be noted that The American Psychiatric Association -- in its various revisions of the Diagnostic and Statistical of Mental Illness -- seems to have conveniently omitted all reference to harassment, stalking, mind-control experimentation and torture as a case for mental illness. (The DSM is a psychiatric profession's diagnostic "bible."). The APA's refusal to acknowledge the impact of terrorization upon the human psyche, even given the publicity stemming from the Church Committee's findings in 1975, raises serious questions about the validity of psychiatry as a profession in this country, not to mention, the APA's ethical intent, in the long term.

If McKinney's assessment holds up (more current search in progress), then it is about time that the National Institute of Health use its influence to correct this ruse, but in the mean time, Bill S.193 (3) should recognize that these techniques are harmful to human subjects and the Bill should be written in such a manner as to protect Americans from definitions imposed on Americans by a negligent community of doctors.

Moreover, one must understand, techniques in harassment and stalking may on the surface seem benign, but when continuous, over time they can be damaging as in fact many Americans are complaining about (7). However, here is what a CNN Interactive report had to say about such tactics as when used as a method for religious persecution abroad (22):

Studies like these led to the State Department survey of suppression, harassment and other atrocities around the globe.

'The issue of persecution is a serious one affecting many religions,' Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck said. 'The issue has not previously received much attention with respect to Christians, and the focal point of this report, at the request of Congress, is that subject.'

Again for emphasis, I bold faced and italicized the word "harassment." Incessant harassment is a technique used as method of torture and persecution by suppressive governments engaged in human rights abuses. It is a technique that must not continue to be used in the United States (7) , and the Psychology/Psychiatric industry should recognize that it is aversive behavior modification method, and when used deliberately over time, can cause harm . Even the State Department appears to recognize harassment as a technique in human persecution, it is about time the Psychology/Psychiatric industry follow their lead. But harassment and stalking, in conjunction with nonlethal technology is a form of high tech human torture and it is this kind of human subject research that hopefully will fall under the protection of Bill S.193 (3), in its' final version.

In addition, to understand this synergistic prescription for human torment, let me explain it in in terms of the experimental design. I contend the concept is structured around the learned helplessness animal model (4), and I believe that this is the paradigm being used today in the United States for which best demonstrates the potential damage and best parallels the combination of aversive techniques, as described by McKinney (7). Here is a description of the learned helplessness animal experimental model (4), which is a form of torture:

The concept of learned helplessness is based on the work of Seligman (1975), who observed this helpless condition among animals unable to alter their environments. In this experiments he subjected dogs to random shocks at variable intervals that were completely unrelated to their behavior. Nothing they could do would protect them from the shocks. Under this treatment the dogs became passive and refused to leave their cages as the shocks continued, even though the cage doors eventually were left open.

The key to the learned helplessness model is punishment that is totally unrelated to the victim's behavior, that is, the victim does not have to do anything wrong to be punished. Consequently, it in effect, places the victim (in this case, a n American citizen) under a virtual house arrest without "due process" of law, and therefore these techniques are in violation of the Fifth Amendment (5,31). But what is worse, the victim often does not know why he is being victimized, because the person is never "informed of the nature and cause of the accusations," in accordance to the Sixth Amendment (5,31). Finally, and not to reiterate the same argument posed earlier, under the topic The United States Constitution, but in this case too, the Thirteenth Amendment also comes into question; and because this is cruel and unusual punishment, then the Eighth Amendment (5,31) is violated.

The Comparison of the Models of Non Democracy

Suffice to say there were numerous behavior modification methods practiced by the North Koreans on our captured US Military personnel (29), but there is one that stands out as very similar in outcome to that of the learned helplessness model. On the other hand, there is one big difference between the two methods, one technique is easier applied to a captive audience, such as a POWs, where the other can be practiced in a free society, on the public at large, and covertly. Yet, the one thing that both methods have in common is informing, or put another way, both are organized surveillance methods, directed at a targeted victim. Another common denominator is that they are both psychological torture techniques.

We have looked at the learned helplessness model, in brief, now let us examine the basics of the North Korean POW method of human torture, which I have named the "reward informant model," and that ultimately is designed to confine a individual, seemingly voluntarily (29), but really involuntarily through behavior modification; and please notice, that the victim's outcome is the same that occurs in the learned helplessness model. Here is a brief description of the "reward informant model,"

Rewards were also the basis of a sophisticated information system developed by party chiefs in their prison camps. One U.S. Psychiatrist who participated in a study of brainwashed prisoners from the Korean War said: 'We found that they (the North Korean communist leaders) encouraged informing public, and promptly and generously rewarded any man who did inform [on his fellow POW].

'So the POW's did the only thing they could to protect themselves against this widespread spying. They withdrew from each other. They insulated themselves against other prisoners, committing themselves involuntarily to the most magnificently constructed solitary confinement cell that any dictator ever conceived. ...'

Notice the similar results, whether under the learned helplessness model, or through human North Korean style torture , both victims regardless of the method, would involuntarily confine themselves. The choice between the two methods obviously for an experimenter practicing their craft in a open democracy, where one must act covertly to bypass "due process", and bypass all the other applicable Constitutional Amendments, would be the learned helplessness model. Legislation is needed to stop human experimentation of this kind (7).

Private Research

Again, at the December, 1996 NBAC meeting (8), Dr. Ellis raises another important point regarding private research, here is Dr. Ellis's statement,

DR. ELLIS: As much as thirty percent of the -- as many as thirty percent of the complaints we get are about research not funded by a federal entity which is a sobering fact in terms of our authority and our jurisdiction because our authority with certain exceptions stops where federal funds stop.

So we are talking about the perimeter of protection of Americans who may be -- for Americans who may be involved in human subject research, the protections of institutional review board review, of informed consent. There is a perimeter of that protection and there are individuals who are human subjects in the United States who are beyond that perimeter today.

Then in that same meeting (8), the subject turns to private drug research and informed consent. First let us see what Dr. Evo had to say,

DR. EVO: I am Grace Evo with Eli Lily and I just want to comment on CRO's. If a company makes a decision to use a CRO generally the company is going to evaluate that CRO to make sure that the data that is derived from that work is going to be usable for a drug submission. _So the worse thing that could happen would be for a company to pay serious money to a CRO and have the data thrown out because an IRB was not properly constituted or some other mistake.

Generally CRO's with their own private facilities are in Phase I or Phase II levels of
research. They are in the early stages. But if you go into a major trial in a Phase III where you are talking about thousands of patients you are usually back at a hospital setting or a university setting with an independent IRB associated with that institution.

So it is very rare that you get to "the pivotal" studies for a drug submission within little CRO's, Phase I or Phase II clinic. That would not happen. Almost all pivotal studies are investigated by FDA and they are very closely monitored for human subject protection at that stage.

Here is a concern, and one alluded to during Bill S.193 introduction (3), under the present rules, pilot experiments could be performed on relatively small populations of human subjects, and while these kinds of experiments are preliminary, they can also have unknown risk factors. Pilot experiments theoretically could go as far as Phase II and never get reviewed by an IRB because the projects are designed to be terminated in the short term. If a pilot project is predicted to be successful, the experimental design probably will be scaled up and the larger experimental human populations would have the benefit of a IRB because of human subject protection criteria set down for pivotal phase research, which would requires IRB review. In the mean time, those pilot Phase I and Phase II human research subjects, may have been subjected to perhaps dangerous conditions, because there was no IRB. In other words, under Bill S.193, all phases of experimentation must get informed consent and all phases should be subject to a IRB's for verification. But again, once the debate is over, private research that is not government funded, should also answer to Bill S.193.

_________________________________

Conclusion:

Millions of research projects are conducted throughout the United States annually and because of these efforts there has been scientific advances that have helped all Americans. Bill S.193 (3) is not intended to stifle science, it is intended to protect Americans from unethical human researchers, that is, human researchers that do not obtain proper informed consent from human research subjects. Both the infamous radiations (28) experiments, as well as the syphilis experiments are projects that should have never happened, and if America is truly sorry (26 ) for such human rights abuses, it must do everything it can to prevent non-consensual human experimentation. The United States can not sit back and allow unethical human experimentation to proceed and then wait for both the subjects, and perhaps even many of the researchers, to eventually die off, before these acts are exposed, and as it stands today, this seems to be Common Rule (3) policy. American human research subjects must be protected, and protected without exceptions or waivers which should be all inclusive for both private and public research. To paraphrase Senator Glen's remarks when he introduced Bill S.193 (27) to the 105th U.S. Congress, if you would not volunteer a member of your own family for non-consensual human research, why would you volunteer any other American, where in the eyes o f God and The Declaration of Independence (30), we are all equal?

_________________________________

Bibliography:

1. PRR Reports, Protection of Human Subjects, Title 45, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 46, Revised June 18, 1991, Reprinted April 2, 1996. Department of Health and Human Services.

2. The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, "The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research." April 18, 1979. Department of Health and Human Services.

3. U.S. Congress, "The Human Research Subject Protection Act of 1997". Introduced into the 105th Congress. January 22, 1997.

4. Loring, Marti Tamm. Emotional Abuse. Lexington Books, NY, 1994.

5. "The United States Constitution." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1997, Groliers Interactive, Inc. CD-ROM

6. Stolz, Stephanie B., et al. Ethical Issues in Behavior Modification. Report of The American Psychological Association Commission, 1978.

7. McKinney, Julianne, 1994. "Electronic Surveillance Project , 'Microwave Harassment and Mind Control Experimentation'", Association of National Security Alumni. OnLine. URL:http://pw2.netcom.com/~alalli/pageone.html, (June, 1998).

8. Transcript. National Bioethics Advisory Commission, "Human Subjects Subcommittee." National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. December 16, 1996. Eberlin Reporting Service, Silver Spring, MD

9. The Staff of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee On the Judiciary United States Senate Ninety-Third Congress, Second Session. Individual Rights and The Federal Role In Behavior Modification. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington : 1974

10. Transcript. National Bioethics Advisory Commission, "Human Subjects Subcommittee." National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. January 10, 1997. Eberlin Reporting Service, Silver Spring, MD

11. Barber, Bernard, et al. 1979. Research On Human Subjects: Problem of Social Control In Medical Experimentation., Russell Sage Foundation, NY

12. Booth, William. The Washington Post, "Exploding Number of SWAT Teams Sets Off Alarms: Critics See Growing Role of Heavily Armed Police Units as `Militarization' of Law Enforcement" June 17, 1997. URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/, (June, 1997).

13. Beauchamp, Tom L, et al. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press, 1994.

14. ABSTRACT: Rappoport, Jon. "US Government Mind Control Experiments on Children"Online, no date published, URL: http://www.yami.se/art/96/hagd/proj/mindcontrol.htm (June, 1998).

15. Saltus, Richard. The Boston Globe Online, "Animal benefits: Panel urges retirement for excess chimps." July 17, 199. URL: http://www.boston.com/globe/, (July, 1997).

16. Pasternak, Douglas. "Wonder Weapons:The Pentagon's quest for nonlethal arms is amazing.
But is it smart?," News & World Report, July 7, 1997. OnLine,
URL: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/, (August, 1997).

17. Dando, Malcom. A New Form of Warfare: The Rise of Non-Lethal Weapons. Brassey's, Washington, 1996.

18. National Academy of Sciences, 1975. "Experiments and Research with Humans: Values in Conflict", Academy Forum Third of a Series., Washington, D.C.

19. Thomas, Gordon. Journey into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse. Bantam Books, New York, 1989.

20. Campbell, Philip. "A Report on the Use of Radioactive Materials in Human Subject Research that Involved Residents of State-Operated Facilities with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1943 through 1973". Submitted by the Task Force on Human Subject Research, April 1994.

21. Annas, George J., et al. Informed Consent to Human Experimentation: The Subject Dilemma. Ballinger Publishing Company. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1977.

22. Hurst, Steve, CNN Interactive, "Church and State: Unusual Government Report Focuses on Christian Persecution." Online, July 23, 1997. URL: http://www.cnn.com/, (July, 1997).

23. Ricks, Thomas E. The Wall Street Journal. "Nonlethal Arms, New Class of Weapons Could Incapacitate Foe Yet Limit Casualties," January 4, 1993.

24. Wilkie, Curtis, The Boston Globe Online. "Files to show FBI as civil rights foe," July 30, 1997.
URL: http://www.boston.com/globe/, (July, 1997).

25. Hanchette, John, Gannett News Service, USA Today . "Pentagon was aware of Gulf chemical threat," Online. August 14, 1997. URL: http://www.usatoday.com/, (August, 1997).

26. Owen, Elizabeth. Time Daily , "Tuskegee Apology: Clinton makes amends to victims of Tuskegee study," Online. May 16, 1997. URL: http://www.pathfinder.com/@@NwQDWgcAlAFuYgO5/time/, (August, 1997).

27. U.S. Congress. Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resoulutions (Senate - January 22, 1997), Online. Human research Subject Protection Act. URL:http://thomas.loc.gov/, (August, 1997).

28. Department of Energy. "Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments - Final Report." URL: http://nattie.eh.doe.gov/systems/hrad/report.html, ( June, 1998).

29. Camellion, Richard. Behavior Modification The Are of Mind Murdering. Paladin Press, Boulder, CO, 1978.

30. "The Declaration of Independence." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1997, Groliers Interactive, Inc. CD-ROM

31. "The United States Constitution." Avalon Project at Yale Law School. OnLine,
URL: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/usconst.htm, (June, 1998).

32. Martin, H.V. et al., "Mind Control", Napa Sentinel, 1991. A Series.

33. "The National Security Act" Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1997, Groliers Interactive, Inc. CD-ROM

34. Community of Science. "Federally Funded Research in the U.S." Online.
URL: http://fundedresearch.cos.com/, (June, 1998).

35. Lalli, Anthony N., 1997. "An Abstraction of Informed Cosnsent in the USA." OnLine.
URL: http://pw2.netcom.com/~alalli/Research_chart.html, ((June, 1998)..

36. DoD Biomedical Research. OnLine.
URL: http://dticam.dtic.mil/dodbr/index.html, (June, 1998).

37. Department of Army. "U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social
Sciences." OnLine. URL: http://www-ari.army.mil/, (June, 1998).

38. Coummunity of Science. "NSF Grants- Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences."
OnLine. URL: http://fundedresearch.cos.com/nsf/nsf-select/sbe.html, (June, 1998).

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home_ contents_

_Copyrights (c) 1997-1999 Anthony N. Lalli _____All Rights Reserved

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COINTELPRO Revisited
Spying and Disruption ©©
by Brian Glick

|
Introduction
|



Activists across the country report increasing government harassment and disruption of their work:

-In the Southwest, paid informers infiltrate the church services, Bible
classes and support networks of clergy and lay workers giving sanctuary to
refugees from El Salvador and Guatamala.

-In Alabama, elderly Black people attempting for the first time to
exercise their right to vote are interrogated by FBI agents and hauled before
federal grand juries hundreds of miles from their homes.

-In New England, a former CIA case officer cites examples from his own
past work to warn college students of efforts by undercover operatives to
misdirect and discredit protests against South African and US racism.

-In the San Francisco Bay Area, activists planning anti-nuclear civil
disobedience learn that their meetings have been infiltrated by the US
Navy.

-In Detroit, Seattle, and Philadelphia, in Cambridge, MA, Berkeley,CA.,
Phoenix, AR., and Washington, DC., churches and organizations opposing US
policies in Central America report obviously political break-ins in which
important papers are stolen or damaged, while money and valuables are left
untouched. License plates on a car spotted fleeing one such office have
been traced to the US National Security Agency.

-In Puerto Rico, Texas and Massachusetts, labor leaders, community
organizers, writers and editors who advocate Puerto Rican independence are
branded by the FBI as "terrorists," brutally rounded-up in the middle of
the night, held incommunicado for days and then jailed under new preventive
detention laws.

-The FBI puts the same "terrorist" label on opponents of US intervention
in El Salvador, but refuses to investigate the possibility of a political
conspiracy behind nation-wide bombings of abortion clinics.

-Throughout the country, people attempting to see Nicaraguafor themselves
find their trips disrupted, their private papers confiscated, and their
homes and offices plagued by FBI agents who demand detailed personal and
political information.

These kinds of government tactics violate our fundamental constitutional
rights. They make it enormously difficult to sustain grass-roots
organizing. They create an atmosphere of fear and distrust which undermines any effort
to challenge official policy.

Similar measures were used in the 1960s as part of a secret FBI program
known as "COINTELPRO." COINTELPRO was later exposed and officially ended.
But the evidence shows that it actually persisted and that clandestine
operations to discredit and disrupt opposition movements have become an
institutional feature of national and local government in the US. This
pamphlet is designed to help current and future activists learn from the
history of COINTELPRO, so that our movements can better withstand such
attack.

The first section gives a brief overview of what we know the FBI did in
the 60s. It explains why we can expect similar government intervention in the
80s and beyond, and offers general guidelines for effective response.

The main body of the pamphlet describes the specific methods which have
previously been used to undermine domestic dissent and suggests steps we
can take to limit or deflect their impact.

A final chapter explores ways to mobilize broad public protest against
this kind of repression.

Further readings and groups that can help are listed in back. The
pamphlet's historical analysis is based on confidential internal documents prepared
by the FBI and police during the 60s.

It also draws on the post-60s confessions of disaffected government agents,
and on the testimony of public officials before Congress and the courts.
Though the information from these sources is incomplete, and much of what
was done remains secret, we now know enough to draw useful lessons for
future organizing.

The suggestions included in the pamphlet are based on the author's 20
years experience as an activist and lawyer, and on talks with long-time
organizers in a broad range of movements. They are meant to provide starting points
for discussion, so we can get ready before the pressure intensifies. Most are
amatter of common sense once the methodology of covert action is
understood.
Please take these issues seriously. Discuss the recommendations with other
activists. Adapt them to the conditions you face. Point out problems and
suggest other approaches. It is important that we begin now to protect our
movements and ourselves.

|
What Was COINTELPRO?
|

"COINTELPRO" was the FBI's secret program to undermine the popular upsurge
which swept the country during the 1960s. Though the name stands for
"Counterintelligence Program," the targets were not enemy spies. The FBI
set out to eliminate "radical" political opposition inside the US. When
traditional modes of repression (exposure, blatant harassment, and
prosecution for political crimes) failed to counter the growing
insurgency, and even helped to fuel it, the Bureau took the law into its own hands and
secretly used fraud and force to sabotage constitutionally- protected
political activity. Its methods ranged far beyond surveillance, and
amounted to a domestic version of the covert action for which the CIA has become
infamous throughout the world.

|
How Do We Know About It?
|

COINTELPRO was discovered in March, 1971, when secret files were removed
from an FBI office and released to news media. Freedom of Information
requests, lawsuits, and former agents' public confessions deepened the
exposure until a major scandal loomed. To control the damage and
re-establish government legitimacy in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate,
Congress and the courts compelled the FBI to reveal part of what it had
done and to promise it would not do it again. Much of what has been learned,
and copies of some of the actual documents, can be found in the readings
listed at the back of this pamphlet.

|
How Did It Work?
|

The FBI secretly instructed its field offices to propose schemes to
"misdirect, discredit, disrupt and otherwise neutralize "specific
individuals and groups. Close coordination with local police and
prosecutors was encouraged. Final authority rested with top FBI officials in
Washington, who demanded assurance that "there is no possibility of embarrassment to
the Bureau." More than 2000 individual actions wereofficially approved. The
documents reveal three types of methods:

1. Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political
activists. Their main function was to discredit and disrupt. Various means
to this end are analyzed below.

2. Other forms of deception: The FBI and police also waged psychological
warfare from the outside--through bogus publications, forged
correspondence, anonymous letters and telephone calls, and similar forms of deceit.

3. Harassment, intimidation and violence: Eviction, job loss, break-ins,
vandalism, grand jury subpoenas, false arrests, frame- ups, and physical
violence were threatened, instigated or directly employed, in an effort to
frighten activists and disrupt their movements. Government agents either
concealed their involvement or fabricated a legal pretext. In the case of
the Black and Native American movements, these assaults--including
outright political assassinations--were so extensive and vicious that they amounted
to terrorism on the part of the government.

|
Who Were The Main Targets
|

The most intense operations were directed against the Black movement,
particularly the Black Panther Party. This resulted from FBI and police
racism, the Black community's lack of material resources for fighting
back, and the tendency of the media--and whites in general--to ignore or
tolerate attacks on Black groups. It also reflected government and corporate fear
of the Black movement because of its militance, its broad domestic base and
international support, and its historic role in galvanizing the entire
Sixties' upsurge. Many other activists who organized against US
intervention abroad or for racial, gender or class justice at home also came under
covert attack. The targets were in no way limited to those who used physical
force or took up arms. Martin Luther King, David Dellinger, Phillip Berrigan and
other leading pacifists were high on the list, as were projects directly
protected by the Bill of Rights, such as alternative newspapers.

The Black Panthers came under attack at a time when their work featured
free food and health care and community control of schools and police, and when
they carried guns only for deterrent and symbolic purposes. It was the
terrorism of the FBI and police that eventually provoked the Panthers to
retaliate with the armed actions that later were cited to justify their
repression.

Ultimately the FBI disclosed six official counterintelligenceprograms:
Communist Party-USA (1956-71); "Groups Seeking Independence for Puerto
Rico" (1960-71); Socialist Workers Party (1961-71); "White Hate Groups"
(1964-71); "Black Nationalist Hate Groups" (1967-71); and "New Left" (1968- 71).The
latter operations hit anti-war, student, and feminist groups. The "Black
Nationalist" caption actually encompassed Martin Luther King and most of
the civil rights and Black Power movements. The "white hate" program
functioned mainly as a cover for covert aid to the KKK and similar right-wing
vigilantes, who were given funds and information, so long as they confined
their attacks to COINTELPRO targets. FBI documents also reveal covert
action against Native American, Chicano, Phillipine, Arab- American, and other
activists, apparently without formal Counterintelligence programs.

|
What Effect Did It Have
|

COINTELPRO's impact is difficult to fully assess since we do not know the
entire scope of what was done (especially against such pivotal targets as
Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, SNCC and SDS),and we have no generally
accepted analysis of the Sixties. It is clear,however, that:

-COINTELPRO distorted the public's view of radical groups in a way that
helped to isolate them and to legitimize open political repression.

-It reinforced and exacerbated the weaknesses of these groups, making it
very difficult for the inexperienced activists of the Sixties to learn from
their mistakes and build solid, durable organizations.

-Its violent assaults and covert manipulation eventually helped to push
some of the most committed and experienced groups to withdraw from grass-roots
organizing and to substitute armed actions which isolated them and
deprived the movement of much of its leadership.

-COINTELPRO often convinced its victims to blame themselves and each other
for the problems it created, leaving a legacy of cynicism and despair that
persists today.

-By operating covertly, the FBI and police were able to severely weaken
domestic political opposition without shaking the conviction of most US
people that they live in a democracy, with free speech and the rule of
law.

|
Did COINTELPRO Ever Really End?
|

Public exposure of COINTELPRO in the early 1970s elicited a flurry of
reform. Congress, the courts and the mass media condemned government
"intelligence abuses." Municipal police forces officially disbanded their
red squads. A new Attorney General notified past victims of COINTELPRO and
issued Guidelines to limit future operations. Top FBI officials were
indicted (albeit for relatively minor offenses), two were convicted, and
several others retired or resigned. J. Edgar Hoover--the egomaniacal,
crudely racist and sexist founder of the FBI--died, and a well-known
federal judge, William Webster, eventually was appointed to clean house and build
a "new FBI."

Behind this public hoopla, however, was little real improvement in
government treatment of radical activists. Domestic covert operations were
briefly scaled down a bit, after the 60s' upsurge had largely subsided,
due inpart to the success of COINTELPRO. But they did not stop. In April,
1971, soon after files had been taken from one of its offices, the FBI
instructed  its agents that "future COINTELPRO actions will be considered on a highly
selective, individual basis with tight procedures to insure absolute
security." The results are apparent in the record of the subsequent years:

-A virtual war on the American Indian Movement, ranging from forgery of
documents, infiltration of legal defense committees, diversion of funds,
intimidation of witnesses and falsification of evidence, to the
para-military invasion of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and
the murder of Anna Mae Aquash, Joe Stuntz and countless others;

-Sabotage of efforts to organize protest demonstrations at the 1972
Republican and Democratic Party conventions. The attempted assassination
of San Diego Univ. Prof. Peter Bohmer, by a "Secret Army Organization" of
ex-Minutemen formed, subsidized, armed, and protected by the FBI, was a
part of these operations;

-Concealment of the fact that the witness whose testimony led to the 1972
robbery-murder conviction of Black Panther leader Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt
was a paid informer who had worked in the BPP under the direction of the FBI
and the Los Angeles Police Department;

-Infiltration and disruption of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and
prosecution of its national leaders on false charges (Florida, 1971-74);

-Formation and operation of sham political groups such as "Red Star
Cadre," in Tampa, Fla., and the New Orleans "Red Collective" (1972-76);

-Mass interrogation of lesbian and feminist activists, threats of
subpoenas, jailing of those who refused to cooperate, and disruption of women's
health collectives and other projects (Lexington, KY., Hartford and New
Haven,Conn., 1975);

-Harassment of the Hispanic Commission of the Episcopal Church and
numerous other Puerto Rican and Chicano religious activists and community
organizers (Chicago, New York City, Puerto Rico, Colorado and New Mexico, 1977);

-Entrapment and frame-up of militant union leaders (NASCO shipyards,San
Diego, 1979); and

-Complicity in the murder of socialist labor and community organizers
(Greensboro, N.C., 1980).

|
Is It A Threat Today?
|

All this, and maybe more, occured in an era of reform. The use of similar
measures in today's very different times cannot be itemized in such
detail, since most are still secret. The gravity of the current danger is evident,
however, from the major steps recently taken to legitimize and strengthen
political repression, and from the many incidents which are coming to
light despite stepped-up security.

The ground-work for public acceptance of repression has been laid by
President Reagan's speeches reviving the old red-scare tale of worldwide
"communist take-overs" and adding a new bogeyman in the form of domestic
and international "terrorism." The President has taken advantage of the
resulting political climate to denounce the Bill of Rights and to red-bait
critics of US intervention in Central America. He has pardoned the FBI
officials convicted of COINTELPRO crimes, praised their work, and spoken
favorably of the political witchhunts he took part in during the 1950s.

For the first time in US history, government infiltration to "influence"
domestic political activity has received official sanction. On the pretext
of meeting the supposed terrorist threat, Presidential Executive Order
12333 (Dec. 4, 1981) extends such authority not only to the FBI, but also to the
military and, in some cases, the CIA. History shows that these agencies
treat legal restriction as a kind of speed limit which they feel free to
exceed, but only by a certain margin. Thus, Reagan's Executive Order not
only encourages reliance on methods once deemed abhorent, it also
implicitly licenses even greater, more damaging intrusion. Government capacity to
make effective use of such measures has also been substantially enhanced in
recent years:

-Judge Webster's highly-touted reforms have served mainly to modernize the
FBI and make it more dangerous. Instead of the back- biting competition
which impeded coordination of domestic counter- insurgency in the 60s, the
Bureau now promotes inter-agency cooperation. As an equal opportunity
employer, it can use Third World and female agents to penetrate political
targets more thoroughly than before. By cultivating a low-visibility
corporate image and discreetly avoiding public attack on prominent
liberals, the FBI has regained respectability and won over a number of former
critics.

-Municipal police forces have similarly revamped their image while
upgrading their repressive capabilities. The police "red squads" that infiltrated
and harassed the 60s' movements have been revived under other names and
augmented by para-military SWAT teams and tactical squads as well as
highly-politicized community relations and "beat rep" programs, in which
Black, Hispanic and female officers are often conspicuous. Local
operations are linked by FBI-led regional anti-terrorist task forces and the national
Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU).

-Increased military and CIA involvement has added political sophistication
and advanced technology. Army Special Forces and other elite military
units are now trained and equipped for counter-insurgency (known
as"low-intensity warfare"). Their manuals teach the essential methodology
of COINTELPRO,stressing earlier intervention to neutralize potential
opposition before it can take hold.

The CIA's expanded role is especially ominous. In the 60s, while legally
banned from "internal security functions," the CIA managed to infiltrate
the Black, student and antiwar movements. It also made secret use of
university professors, journalists, labor leaders, publishing houses, cultural
organizations and philanthropic fronts to mold US public opinion. But it
apparently felt compelled to hold back--within the country--from the kinds
of systematic political destabilization, torture, and murder which have
become the hallmark of its operations abroad. Now, the full force of the
CIA has been unleashed at home.

-All of the agencies involved in covert operations have had time to learn
from the 60s and to institute the "tight procedures to insure absolute
security" that FBI officials demanded after COINTELPRO was exposed in
1971.
Restoration of secrecy has been made easier by the Administration's steps
to shield covert operations from public scrutiny. Under Reagan, key FBI and
CIA files have been re-classified "top secret." The Freedom of Information Act
has been quietly narrowed through administrative reinterpretation. Funds
for covert operations are allocated behind closed doors and hidden in CIA and
defense appropriations.

Government employees now face censorship even after they retire, and new
laws make it a federal crime to publicize information which might tend to
reveal an agent's identity. Despite this stepped-up security, incidents
frighteningly reminiscent of 60s' COINTELPRO have begun to emerge.

The extent of the infiltration, burglary and other clandestine government
intervention that has already come to light is alarming. Since the vast
majority of such operations stay hidden until after the damage has been
done, those we are now aware of undoubtedly represent only the tip of the
iceberg. Far more is sure to lie beneath the surface.

Considering the current political climate, the legalization of COINTELPRO,
the rehabilitation of the FBI and police, and the expanded role of the CIA
and military, the recent revelations leave us only one safe assumption:
that extensive government covert operations are already underway to neutralize
today's opposition movements before they can reach the massive level of
the 60s.

|
What Can We Do About It?
|

Domestic covert action has now persisted in some form through at least the
last seven presidencies. It grew from one program to six under Kennedy and
Johnson. It flourished when an outspoken liberal, Ramsey Clark, was
Attorney General (1966-68). It is an integral part of the established mode of
operation of powerful, entrenched agencies on every level of government.
It enables policy-makers to maintain social control without detracting from
their own public image or the perceived legitimacy oftheir method of
government. It has become as institutional in the US as the race, gender,
class and imperial domination it serves to uphold.

Under these circumstances, there is no reason to think we can eliminate
COINTELPRO simply by electing better public officials. Only through
sustained public education and mobilization, by a broad coalition of
political, religious and civil libertarian activists, can we expect to
limit it effectively.

In most parts of the country, however, and certainly on a national level,
we lack the political power to end covert government intervention, or even to
curb it substantially. We therefore need to learn how to cope more
effectively with this form of repression.

The next part of this pamphlet examines the methods that were used to
discredit and disrupt the movements ofthe 60s and suggests steps we can
take to deflect or reduce their impact in the 80s.

|
A Checklist of Essential Precautions
|

-Check out the authenticity of any disturbing letter, rumor, phone call or
other communication before acting on it.

-Document incidents which appear to reflect covert intervention, and
report them to the Movement Support Network Hotline: 212/477- 5562.

-Deal openly and honestly with the differences within our movements (race,
gender, class, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation,
personality, experience, physical and intellectual capacities, etc.)
before the FBI and police exploit them to tear us apart.

-Don't rush to expose a suspected agent. Instead, directly criticize what
the suspect says and does. Intra-movement witchhunts only help the
government create distrust and paranoia.

-Support whoever comes under government attack. Don't be put off by
political slander, such as recent attempts to smear radical activists as
"terrorists." Organize public opposition to FBI investigations, grand
juries, show trials and other forms of political harassment.

-Above all, do not let them divert us from our main work. Our most
powerful weapon against political repression is effective organizing around the
needs and issues which directly affect people's lives.

|
Infiltration by Agents or Informers
|

Agents are law enforcement officers disguised as activists.

Informers are non-agents who provide information to a law enforcement or
intelligence agency. They may be recruited from within a group or sent in
by an agency, or they may be disaffected former members or supporters.

Infiltrators are agents or informers who work in a group or community
under the direction of a law enforcement or intelligence agency. During the 60s
the FBI had to rely on informers (who are less well trained and harder to
control) because it had very few black, Hispanic or female agents, and its
strict dress and grooming code left white male agents unable to look like
activists. As a modern equal opportunity employer,today's FBI has fewer
such limitations.

What They Do: Some informers and infiltrators quietly provide information
while keeping a low profile and doing whatever is expected of group
members.
Others attempt to discredit a target and disrupt its work. They may spread
false rumors and make unfounded accusations to provoke or exacerbate
tensions and splits. They may urge divisive proposals, sabotage important
activities and resources, or operate as "provocateurs" who lead zealous
activists into unnecessary danger. In a demonstration or other confrontation
with police, such an agent may break discipline and call for actions which
would undermine unity and detract from tactical focus.

Infiltration As a Source of Distrust and Paranoia: While individual agents
and informers aid the government in a variety of specific ways, the
general use of infiltrators serves a very special and powerful strategic function.
The fear that a group may be infiltrated often intimidates people from
getting more involved. It can give rise to a paranoia which makes it
difficult to build the mutual trust which political groups depend on. This
use of infiltrators, enhanced by covertly-initiated rumors that exaggerate
the extent to which a particular movement or group has been penetrated, is
recommended by the manuals used to teach counter-insurgency in the U.S.
and Western Europe.

Covert Manipulation to Make A Legitimate Activist Appear to be an Agent:
An actual agent will often point the finger at a genuine, non-collaborating
and highly-valued group member, claiming that he or she is the infiltrator.
The same effect, known as a "snitch jacket," has been achieved by planting
forged documents which appear to be communications between an activist and
the FBI, or by releasing for no other apparent reason one of a group of
activists who were arrested together. Another method used under COINTELPRO
was to arrange for some activists, arrested under one pretext or another,
to hear over the police radio a phony broadcast which appeared to set up a
secret meeting between the police and someone from their group.

|
Guidelines For Coping With Infiltration
|

l. Establish a process through which anyone who suspects an informer (or
other form of covert intervention) can express his or her fears without
scaring others. Experienced people assigned this responsibility can do a
great deal to help a group maintain its morale and focus while, at the
same time, centrally consolidating information and deciding how to use it. This
plan works best when accompanied by group discussion of the danger of
paranoia, so that everyone understands and follows the established
procedure.

2. To reduce vulnerability to paranoia and "snitch jackets", and to
minimize diversion from your main work, it generally is best if you do not attempt
to expose a suspected agent or informer unless you are certain of their role.
(For instance, they surface to make an arrest, testify as a government
witness or in some other way admit their identity). Under most
circumstances, an attempted exposure will do more harm than the
infiltrator's continued presence. This is especially true if you can
discreetly limit the suspect's access to funds, financial records, mailing
lists, discussions of possible lawviolations, meetings that plan criminal
defense strategy, and similar opportunities.

3. Deal openly and directly with the form and content of what anyone says
and does, whether the person is a suspected agent, has emotional problems,
or is simply a sincere, but naive or confused person new to the work.

4. Once an agent or informer has been definitely identified, alert other
groups and communities by means of photographs, a description of their
methods of operation, etc. In the 60s, some agents managed even after
their exposure in one community to move on and repeat their performance in a
numberof others.

5. Be careful to avoid pushing a new or hesitant member to take risks
beyond what that person is ready to handle, particularly in situations which
could result in arrest and prosecution. People in this position have proved
vulnerable to recruitment as informers.

|
Other Forms of Deception
|

Bogus leaflets, pamphlets, etc.: COINTELPRO documents show that the FBI
routinely put out phony leaflets, posters, pamphlets, etc. to discredit
its targets. In one instance, agents revised a children's coloring book which
the Black Panther Party had rejected as anti-white and gratuitously
violent, and then distributed a cruder version to backers of the Party's program of
free breakfasts for children, telling them the book was being used in the
program.

False media stories: The FBI's documents expose collusion by reporters and
news media that knowingly published false and distorted material prepared
by Bureau agents. One such story had Jean Seberg, a noticeably pregnant white
film star active in anti-racist causes, carrying the child of a prominent
Black leader. Seberg's white husband, the actual father, has sued the FBI
as responsible for her resulting still-birth, breakdown, and suicide.

Forged correspondence: Former employees have confirmed thatthe FBI and CIA
have the capacity to produce "state of the art" forgery. The U.S. Senate's
investigation of COINTELPRO uncovered a series of letters forged in the
name of an intermediary between the Black Panther Party's national office and
Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, in exile in Algeria. The letters proved
instrumental in inflaming intra-party rivalries that erupted into the
bitter public split that shattered the Party in the winter of 1971.

Anonymous letters and telephone calls: During the 60s, activists received
a steady flow of anonymous letters and phone calls which turn out to have
been from government agents. Some threatened violence. Others promoted racial
divisions and fears. Still others charged various leaders with
collaboration, corruption, sexual affairs with other activists' mates,
etc.
As in the Seberg incident, inter-racial sex was a persistent theme. The
husband of one white woman involved in a bi-racial civil rights group
received the following anonymous letter authored by the FBI:

--Look, man, I guess your old lady doesn't get enough at home or she
wouldn't be shucking and jiving with our Black Men in ACTION, you dig?
Like
all she wants to integrate is the bedroom and us Black Sisters ain't gonna
take no second best from our men. So lay it on her man--o
___________________________________________________

7 Aug 11:07
Text of Clinton Executive Order Establishing Working Group to
Examine Unlawful Conduct on the Internet
To: National Desk
Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2100
EXECUTIVE ORDER
- - - - - - -
WORKING GROUP ON UNLAWFUL CONDUCT
ON THE INTERNET
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution
and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to
address unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet,
it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Establishment and Purpose.
(a) There is hereby established a working group to address
unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet ("Working
Group"). The purpose of the Working Group shall be to prepare
a report and recommendations concerning:
(1) The extent to which existing Federal laws provide a
sufficient basis for effective investigation and prosecution
of unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet, such
as the illegal sale of guns, explosives, controlled substances,
and prescription drugs, as well as fraud and child pornography.
(2) The extent to which new technology tools, capabilities,
or legal authorities may be required for effective investigation
and prosecution of unlawful conduct that involves the use
of the Internet; and
(3) The potential for new or existing tools and capabilities
to educate and empower parents, teachers, and others to prevent
or to minimize the risks from unlawful conduct that involves
the use of the Internet.
(b) The Working Group shall undertake this review in the context
of current Administration Internet policy, which includes support
for industry self-regulation where possible, technology-neutral
laws and regulations, and an appreciation of the Internet as
an important medium both domestically and internationally for
commerce and free speech.
Sec. 2. Schedule. The Working Group shall complete its work
to the greatest extent possible and present its report and
recommendations to the President and Vice President within 120
days of the date of this order. Prior to such presentation,
the report and recommendations shall be circulated through the
Office of Management and Budget for review and comment by all
appropriate Federal agencies.
Sec. 3. Membership.
(a) The Working Group shall be composed of the following
members:
(1) The Attorney General (who shall serve as Chair of the
Working Group).
(2) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
(3) The Secretary of the Treasury.
(4) The Secretary of Commerce.
(5) The Secretary of Education.
(6) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(7) The Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms.
(8) The Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

(9) The Chair of the Federal Trade Commission.
(10) The Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration;
and
(11) Other Federal officials deemed appropriate by the
Chair of the Working Group.
(b) The co-chairs of the Interagency Working Group on Electronic
Commerce shall serve as liaison to and attend meetings of the
Working Group. Members of the Working Group may serve on the
Working Group through designees.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
August 5, 1999.
___________________________________________________

CNN -

FED. INTRUSION PROTECTION NET FIPN GSA BASED
Wages counter cyberwarfare and includes Internet,
systems, transportation, water supply systems ect.
gee this is news?

_________________________________________________

NSA/FBI endorsed backdoor monitoring system in W2K?

I just received information that NSA/FBI has sponsored a DIRT-like
backdoor monitoring system into the W2K.
If you type in anything that it considers to fit the profile of a
terrorist, a pedophile, a hacker or a drug-trafficker, the next time
you connect to the internet, it sends an encrypted message with your
writings in it to an NSA site in the UK Menwith Hill, where they can
legally intercept all intelligence data of US citizens.
This is supposedly part of the new Echelon system, whose goal is
to bring the intelligence gathering happening much closer to the
people. It is suposedly much easier to analyze the data as it is
being written on the client computers and on their CPU power,
instead of after, while it's being transmitted on the network.
This way NSA computers can concentrate their computational powers
on the essential messages and voice-recognition, instead of picking
up, decrypting and identifying the essential messages from the
internet as they're being transmitted.
The advances in cryptography are making interception of e-mails
ever more diffucult, and it is already impossible to try and gather
all of the home-bound terrorists and e-mail messages transmitted
within intranets. The Windows 2000 backdoor monitor is designed to
counter this development and enable the law-enforcement to
efficiently monitor all citizens using the system. The system also
effectively counters the use of cryptographic filesystems, as the
officers are able to get a log of all the passwords input to the
system.
The new Echelon system covers ALL the computers with the new Windows
2000 operating system, no matter what the network or firewalls they
reside behind in. When the time is right and the opportunity arises,
the computer can connect to the NSA computers at Microsoft, while
doing some automated system upgrade operation, and relay the data to
the NSA station at Menwith Hill.
The next phase of the project, to be concluded in 5-15 years, is to
also include such keyword alarm-systems inside all telephone systems.
Public telephones will be the first to have such alarm-systems. When
someone makes a suspicious phone-call the telephone automatically
detects the keywords and secretly connects the call also to an NSA
site, who in turn refer the call to FBI or a local law-enforcement
agency and officers nearest the phone ready to intercept and catch
the suspected terrorist or a drug-trafficker.
WinCE, also a Microsoft product, is rumored to be a future part of
this system.
As the new era for law-enforcement is arising, Microsoft has reason to
be proud in standing at the fore-front of law-enforcement, looking out
for our security and helping catch pedophiles, hackers and terrorists,
using the Internet and computers to avoid being caught.

Isn't this like totally contra the 1st ammendment?
And will it also be included on the INT'L release?

___________________________________________________

Sent: Monday, July 12, 1999 12:17 PM
Subject: 1999-07-12 VP and Janet Reno Announce New Report on High-Tech Crime


THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Vice President
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release July 12, 1999

VICE PRESIDENT GORE AND ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO
ANNOUNCE NEW REPORT ON
HIGH-TECH CRIME REDUCTION STRATEGIES

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Vice President Al Gore and Attorney General
Janet Reno today released a report on how the federal government can
help communities and police departments use information-age tools to
reduce and prevent crime.
"Crime mapping and other information-age tools are changing the
face of law enforcement in the United States" Vice President Gore said.
"The recommendations in this report will put better tools in the hands
of police departments and better information in the hands of
communities."
"Crime Mapping technologies are a wonderful tool to help law
enforcement agencies get one step ahead of the criminals and help
prevent crimes before they are committed," said Attorney General Janet
Reno.
The report, "Mapping Out Crime", was prepared by a task force
co-chaired by Associate Attorney General Raymond C. Fisher and Morley
Winograd, Director of the National Partnership for Reinventing
Government. The report describes practical examples of how police
departments are using crime mapping, and sets forth a vision of how this
technology will help change the face of law enforcement in the next
century.
The report recommends a number of steps to make crime mapping
software, training and technical support more widely available to police
departments. It urges the Congress to increase funding for information
technology by appropriating funds for the 21st Century Policing
Initiative. The report also encourages investment in basic information
that will help communities better protect public safety in the next
century.
Mapping Out Crime also calls on federal law enforcement agencies to
make greater use of these tools in national efforts to reduce gun
violence, the fight against drugs, and other priority areas.
The Department of Justice also announced today that it will make
several crime mapping tools available at no cost to law enforcement
agencies, including the following resources:
Crime analysis tools that will support police departments which are
seeking to make use of crime data, map "hot spots," and generate
maps;
An Electronic Community Policing Beat Book that will let front-line
officers generate and personalize maps on laptops in their squad
cars, mapping such information as the names and locations of
businesses, neighborhood associations, and resources on their beats;
and QuickMap, a tool that will generate maps for police officers,
detectives, and managers, part of a Regional Crime analysis
Geographic Information System that will help police departments share
information and solve multi-jurisdictional crimes.

___________________________________________________

Crime

European curbs on records of Net use and mobile-phone calls will
hamper the police, writes Sean Hargrave

Internet law will protect criminals


POLICE say that when new European laws are implemented this
summer it will be almost impossible to catch high-tech criminals who
use the Internet and mobile phones to plan crimes.

The European telephone directive will make it illegal for telephone
companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to keep records of a
customer's use of the Net and his mobile phone unless the information
is needed for billing.

With the proliferation of free Net accounts and pre-paid mobile phones
this would mean tracking consumers' use of such services would be
illegal because no bills are involved. A criminal could contest any
intelligence the police gained, arguing that it was a breach of the Data
Protection Act 1998.

Keith Akerman is head of the computer crime unit at the Association of
Chief Police Officers (Acpo). He believes that if fully ratified in Britain,
the new laws would hamper police attempts to combat criminals by
analysing their use of the Net and cellphones. He is planning, through
Acpo, to raise the issue with the Home Office before the new laws
come into effect.

"The new laws would have a huge impact on intelligence gathering," he
says. "They are far from helpful for both the police and the person being
asked to pass over information. There are many areas of doubt in the
new act that will require clarification.

"If the law is fully ratified it will be very regrettable indeed. I don't want
to be seen giving out advice to criminals, but anyone looking at the new
law - if it is ratified - will be given a pretty clear idea of how to plan and
execute crimes without the police being able to do much to stop them."

At the moment police can take advantage of Section 28 of the Data
Protection Act to ask an ISP or mobile-phone operator to pass on
details about a suspect. With an inspector's signature on a standard
form, officers can find out what Net sites and newsgroups a suspect has
visited.

If any of the suspect's recent e-mail or newsgroup postings are still
stored by the ISP, these can also be read. However, police normally
obtain a warrant first.

The same form can be used to ask a mobile-phone operator to supply
details of people a suspect has called and from where. This can prove
where a person was at the time of a crime and whether he has called
people he claims not to know.

Police forces across the country have come to rely on such details and
are worried the new laws will close down a useful source of information.
They are also concerned because the new proposals are confusing even
the experts.

Phil Jones, a telecommunications expert at the Data Protection
Registrar, says: "The new rules are tricky because they make a
distinction between traffic data and billing data, yet don't clarify what
this means.

"It can be very difficult to separate billing and traffic data because
sometimes they can be seen as related. What is certainly true is that
telecommunications companies will not be able to keep records as they
have done without having good reasons to justify it.

"For example, if I am using a pre-paid mobile phone, then what reason
could the telephone operator possibly have for logging the calls I make
and from where?

"Similarly, with the Net, if I am not being charged for my browsing time
by my ISP, what right would they have to store information on sites I
have visited? They would not have any legitimate reason to track where
I had been and what I had looked at.

"The only way I can see mobile-phone operators or, more likely, ISPs
keeping data about users that the police could later request is if they
attach conditions to their free services. An ISP could say, for example,
that in return for free Net access it will collect data about customers'
browsing patterns for marketing purposes.

"However, they would have to make it clear to customers what data will
be held about them and the fact that the police could legitimately request
to see that information. They would almost certainly need to get
customers to sign a consent form."

Jones admits that the high priority attached to online privacy means that
most ISPs would be unwilling to act as the police's eyes and ears. Their
customers would see them as snoops.

The police and security forces are also concerned about encryption
technology that makes it hard for them to decode intercepted messages.
They had been urging the Department of Trade and Industry to push
through measures that would have required Net users to store with a
third party the keys that are used to decode e-mail. This company could
then be called on to decipher messages.

The proposed measures were seen as too draconian. The DTI is now
proposing two new offences in measures that will almost certainly be
put before the Commons later this year. These will make it illegal not to
show deciphered messages to a police officer with a warrant and will
punish anyone who tips off somebody else that police have asked for a
key to decode their messages.

The consultation period on the DTI's e-commerce bill ended on
Thursday. Critics are angry that the government dropped its unpopular
"key escrow" policy but then gave only three weeks, instead of the
normal eight, to allow interested parties to comment on new proposals.

The DTI claims the short consultation period was essential if the
e-commerce bill is to be read in the Commons before the end of the
year. Critics, however, have accused the government of trying to rush
through a "broken back" piece of legislation without properly consulting
computer users.

_________________________________________________

Posted 19/05/99 1:02pm by Tony Smith

US crypto law cover for industrial spookery

A clandestine alliance of spooks in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and
New Zealand has been using moves to bring European encryption
regulations into line with US crypto law to steal industrial secrets
from companies based in the European Union.

That's the shocking conclusion of a draft report from the European
Parliament's Scientific and Technological Options Assessment
committee, released last week.

The report alleges Microsoft, Lotus and Netscape were persuaded by the
US National Security Agency to modify their software to make versions
shipped overseas better able to collect information of interest
transmitted across the Internet.

The report even claims at least two major French companies, Thompson
and Airbus Industrie lost contracts because confidential information
was cracked and leaked to rival bidders.

The report, revealed on TechWeb, makes for disturbing reading yet
manages to sound like something out of a James Bond movie at the same
time.

So, while the UK/US alliance used its Echelon global espionage network
to scan all international communications lines using satellites and
listening stations -- the partners also developed a special submarine
to sail around earwigging on Internet traffic.

The report also claims the UK maintains a database of three months'
worth of complete Usenet messages, through which it sorts for useful
data using intelligent agent software.

US crypto policy has always centred on the use of key escrow to allow
law enforcement agencies to bypass encryption algorithms in pursuit of
information hidden by criminals.

However, in attempting to persuade the EU to align its crypto
reulations with the States' own laws, "the US government misled states
in the EU and the OECD about the true intention of its policy", claims
the report.

That "true intention" was to allow spooks to access confidential
commercial information for the economic advancement of domestic
businesses. The proof, reckons the report, is the lack of police
representation in crypto policy making between 1993 and 1997.

All this will, of course, fuel a frenzy among conspiracy theorists,
but no matter how much UK and US security agencies use the system for
tracking genuine terrorist activity -- their justification for
monitoring the Net -- bunging stuff toward UK and US companies bidding
against European rivals is not on.

That said, how many of these allegations stand up -- or are simply
claims made by companies who would have lost contracts anyway; it's
always easier to blame others than face your own failings -- remains
to be seen.

But it will be equally difficult to show how frequently confidential
commercial data is abused this way. ®

See also

D Notice MI6 geezer-journalist gets nickers in a twyst
Spy leaker accuses Government of hype
Web site names UK spies

___________________________________________________

June 21, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 25
Editor & Chief: Emile Zola
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Echelon--Rights Violation in the Information Age
by Don Lobo Tiggre

The spooks call it "signals intelligence", or SIGINT, in spook-speak.
Now that the cold war is over, covert agencies around the world are
increasingly turning their SIGINT assets, most notably a vast global
electronic spy system known as ECHELON, against civilian targets. It's
enough to give any decent rights-respecting individual nightmares.

What is Echelon? It's a highly automated computer system for
intercepting and sorting through electronic communications for key
words, numbers, and phrases. This includes voice telephone calls, faxes,
e-mail, and other broadcast and wire-borne signals-up to two million
calls intercepted per hour, according to one source. The system uses
"dictionary" computers to search intercepted communications for
information specified by member SIGINT agencies and sends copies of
flagged messages back to those agencies. This is accomplished by means
of satellite tracking and surveillance ground stations, underwater cable
monitoring pods, and internet taps, among other means.

The U.S. government has yet to admit that "Echelon" even exists, but the
evidence has been around for years. The European Parliament's Science
and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA) accepted a report last
month, entitled Interception Capabilities 2000 (a copy of which can be
found at http://www.aci.net/kalliste/echelon/ic2000.htm), on the
so-called UKUSA SIGINT alliance and the Echelon system. This is just the
most official of a rash of exposés that have been published over the
last decade, though the UKUSA alliance goes back to World War II and
early elements of Echelon itself are said to be 20 or more years old.

The UKUSA alliance principals are reported to be the National Security
Agency (NSA) in the U.S., the Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ) in Britain, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) in
Canada, the Defense Signals Directorate (DSD) in Australia, and the
Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in New Zealand.

The main reason the UKUSA alliance and the Echelon system are getting
mainstream press appears to be economic insecurity on the part of
members of the European Union. EU countries are concerned, Britain's
membership in the alliance notwithstanding, that the system is being
used to conduct industrial espionage and otherwise thwart their economic
interests-hence their commissioning of the Interception Capabilities
2000 report.

Are You a Target?

Jim Bronskill of The Ottawa Citizen, quotes from the the Interception
Capabilities 2000 report that: "There is wide-ranging evidence
indicating that major governments are routinely utilizing communications
intelligence to provide commercial advantage to companies and trade."

Bronskill goes on to say:

"The findings come as no surprise to Fred Stock, who says he was forced
out of CSE [Communications Security Establishment] in 1993 after
objecting to the agency's new emphasis on economic intelligence and
civilian targets. Mr. Stock, who worked in CSE's Communications Centre
in Ottawa, recalls incoming message traffic on dealings with Mexico,
France, Germany, Japan and South Korea. The intercepted information
covered negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement, Chinese
grain purchases, French arms sales and Canada's boundary dispute with
France over the islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon off Newfoundland's south
coast. 'To me, we shouldn't have been doing that.' Mr. Stock also
maintains the agency routinely received intelligence about environmental
protest actions mounted by Greenpeace vessels on the high seas. Other
former CSE employees have told similar stories of economic and political
spying."

Now that the word is out, many people are becoming concerned about the
implications of Echelon for civil liberties. Particularly of concern to
peaceful activist groups are comments like Mr. Stock's about the
monitoring of Greenpeace. (You may not care for Greenpeace, but your
group may be next.) The Interception Capabilities 2000 report casts
doubt on the ability of the system to actually monitor the majority of
calls worldwide, as it was once feared to be able to do, but says that
the system is being used to monitor traffic around the world relating to
target governments, organizations, and individuals. Whom do you suppose
qualifies for that honor? Who could stop any abuses of such power?
Be the answer what it may, the monitoring of calls is being done as a
matter of course-it's automated, in fact-without any court orders for
wiretaps and scarcely any other legal constraints. Even the laws
preventing agencies such as NSA from spying on American citizens can be
circumvented by the international nature of the beast.

Wired magazine's Niall McKay observes that:

"[John] Pike, of the Federation of American Scientists, believes the
intelligence agencies operate in a gray area of international law. For
example, there is no law prohibiting the NSA from intercepting
telecommunications and data traffic in the United Kingdom and no law
prohibiting GCHQ from doing the same thing in the United States."

What this means is that all the agencies involved can get around
restrictions against spying on their own people by having the other
agencies in the alliance do it for them. And that's assuming that they
even care about such restrictions, given how little oversight outfits
like the NSA receive.

However, apart from a few watchdog groups and privacy advocates, this is
not the major concern of the EU officials who are upset about Echelon.
McKay also quotes a British Labor Party member of parliament and a
committee member of STOA, Glyn Ford, as saying:

"I have no objection to these systems monitoring serious criminals and
terrorists. But what is missing here is accountability, clear guidelines
as to who they can listen to, and in what circumstances these laws
apply."

Don't Rely on the Fools in Congress

That may be the extent of the concerns of a bureaucrat, but the concerns
of freedom-loving people everywhere should go far deeper. Even if NSA
did have serious congressional oversight, I wouldn't sleep any better at
night; Congress is the same pack of bloated, self-serving fools (except
for Ron Paul) that is leading the charge against human rights and toward
socialism in the United States. And, of course, the fact that it's all
being done automatically by machines working in an international legal
vacuum just underscores how little regard those operating the system
have for the rights of those they monitor.

But wait, it gets worse. According to the Interception Capabilities 2000
report,

Lotus built in an NSA "help information" trapdoor to its Notes system,
as the Swedish government discovered to its embarrassment in 1997. By
then, the system was in daily use for confidential mail by Swedish MPs,
15,000 tax agency staff and 400,000 to 500,000 citizens. (section 43)

The report goes on to describe a feature called a "workfactor reduction
field" that is built into Notes and incorporated into all email sent by
non-US users of the system. The feature "broadcasts 24 of the 64 bits of
the key used for each communication", and relies on a public key system
that can only be read by the NSA.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who's been following the
National ID debacle, or any of the many other attacks against civil
liberties by the U.S. government that show with increasing certainty the
attitude among those in power toward the rest of the people: they are
cattle, to be numbered, cataloged, labeled, monitored, and completely
controlled, in all ways possible.

Is this an exaggerated fear? Surely the rule of law still applies in the
United States and, based on the principle that people are innocent until
proven guilty, the state would not so trample on the rights of the
people?
_________________________

A Battlefield Report

Maybe the fears are valid. Consider the following incident reported by
an Internet activist who shall remain anonymous:

In late '96 I was the president of a small (and relatively new) flying
school in the Pacific Northwest. Things being slow in that business
during the winter, I had taken some time off to visit relatives in the
Mid-west, and was keeping up with things at the office via email.

One day an FAA inspector left a phone message at the school, asking to
speak to our head mechanic. Our maintenance officer promptly fired off
an email to me when he heard this message, in which he said, roughly (I
have unfortunately lost the original):

"We got a call from XXX XXXXXX today asking for our chief mechanic. You
know what this means-we can expect a raid from the feds any day now.
Maybe we should make some airplanes disappear."

To put this message in perspective, its sender and I were friends who
had been around aviation a long time, and had done a lot of flying
together, both in the hanger and out. In our everyday lingo, a friendly
FAA inspector was a "fed", a helpful visit by an FAA inspection team to
ensure that our paperwork was all in order was typically refer to as a
"raid". The line about making "airplanes disappear" was a joking
reference to a defunct flying club that the two of us had once belonged
to, where, when they had a problem getting all the paperwork on an
aircraft straight, they had been known to remove all reference to the
offending aircraft from their clubhouse, and even to fly it elsewhere in
preparation for the FAA's friendly inspection.

My friend's ISP got its connectivity to the Internet via satellite
connection, so to get from his computer to mine his message was beamed
to a satellite, came to ground somewhere in California, then probably
traveled via land lines to get back to my ISP which was located in
Seattle. To check my mail, I was logging into my ISP from the Mid-west
via telnet--so this message did a lot of traveling.

When I read my friend's message, I sent a reply saying something like:

"Do you really think we have any problems? It would probably be a good
idea to have an AI [authorized inspector] double-check the logbooks to
make sure everything is in order. See if XXXX XXXXXXXX is available to
do this."

When the predicted raid came, a couple of weeks later, it was rather
unusual in character. Typically, an FAA inspection team for a small
flying school would consist of two men-this time half a dozen showed up.
And they seemed even more anal and confrontational than usual, going
over the logbooks and the aircraft with a fine-toothed comb, demanding
to inspect things that they normally didn't bother with, etc. When they
finally had to admit, several grueling hours later, that they could find
no major violations in our operation, the head of the inspection team
walked up to our maintenance officer, pulled a piece of paper from his
briefcase, and presented it angrily to my friend, saying: "Well, what is
this all about then?"

It was a transcript of my email reply to my friend (in which I had
quoted his original message in full). The names mentioned of mechanics
and FAA inspectors had been replaced with XXXs, as in my reconstruction
above. When my friend demanded to know where they had gotten the
transcript, the FAA inspector grabbed it back, and refused to talk about
it further.

At the time this seemed rather incredible, but since the revelations
about the ECHELON system started being spread around the Internet, it
has become easier to understand. The message had lots of keywords that
are sure to be on someone's hot list: "raid", "feds", etc.

Since then, I've got a lot of friends set up with PGP...

Now, it is entirely possible that this encounter with the Federal
Aviation Administration and the intercepted e-mail had nothing to do
with Echelon. It almost seems unlike the spooks at Fort Meade to share
such small-time intel with the FAA, which isn't into "serious" business
like catching international terrorists. On the other hand, it seems
entirely like the U.S. government of late to intercept the private
communications of an individual who hadn't even been accused of a crime
and use such information to try to "catch" him in some kind of
wrong-doing.

The Fouth Amendment

How long ago was it now that Congress weakened the Fourth Amendment?

It doesn't matter-the Fourth Amendment never stopped J. Edgar Hoover
from conducting massive, systematic rights violations of U.S. citizens
through the FBI's COINTELPRO program. (Poor old J. Edgar-the files he
and Joe McCarthy collected on Americans in the name of investigating
"un-American" activities couldn't hold a candle to what the NSA has in
its databanks today!)

What matters is that the United States' metamorphosis into a police
state is accelerating at an alarming rate. History may be non-linear and
have some surprises in store for us in the near future, but we can't
count on any such stopping this accelerating trend before we cross the
"Death Horizon" (the point beyond which unalloyed despotism is
inevitable). Freedom-loving people simply cannot afford to sit by and
let the "radicals" protest. People of integrity everywhere should take
action of their own, NOW.

Before it's too late.

"[A] lot of friends set up with PGP" indeed. Let us hope that PGP and
MailVault are all they are cracked up to be!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don Lobo Tiggre is the author of Y2K: The Millennium Bug, a suspenseful
thriller. Tiggre can be found at the Liberty Round Table.
from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 25, June 21, 1999

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Published by
Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc.
Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar
All Rights Reserved

___________________________________________________

FRANCE: U.S. Accused of 'Promis' Information Warfare Program

Brussels LE VIF/L'EXPRESS in French, 9 May 97 pp 74-82
[Interview with Fabrizio Calvi and Thierry Pfister, authors of
book L'Oeil de Washington (The Eye of Washington), by Denis
Jeambar and Yves Stavrides; place and date not given: "Espionage:

How Washington Booby-Trapped All the World's Computers"]

[Translated Text] How far can a government go? Democracies have
settled that issue of the desire for power in principle: The
state of law, situated at the heart of their institutional
mechanisms, forms their boundaries. But that framework is in fact
more virtual than real, and laws or treaties are very fragile
barriers when it comes to containing the appetite for conquest.
All democracies have their shadowy areas known as the secret
police or as espionage networks. Those instruments for protecting
national interests are also weapons of conquest. All states
use them, but then again, might makes right. L'Oeil de
Washington (The Eye of Washington) by Fabrizio Calvi and Thierry
Pfister, soon to be published by the Albin Michel Publishing
House, is an almost incredible illustration of that. Following an
unusually rigorous investigation, the two journalists reveal how
the United States penetrated and booby-trapped the computersystems
of its enemies and allies. This unprecedented espionage
operation, suddenly revealed in this flabbergasting book, shows
that the democratic ideal remains a very weak rampart against the
will to dominate.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] Spies by the dozen, crooked politicians, games
of consequences, bizarre suicides, arms merchants, drug
traffickers, and all of it on a global scale! There is a shock
right at the start: The U.S. and Israeli intelligence services
reportedly have been booby-trapping all of the world's computer
systems since the 1980's! After reading your book, one wonders if\
one might have been dreaming.

[Answer] The story seems incredible, but it is true. It is backed\
by two investigating committees in the United States: the one in
the House of Representatives and the one in the Senate. By three
trials. By proof. By statements by the participants, although
they are not necessarily presentable--that is typical of secret
operations of this kind. The Inslaw case is a taboo subject, with
its load of disinformation and with its gray areas, unverifiable
statements, and ghosts. We had to clean things up. Because it is
a shameful affair. The manipulators and especially the
manipulated cannot be proud of it. In THE NEW YORK TIMES on
21 April 1991, an honest man whose integrity is beyond dispute
and who--for good reason--had access to the CIA published a
fantastic article titled "A High-Tech Watergate." That man knows
what he is talking about. He is Elliot Richardson, a former
attorney general under Richard Nixon, and at the time he refused
to cover up the Watergate scandal and resigned in a blaze of
publicity. Today Richardson is the attorney for the victim in
that crazy story: Bill Hamilton, owner of the Inslaw computer
company.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] In his case, everything started with
an ordinary industrial property lawsuit.

[Answer] Exactly. Hamilton is a former agent of the National
Security Agency (NSA). The NSA, based at Fort Meade, Maryland, is
the electronic wiretapping center of the planet. Trained as an
engineer, Hamilton worked for the NSA in Vietnam. He left the NSA
and started his company in the early 1970's. That was before the
era of minicomputers. Microcomputers had not yet appeared. To
combat crime, the Justice Department--like the CIA and the
FBI--was dreaming of a software package that would make
incompatible things compatible. Every prosecutor's office had its
own data, files, and day-to-day operations. In plain language,
was it possible to devise software that would interconnect all
the prosecutors' offices and all their files and data? The
department then issued a call for tenders and launched a
program to finance the project. So, using public money, Bill
Hamilton developed software known as Promis. There were
fantastic breakthroughs in computers in the late 1970's and
early 1980's, as computers went from eight to 16 bits--bits
being a reflection of the power of the machines: their speed
of execution.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] That did not prevent Carter from halting the
program.

[Answer] True. When Reagan arrived at the White House in 1980,
the program had been halted. But using private funds--and that is
another ambiguous aspect of the affair--Hamilton developed a
32-bit version using a Vax VMS computer. His improved software,
Promis, then became a miraculous object. From one state to
another and from one country to another, it could read utility
bills, check up on financial flows in and out of bank accounts,
and track people as they entered and left territories. It could
do everything! It could learn everything about anyone! Hamilton
got the contract to equip U.S. prosecutors' offices. Price:
$3 billion!

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] And then his troubles began.

[Answer] The Justice Department did everything possible to kill
his company, Inslaw. To bring it to its knees. It quibbled, it
split hairs, and payments were delayed. It demanded that he hand
over the manufacturing secrets regarding Promis in its new Vax
VMS version. To get his money, he yielded in 1982 and gave the
Justice Department a copy of the 32-bit version. He still did not
get paid. He was accused of financing the "miracle" with public
money. It did him no good to deny it: He was pushed to
bankruptcy. They sent the IRS after him, and he was dragged into
bankruptcy court. He did not understand what was happening.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] Unknown to him, Promis would be sold all over
the planet. And the affair took on its dual dimension: wheeling
and dealing on one hand, and espionage on the other.

[Answer] We should note, first of all, that at the center of the
department's decisionmaking apparatus was Lowell Jensen,
Hamilton's competitor. Then a key figure appeared: Dr. Earl
Brian. A former CIA man in Vietnam, he was very close to Reagan,
whom he had served as secretary of health in California--and
incidentally, he took all the department's files with him when he
left. As financial backer of the Republican Party and owner of
the UPI agency, Brian picked up a good many government
contracts-- the infrared systems along the Mexican border, for
example-- thanks to his direct line to the new president. Brian
also owned a computer company called Hadron. And he controlled a
genius in the field, Michael Riconosciuto, a contract employee of
the CIA who had a weakness for drugs. That expert could--and
did--adapt the Promis software to suit the needs of potential
customers. The Canadian police were the first to place an order.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] But who in the department was behind that
piracy--that swindle?

[Answer] It is noted that Ed Meese, adviser to the White House
and an expert on Promis, the merits of which he had praised
publicly as early as 1981, was named attorney general. And Ed
Meese's wife owned stock in Earl Brian's holding company, which
controlled the Hadron firm. But the affair also concerned
--primarily--the White House Secret Service.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] And the Israeli intelligence service
entered the fray. Who gave them Promis and why?

[Answer] Why? All one can do is guess. Israel was a privileged
partner of the United States and of the Reagan administration.
From the moment that the--booby-trapped--software began to be
sold all over the world, it was clear that the Israelis would
have an easier time selling it to the "enemies" of the United
States and that the Americans would be able to sell it more
easily to Israel's "enemies." That was why they were offered
Promis. To whom in particular? To a legend in the world of
intelligence, Rafi Eitan. It was he who had trapped Adolf
Eichmann in Buenos Aires on 11 May 1960. A loner. In 1982,
Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon put him in charge of the most
secret of Israeli intelligence services: Lakam (one of Lakam's
achievements was its stealing of the plans for the Mirage F1).
Rafi Eitan brought in a military intelligence ace who had
participated in the Entebbe raid and was an expert on terrorism
for Shamir: Ari Ben-Menashe. Rafi and Ari knew each other well.
They had worked together during the U.S. hostage crisis in
Tehran. And with whom? With the good Dr. Brian and his
henchman, Michael Riconosciuto--the man who had repaired the
computer systems sabotaged by the shah's men just before
they left. So those four were all back in the same family
again. They were the source of what was called the October
Surprise--that is, the failure to free the U.S. hostages
held in Iran in October 1980 even though everything appeared
to have been arranged. With millions of dollars and arms
deliveries to back them up, they negotiated with Tehran to
delay the release until after Carter's departure so that
Reagan would get credit for it in January 1981.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] What role did Promis play in the Near East?

[Answer] To begin with, when the Intifada took off, Israel used
it to open files on the Palestinians living the occupied
territories. Next, one of Brian's teams sold it to Jordan. But
that software was booby-trapped. Everything that Jordanian
security had stored and did store regarding the Palestinians
ended up in the hands of the Americans and the Israelis.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] And how was the product booby-trapped?

[Answer] Originally, it was a very makeshift job. A matter of
tinkering. The only thing necessary was to add a line of
code--buried in the ocean of lines in the software--to order the
machine to spit out the information to a telephone number in
Jordan: that of an apartment managed by Israeli intelligence.
Which downloaded the data from the computer. At first it was a
businessman--on his way to Vienna--who carried Jordanian
intelligence's listing in his attache case. Things later became
more sophisticated. A "smart chip"--the spy chip, the "emergency
exit"--was slipped into an ocean of completely identical
microchips. Apparently the information becomes part of the
electric current, and from there a satellite picks up the
information and transmits it down to the NSA. What it meant was
that unless the computer were completely disassembled, it was
impossible to detect that damned chip.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] Who were the next customers?

[Answer] There was Chile by way of the Israelis. Dina [National
Intelligence Directorate], the fearsome Chilean police, even
entrusted part of the management of Promis to a German sect
called Colonia Dignidad--made up of real Nazis. In the case of
Guatemala and South Africa, Israel went through a third party:
the man who laundered the money from their arms sales--the late
Robert Maxwell, the fiendish press lord. It must be said that by
checking utility consumption, Promis makes it possible to know
whether a place is inhabited or not--whether it is a potential
hideout. In itself, the software is neutral. But it is a tool
that makes repression more effective. And makes it easier. The
civil war in Guatemala resulted in 20,000 dead. Anyone whose
name was on file in Promis had a very good chance of winding up
in a grave. The same was true in South Africa. Intelligence
gathered regarding the ANC [African National Congress] was given
to Buthelezi's men, the Zulus in Inkatha--after which it was fire
at will!

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] Ari Ben-Menashe claims that Robert Maxwell
--whose handling agent he was--sold Promis to the Soviets.

[Answer] There are 20 pages on that subject in the FBI's files.
Twenty pages with everything blacked out except the words
"Maxwell," "Promis," and "Russians." In fact, the booby-trapped
software was sold to the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence
service. Meanwhile, the Israelis discovered that the Americans
were selling arms to Saddam Husayn. Speaking through Ben-Menashe,
Shamir warned the CIA: Either you stop, or we will denounce you
to the Russians. The sales continued. And as if by chance, the
GRU's computers were mysteriously out of order for a week. It is
likely that the Soviets dismantled and dissected their machines.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] Did the sales continue?

[Answer] Under the name of Promis or some other name, it was sold
to Egypt and Cyprus and throughout the Middle East. In Australia.
In Southeast Asia. To the World Bank. To two French banks: the
Credit Lyonnais and the BNP. To the Swiss banks, including the
UBS. Why spy on the banking system? Two reasons. First, to
protect the dollar and keep an eye on competing currencies. The
second reason dates back to 1981 and the fight against the
laundering of drug money. That was the "Follow the Money"
operation launched by Reagan. In a different situation, this time
in France, one of our sources told us that the DGSE (the
intelligence service) had acquired Promis. Whatever the case, the
DST (the counterespionage agency) got its hands on the famous
microchip that downloads data from computers. In addition,
obviously, the software found room for all its applications
within the U.S. institutions themselves: from the CIA to the
FBI and from the Air Force to the Navy--the nuclear-powered
submarines and stealth bombers are equipped with them. Not
to mention the laboratories where nuclear tests are simulated.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] To everyone's surprise, the Clintons are part of the story!

[Answer] Jackson Stevens--Arkansas billionaire, financial backer
of the Democratic Party, and a friend and partner of the Clintons
in the Whitewater real estate scandal--sells (surprise) Promis
software! In short, he took up the torch from California
billionaire Earl Brian. Vince Foster, the White House attorney
who was linked with Stevens and even more so with the Clintons,
committed suicide on 20 July 1993. A few days earlier, he had
requested two files: one on the NSA and the other on Promis. His
secretary confirms this--it was she who opened them and put them
in the safe. They were never seen again. The safe had been
cleaned out.

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] And all of that at Hamilton's expense! What is
the situation with him now?

[Answer] At the first trial, the government was convicted of
having forced the Inslaw firm into bankruptcy by unfair
practices. The judge who handed down that ruling was not
reappointed. That is something rarely seen. He was replaced by
the lawyer who was defending the government's interests! That is
something never seen. The second trial upheld the unfair
practices ruling. At the third trial, the first two trials were
not called into question, but it was ruled that a court
specializing in bankruptcies was not qualified to judge the
merits of the case--that is, piracy. It kicked the case up to
the Supreme Court. Which declared itself to be lacking
jurisdiction and passed the ball back in the direction of
Congress. Which passed a special law expanding the jurisdiction
of commercial courts. A new trial was held, and the verdict is
expected within the next few weeks. Hamilton is expecting
millions of dollars. And he may wait for them for a long, very
long time. The "espionage" angle is not part of the trial. It is
the intelligence services which use Promis, and it is the White
House Secret Service which played a role in spreading Promis all
over the planet. But the only issue in the trial will be
industrial property. None of the rest exists. It will be
impossible go any further. By itself, the investigation by
Congress--the Brooks Commission--is damning for the U.S.
Government. In a roundabout way--and backed by implacable
testimony---it hints that theft and an intelligence operation are
involved. But it does not say so in black and white in its
conclusions. We met with the former cop from Los Angeles who
headed that commission. He gave us his impression: "We could
have pulled out all the stops. We were not given the means
to do so. No one really wanted to see us go all the way with
that investigation."

[LE VIF/L'EXPRESS] In that affair, Hamilton is the grain of sand
that brought the machinery to a halt. Why didn't the government
buy Promis at the start? And did the U.S. press say nothing about
the affair?

[Answer] Beyond the controversy over public funds as opposed to
private funds, the Justice Department would have been wiser to
let him have a few million dollars. Hamilton would have kept
quiet. He would not have tried to find out. And that says a lot
about the arrogance of the government in general. They told
themselves: Why pay him when we can crush him? They also did not
foresee that Elliot Richardson, the former attorney general who
was honesty itself, would get involved. As for the press,
Hamilton went to see Bob Woodward, the Watergate star and star of
the Washington Post, who eventually told him: "This involves
state security. Kathy Graham, the owner, will never let me
publish such a story." Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize winner
who revealed the atrocities at My Lai, Vietnam and who has been
responsible for exceptional investigations, did investigate.
For the first time in his life, he was thrown out by every
publisher.

The full report is avaiable on request to WNR heiko@easynet.co.uk

___________________________________________________

EXPOSING THE GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM
by Nicky Hager

IN THE LATE 1980S, IN A DECISION IT PROBABLY REGRETS, THE US PROMPTED
NEW ZEALAND TO JOIN A NEW AND HIGHLY SECRET GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM.
HAGER'S INVESTIGATION INTO IT AND HIS DISCOVERY OF THE ECHELON
DICTIONARY HAS REVEALED ONE OF THE WORLD'S BIGGEST, MOST CLOSELY HELD INTELLIGENCE PROJECTS. THE SYSTEM ALLOWS SPY AGENCIES TO MONITOR MOST OF THE WORLD'S TELEPHONE, E-MAIL, AND TELEX COMMUNICATIONS.

For 40 years, New Zealand's largest intelligence agency, the Government
Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) the nation's equivalent of the US
National Security Agency (NSA) had been helping its Western allies to
spy on countries throughout the Pacific region, without the knowledge of
the New Zealand public or many of its highest elected officials. What
the NSA did not know is that by the late 1980s, various intelligence
staff had decided these activities had been too secret for too long, and
were providing me with interviews and documents exposing New Zealand's
intelligence activities. Eventually, more than 50 people who work or
have worked in intelligence and related fields agreed to be interviewed.

The activities they described made it possible to document, from the
South Pacific, some alliance-wide systems and projects which have been
kept secret elsewhere. Of these, by far the most important is ECHELON.

Designed and coordinated by NSA, the ECHELON system is used to intercept
ordinary e-mail, fax, telex, and telephone communications carried over
the world's telecommunications networks. Unlike many of the electronic
spy systems developed during the Cold War, ECHELON is designed primarily
for non-military targets: governments, organizations, businesses, and
individuals in virtually every country. It potentially affects every
person communicating between (and sometimes within) countries anywhere
in the world.

It is, of course, not a new idea that intelligence organizations tap
into e-mail and other public telecommunications networks. What was new
in the material leaked by the New Zealand intelligence staff was precise
information on where the spying is done, how the system works, its
capabilities and shortcomings, and many details such as the codenames.

The ECHELON system is not designed to eavesdrop on a particular
individual's e-mail or fax link. Rather, the system works by
indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications
and using computers to identify and extract messages of interest from
the mass of unwanted ones. A chain of secret interception facilities has
been established around the world to tap into all the major components
of the international telecommunications networks. Some monitor
communications satellites, others land-based communications networks,
and others radio communications. ECHELON links together all these
facilities, providing the US and its allies with the ability to
intercept a large proportion of the communications on the planet.

The computers at each station in the ECHELON network automatically
search through the millions of messages intercepted for ones containing
pre-programmed keywords. Keywords include all the names, localities,
subjects, and so on that might be mentioned. Every word of every message
intercepted at each station gets automatically searched whether or not a
specific telephone number or e-mail address is on the list. The
thousands of simultaneous messages are read in "real time" as they pour
into the station, hour after hour, day after day, as the computer finds
intelligence needles in telecommunications haystacks.

SOMEONE IS LISTENING
The computers in stations around the globe are
known, within the network, as the ECHELON Dictionaries. Computers that
can automatically search through traffic for keywords have existed since
at least the 1970s, but the ECHELON system was designed by NSA to
interconnect all these computers and allow the stations to function as
components of an integrated whole. The NSA and GCSB are bound together
under the five-nation UKUSA signals intelligence agreement. The other
three partners all with equally obscure names are the Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Britain, the Communications
Security Establishment (CSE) in Canada, and the Defense Signals
Directorate (DSD) in Australia.

The alliance, which grew from cooperative efforts during World War II to
intercept radio transmissions, was formalized into the UKUSA agreement
in 1948 and aimed primarily against the USSR. The five UKUSA agencies
are today the largest intelligence organizations in their respective
countries. With much of the world's business occurring by fax, e-mail,
and phone, spying on these communications receives the bulk of
intelligence resources. For decades before the introduction of the
ECHELON system, the UKUSA allies did intelligence collection operations
for each other, but each agency usually processed and analyzed the
intercept from its own stations.

Under ECHELON, a particular station's Dictionary computer contains not
only its parent agency's chosen keywords, but also has lists entered in
for other agencies. In New Zealand's satellite interception station at
Waihopai (in the South Island), for example, the computer has separate
search lists for the NSA, GCHQ, DSD, and CSE in addition to its own.
Whenever the Dictionary encounters a message containing one of the
agencies' keywords, it automatically picks it and sends it directly to
the headquarters of the agency concerned. No one in New Zealand screens,
or even sees, the intelligence collected by the New Zealand station for
the foreign agencies. Thus, the stations of the junior UKUSA allies
function for the NSA no differently than if they were overtly NSA-run
bases located on their soil.

The first component of the ECHELON network are stations specifically
targeted on the international telecommunications satellites (Intelsats)
used by the telephone companies of most countries. A ring of Intelsats
is positioned around the world, stationary above the equator, each
serving as a relay station for tens of thousands of simultaneous phone
calls, fax, and e-mail. Five UKUSA stations have been established to
intercept the communications carried by the Intelsats.

The British GCHQ station is located at the top of high cliffs above the
sea at Morwenstow in Cornwall. Satellite dishes beside sprawling
operations buildings point toward Intelsats above the Atlantic, Europe,
and, inclined almost to the horizon, the Indian Ocean. An NSA station at
Sugar Grove, located 250 kilometers southwest of Washington, DC, in the
mountains of West Virginia, covers Atlantic Intelsats transmitting down
toward North and South America. Another NSA station is in Washington
State, 200 kilometers southwest of Seattle, inside the Army's Yakima
Firing Center. Its satellite dishes point out toward the Pacific
Intelsats and to the east. *1

The job of intercepting Pacific Intelsat communications that cannot be
intercepted at Yakima went to New Zealand and Australia. Their South
Pacific location helps to ensure global interception. New Zealand
provides the station at Waihopai and Australia supplies the Geraldton
station in West Australia (which targets both Pacific and Indian Ocean
Intelsats). *2

Each of the five stations' Dictionary computers has a codename to
distinguish it from others in the network. The Yakima station, for
instance, located in desert country between the Saddle Mountains and
Rattlesnake Hills, has the COWBOY Dictionary, while the Waihopai station
has the FLINTLOCK Dictionary. These codenames are recorded at the
beginning of every intercepted message, before it is transmitted around
the ECHELON network, allowing analysts to recognize at which station the
interception occurred.

New Zealand intelligence staff has been closely involved with the NSA's
Yakima station since 1981, when NSA pushed the GCSB to contribute to a
project targeting Japanese embassy communications. Since then, all five
UKUSA agencies have been responsible for monitoring diplomatic cables
from all Japanese posts within the same segments of the globe they are
assigned for general UKUSA monitoring.3 Until New Zealand's integration
into ECHELON with the opening of the Waihopai station in 1989, its share
of the Japanese communications was intercepted at Yakima and sent
unprocessed to the GCSB headquarters in Wellington for decryption,
translation, and writing into UKUSA-format intelligence reports (the NSA
provides the codebreaking programs).

"COMMUNICATION" THROUGH SATELLITES
The next component of the ECHELON
system intercepts a range of satellite communications not carried by
Intelsat.In addition to the UKUSA stations targeting Intelsat
satellites, there are another five or more stations homing in on Russian
and other regional communications satellites. These stations are Menwith
Hill in northern England; Shoal Bay, outside Darwin in northern
Australia (which targets Indonesian satellites); Leitrim, just south of
Ottawa in Canada (which appears to intercept Latin American satellites);
Bad Aibling in Germany; and Misawa in northern Japan.

A group of facilities that tap directly into land-based
telecommunications systems is the final element of the ECHELON system.
Besides satellite and radio, the other main method of transmitting large
quantities of public, business, and government communications is a
combination of water cables under the oceans and microwave networks over
land. Heavy cables, laid across seabeds between countries, account for
much of the world's international communications. After they come out of
the water and join land-based microwave networks they are very
vulnerable to interception. The microwave networks are made up of chains
of microwave towers relaying messages from hilltop to hilltop (always in
line of sight) across the countryside. These networks shunt large
quantities of communications across a country. Interception of them
gives access to international undersea communications (once they
surface) and to international communication trunk lines across
continents. They are also an obvious target for large-scale interception
of domestic communications.

Because the facilities required to intercept radio and satellite
communications use large aerials and dishes that are difficult to hide
for too long, that network is reasonably well documented. But all that
is required to intercept land-based communication networks is a building
situated along the microwave route or a hidden cable running underground
from the legitimate network into some anonymous building, possibly far
removed. Although it sounds technically very difficult, microwave
interception from space by United States spy satellites also occurs.4
The worldwide network of facilities to intercept these communications is
largely undocumented, and because New Zealand's GCSB does not
participate in this type of interception, my inside sources could not
help either.

NO ONE IS SAFE FROM A MICROWAVE
A 1994 expos of the Canadian UKUSA
agency, Spyworld, co-authored by one of its former staff, Mike Frost,
gave the first insights into how a lot of foreign microwave interception
is done (see p. 18). It described UKUSA "embassy collection" operations,
where sophisticated receivers and processors are secretly transported to
their countries' overseas embassies in diplomatic bags and used to
monitor various communications in foreign capitals. *5

Since most countries' microwave networks converge on the capital city,
embassy buildings can be an ideal site. Protected by diplomatic
privilege, they allow interception in the heart of the target country.
*6 The Canadian embassy collection was requested by the NSA to fill gaps
in the American and British embassy collection operations, which were
still occurring in many capitals around the world when Frost left the
CSE in 1990. Separate sources in Australia have revealed that the DSD
also engages in embassy collection. *7 On the territory of UKUSA
nations, the interception of land-based telecommunications appears to be
done at special secret intelligence facilities. The US, UK, and Canada
are geographically well placed to intercept the large amounts of the
world's communications that cross their territories.

The only public reference to the Dictionary system anywhere in the world
was in relation to one of these facilities, run by the GCHQ in central
London. In 1991, a former British GCHQ official spoke anonymously to
Granada Television's World in Action about the agency's abuses of power.
He told the program about an anonymous red brick building at 8 Palmer
Street where GCHQ secretly intercepts every telex which passes into, out
of, or through London, feeding them into powerful computers with a
program known as "Dictionary." The operation, he explained, is staffed
by carefully vetted British Telecom people: "It's nothing to do with
national security. It's because it's not legal to take every single
telex. And they take everything: the embassies, all the business deals,
even the birthday greetings, they take everything. They feed it into the
Dictionary." *8 What the documentary did not reveal is that Dictionary
is not just a British system; it is UKUSA-wide.

Similarly, British researcher Duncan Campbell has described how the US
Menwith Hill station in Britain taps directly into the British Telecom
microwave network, which has actually been designed with several major
microwave links converging on an isolated tower connected underground
into the station.9

The NSA Menwith Hill station, with 22 satellite terminals and more than
4.9 acres of buildings, is undoubtedly the largest and most powerful in
the UKUSA network. Located in northern England, several thousand
kilometers from the Persian Gulf, it was awarded the NSA's "Station of
the Year" prize for 1991 after its role in the Gulf War. Menwith Hill
assists in the interception of microwave communications in another way
as well, by serving as a ground station for US electronic spy
satellites. These intercept microwave trunk lines and short range
communications such as military radios and walkie talkies. Other ground
stations where the satellites' information is fed into the global
network are Pine Gap, run by the CIA near Alice Springs in central
Australia and the Bad Aibling station in Germany. *10 Among them, the
various stations and operations making up the ECHELON network tap into
all the main components of the world's telecommunications networks. All
of them, including a separate network of stations that intercepts long
distance radio communications, have their own Dictionary computers
connected into ECHELON.

In the early 1990s, opponents of the Menwith Hill station obtained large
quantities of internal documents from the facility. Among the papers was
a reference to an NSA computer system called Platform. The integration
of all the UKUSA station computers into ECHELON probably occurred with
the introduction of this system in the early 1980s. James Bamford wrote
at that time about a new worldwide NSA computer network codenamed
Platform "which will tie together 52 separate computer systems used
throughout the world. Focal point, or `host environment,' for the
massive network will be the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade. Among those
included in Platform will be the British SIGINT organization, GCHQ." *11

LOOKING IN THE DICTIONARY
The Dictionary computers are connected via
highly encrypted UKUSA communications that link back to computer data
bases in the five agency headquarters. This is where all the intercepted
messages selected by the Dictionaries end up. Each morning the specially
"indoctrinated" signals intelligence analysts in Washington,
Ottawa,Cheltenham, Canberra, and Wellington log on at their computer
terminals and enter the Dictionary system. After keying in their
security passwords, they reach a directory that lists the different
categories of intercept available in the data bases, each with a
four-digit code. For instance, 1911 might be Japanese diplomatic cables
from Latin America (handled by the Canadian CSE), 3848 might be
political communications from and about Nigeria, and 8182 might be any
messages about distribution of encryption technology.

They select their subject category, get a "search result" showing how
many messages have been caught in the ECHELON net on that subject, and
then the day's work begins. Analysts scroll through screen after screen
of intercepted faxes, e-mail messages, etc. and, whenever a message
appears worth reporting on, they select it from the rest to work on. If
it is not in English, it is translated and then written into the
standard format of intelligence reports produced anywhere within the
UKUSA network either in entirety as a "report," or as a summary or
"gist."

INFORMATION CONTROL
A highly organized system has been developed to
control what is being searched for by each station and who can have
access to it. This is at the heart of ECHELON operations and works as
follows.

The individual station's Dictionary computers do not simply have a long
list of keywords to search for. And they do not send all the information
into some huge database that participating agencies can dip into as they
wish. It is much more controlled.

The search lists are organized into the same categories, referred to by
the four digit numbers. Each agency decides its own categories according
to its responsibilities for producing intelligence for the network. For
GCSB, this means South Pacific governments, Japanese diplomatic, Russian
Antarctic activities, and so on.

The agency then works out about 10 to 50 keywords for selection in each
category. The keywords include such things as names of people, ships,
organizations, country names, and subject names. They also include the
known telex and fax numbers and Internet addresses of any individuals,
businesses, organizations, and government offices that are targets.
These are generally written as part of the message text and so are
easily recognized by the Dictionary computers.

The agencies also specify combinations of keywords to help sift out
communications of interest. For example, they might search for
diplomatic cables containing both the words "Santiago" and "aid," or
cables containing the word "Santiago" but not "consul" (to avoid the
masses of routine consular communications). It is these sets of words
and numbers (and combinations), under a particular category, that get
placed in the Dictionary computers. (Staff in the five agencies called
Dictionary Managers enter and update the keyword search lists for each
agency.)

The whole system, devised by the NSA, has been adopted completely by the
other agencies. The Dictionary computers search through all the incoming
messages and, whenever they encounter one with any of the agencies'
keywords, they select it. At the same time, the computer automatically
notes technical details such as the time and place of interception on
the piece of intercept so that analysts reading it, in whichever agency
it is going to, know where it came from, and what it is. Finally, the
computer writes the four-digit code (for the category with the keywords
in that message) at the bottom of the message's text. This is important.
It means that when all the intercepted messages end up together in the
database at one of the agency headquarters, the messages on a particular
subject can be located again. Later, when the analyst using the
Dictionary system selects the four- digit code for the category he or
she wants, the computer simply searches through all the messages in the
database for the ones which have been tagged with that number.

This system is very effective for controlling which agencies can get
what from the global network because each agency only gets the
intelligence out of the ECHELON system from its own numbers. It does not
have any access to the raw intelligence coming out of the system to the
other agencies. For example, although most of the GCSB's intelligence
production is primarily to serve the UKUSA alliance, New Zealand does
not have access to the whole ECHELON network. The access it does have is
strictly controlled. A New Zealand intelligence officer explained: "The
agencies can all apply for numbers on each other's Dictionaries. The
hardest to deal with are the Americans. ... [There are] more hoops to
jump through, unless it is in their interest, in which case they'll do
it for you."

There is only one agency which, by virtue of its size and role within
the alliance, will have access to the full potential of the ECHELON
system the agency that set it up. What is the system used for? Anyone
listening to official "discussion" of intelligence could be forgiven for
thinking that, since the end of the Cold War, the key targets of the
massive UKUSA intelligence machine are terrorism, weapons proliferation,
and economic intelligence. The idea that economic intelligence has
become very important, in particular, has been carefully cultivated by
intelligence agencies intent on preserving their post-Cold War budgets.
It has become an article of faith in much discussion of intelligence.
However, I have found no evidence that these are now the primary
concerns of organizations such as NSA.

QUICKER INTELLIGENCE,SAME MISSION
A different story emerges after
examining very detailed information I have been given about the
intelligence New Zealand collects for the UKUSA allies and detailed
descriptions of what is in the yards-deep intelligence reports New
Zealand receives from its four allies each week. There is quite a lot of
intelligence collected about potential terrorists, and there is quite a
lot of economic intelligence, notably intensive monitoring of all the
countries participating in GATT negotiations. But by far, the main
priorities of the intelligence alliance continue to be political and
military intelligence to assist the larger allies to pursue their
interests around the world. Anyone and anything the particular
governments are concerned about can become a target.

With capabilities so secret and so powerful, almost anything goes. For
example, in June 1992, a group of current "highly placed intelligence
operatives" from the British GCHQ spoke to the London Observer: "We feel
we can no longer remain silent regarding that which we regard to be
gross malpractice and negligence within the establishment in which we
operate." They gave as examples GCHQ interception of three charitable
organizations, including Amnesty International and Christian Aid. As the
Observer reported: "At any time GCHQ is able to home in on their
communications for a routine target request," the GCHQ source said. In
the case of phone taps the procedure is known as Mantis. With telexes it
is called Mayfly. By keying in a code relating to Third World aid, the
source was able to demonstrate telex "fixes" on the three organizations.
"It is then possible to key in a trigger word which enables us to home
in on the telex communications whenever that word appears," he said.
"And we can read a pre-determined number of characters either side of
the keyword."12 Without actually naming it, this was a fairly precise
description of how the ECHELON Dictionary system works. Again, what was
not revealed in the publicity was that this is a UKUSA-wide system. The
design of ECHELON means that the interception of these organizations
could have occurred anywhere in the network, at any station where the
GCHQ had requested that the four-digit code covering Third World aid be
placed.

Note that these GCHQ officers mentioned that the system was being used
for telephone calls. In New Zealand, ECHELON is used only to intercept
written communications: fax, e-mail, and telex. The reason, according to
intelligence staff, is that the agency does not have the staff to
analyze large quantities of telephone conversations.

Mike Frost's expos of Canadian "embassy collection" operations described
the NSA computers they used, called Oratory, that can "listen" to
telephone calls and recognize when keywords are spoken. Just as we can
recognize words spoken in all the different tones and accents we
encounter, so too, according to Frost, can these computers. Telephone
calls containing keywords are automatically extracted from the masses of
other calls and recorded digitally on magnetic tapes for analysts back
at agency headquarters. However, high volume voice recognition computers
will be technically difficult to perfect, and my New Zealand-based
sources could not confirm that this capability exists. But, if or when
it is perfected, the implications would be immense. It would mean that
the UKUSA agencies could use machines to search through all the
international telephone calls in the world, in the same way that they do
written messages. If this equipment exists for use in embassy
collection, it will presumably be used in all the stations throughout
the ECHELON network. It is yet to be confirmed how extensively telephone
communications are being targeted by the ECHELON stations for the other
agencies.

The easiest pickings for the ECHELON system are the individuals,
organizations,and governments that do not use encryption. In New
Zealand's area, for example, it has proved especially useful against
already vulnerable South Pacific nations which do not use any coding,
even for government communications (all these communications of New
Zealand's neighbors are supplied, unscreened, to its UKUSA allies). As a
result of the revelations in my book, there is currently a project under
way in the Pacific to promote and supply publicly available encryption
software to vulnerable organizations such as democracy movements in
countries with repressive governments. This is one practical way of
curbing illegitimate uses of the ECHELON capabilities.

One final comment. All the newspapers, commentators, and "well placed
sources" told the public that New Zealand was cut off from US
intelligence in the mid-1980s. That was entirely untrue. The
intelligence supply to New Zealand did not stop, and instead, the decade
since has been a period of increased integration of New Zealand into the
US system. Virtually everything the equipment, manuals, ways of
operating, jargon, codes, and so on, used in the GCSB continues to be
imported entirely from the larger allies (in practice, usually the NSA).
As with the Australian and Canadian agencies, most of the priorities
continue to come from the US, too.

The main thing that protects these agencies from change is their
secrecy. On the day my book arrived in the book shops, without prior
publicity, there was an all-day meeting of the intelligence bureaucrats
in the prime minister's department trying to decide if they could
prevent it from being distributed. They eventually concluded, sensibly,
that the political costs were too high. It is understandable that they
were so agitated.

Throughout my research, I have faced official denials or governments
refusing to comment on publicity about intelligence activities. Given
the pervasive atmosphere of secrecy and stonewalling, it is always hard
for the public to judge what is fact, what is speculation, and what is
paranoia. Thus, in uncovering New Zealand's role in the NSA-led
alliance, my aim was to provide so much detail about the operations the
technical systems, the daily work of individual staff members, and even
the rooms in which they work inside intelligence facilities that readers
could feel confident that they were getting close to the truth. I hope
the information leaked by intelligence staff in New Zealand about UKUSA
and its systems such as ECHELON will help lead to change.

_________________________________________________________________

New York Times
http://www10.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/05/cyber/articles/27network.html

May 27, 1999
Lawmakers Raise Questions About International Spy Network
By NIALL McKAY

An international surveillance network established by the National Security Agency and British intelligence services has come under scrutiny in recent weeks, as lawmakers in the United States question whether the network, known as Echelon, could be used to monitor American citizens.

Last week, the House Committee on Intelligence requested that the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency provide a detailed report to Congress explaining what legal standards they use to monitor the conversations, transmissions and activities of American citizens.

The request is part of an amendment to the annual intelligence budget bill, the Intelligence Reauthorization Act. It was proposed by Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican and was supported by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, a Florida Republican. The amendment was passed by the House on May 13 and will now go before the Senate.

Barr, a former CIA analyst, is part of a growing contingent in the United States, Europe and Australia alarmed by the existence of Echelon, a computer system that monitors millions of e-mail, fax, telex and phone messages sent over satellite-based communications systems as well as terrestrial-based data communications. The system was established under what is known as the
"UKUSA Agreement" after World War II and includes the security agencies of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Although Echelon was originally set up as an international spy network, lawmakers are concerned that it could be used to eavesdrop on American citizens.

"I am concerned there are not sufficient legal mechanisms in place to protect our private information from unauthorized government eavesdropping through such mechanisms as Project Echelon," Barr said in an interview on Tuesday.

The finished report will outline the legal bases and other criteria used by United States intelligence agencies when assessing potential wiretap targets. It will be submitted to the House and made available to the public.

"If the agencies feel unable to provide a full account to the public, then a second classified report will be provided to the House Committee on Intelligence," Barr said. "This is to stop the agencies hiding behind a cloak of secrecy."

Judith Emmel, chief of public affairs for the NSA, declined to comment about the UKUSA Agreement but said the agency was committed to responding to all information requests covered by Barr's amendment. "The NSA's Office of General Counsel works hard to ensure that all Agency activities are conducted in accordance with the highest constitutional, legal and ethical standards," she said.

Until last Sunday, no government or intelligence agency from the member states had openly admitted to the existence of the UKUSA Agreement or Echelon. However, on a television program broadcast on Sunday in Australia, the director of Australia's Defense Signals Directorate acknowledged existence of the agreement. The official, Martin Brady, declined to be
interviewed for the "Sunday Program," but provided a statement for its special on Echelon. "DSD does cooperate with counterpart signals intelligence organizations overseas under the UKUSA relationship," the statement said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Articles
European Parliament Debates Wiretap Proposal
(May 7, 1999)
Dutch Law Goes Beyond Enabling Wiretapping to Make It a Requirement
(April 14, 1998)

European Study Paints a Chilling Portrait of Technology's Uses
(February 24, 1998)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, European Parliament officials have also expressed concern about the use of Echelon to gather economic intelligence for participating nations. Last October, the spying system came to the attention of the Parliament during a debate on Europe's intelligence relationship with the United States. At that time, the Parliament decided it needed more
information about Echelon and asked its Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel to commission a report.

The report, entitled "Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information", was published on May 10 and provides a detailed account of Echelon and other intelligence monitoring systems.

According to the report, Echelon is just one of the many code names for the monitoring system, which consists of satellite interception stations in participating countries. The stations collectively monitor millions of voice and data messages each day. These messages are then scanned and checked against certain key criteria held in a computer system called the
"Dictionary." In the case of voice communications, the criteria could include a suspected criminal's telephone number; with respect to data communications, the messages might be scanned for certain keywords, like "bomb" or "drugs." The report also alleges that Echelon is capable of monitoring terrestrial Internet traffic through interception nodes placed on
deep-sea communications cables.

While few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers and terrorists, many are concerned that the system could be abused to collect economic and political information.

"The recent revelations about China's spying activities in the U.S. demonstrates that there is a clear need for electronic monitoring capabilities," said Patrick Poole, a lecturer in government and economics at Bannock Burn College in Franklin, Tenn., who compiled a report on Echelon
for the Free Congress Foundation. "But those capabilities can be abused for political or economic purposes so we need to ensure that there is some sort of legislative control over these systems."

On the "Sunday Program" special on Echelon, Mike Frost, a former employee of Canada's Communications Security Establishment, said that Britain's intelligence agency requested that the CSE monitor the communications of British government officials in the late 1980s. Under British law, the intelligence agency is prohibited from monitoring its own government.
Frost also said that since the cold war is over, the "the focus now is towards
economic intelligence."

Still, Echelon has been shrouded in such secrecy that its very existence has been difficult to prove. Barr's amendment aims to change that. "If this report reveals that information about American citizens is being collected without legal authorization, the intelligence community will
have some serious explaining to do," Barr said.

Federal Computer Week has an interesting article about the NSA resisting Congressional oversight about Echelon:

http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/0531/web-nsa-6-3-99.html

Congress, NSA butt heads over Echelon

BY DANIEL VERTON (dan_verton@fcw.com)

Congress has squared off with the National Security Agency over a top-secret U.S. global electronic surveillance program, requesting top intelligence officials to report on the legal standards used to prevent privacy abuses against U.S. citizens.

According to an amendment to the fiscal 2000 Intelligence Authorization Act proposed last month by Sen. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), the director of Central Intelligence, the director of NSA and the attorney general must submit a report within 60 days of the bill becoming law that outlines
the legal standards being employed to safeguard the privacy of American citizens against Project Echelon.

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. However, the European Union last year raised concerns that the system may be regularly violating the privacy of law-abiding citizens [FCW, Nov. 17, 1998].

However, NSA, the super secret spy agency known best for its worldwide eavesdropping capabilities, for the first time in the history of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence refused to hand over documents on the Echelon program, claiming attorney/client privilege.

Congress is "concerned about the privacy rights of American citizens and whether or not there are constitutional safeguards being circumvented by the manner in which the intelligence agencies are intercepting and/or receiving international communications...from foreign nations that
would otherwise be prohibited by...the limitations on the collection of domestic intelligence," Barr said. "This very straightforward amendment...will help guarantee the privacy rights of American citizens [and] will protect the oversight responsibilities of the Congress which
are now under assault" by the intelligence community.

Calling NSA's argument of attorney/client privilege "unpersuasive and dubious," committee chairman Rep. Peter J. Goss (R-Fla.) said the ability of the intelligence community to deny access to documents on intelligence programs could "seriously hobble the legislative oversight
process" provided for by the Constitution and would "result in the envelopment of the executive branch in a cloak of secrecy."

Copyright 1999 FCW Government Technology Group

GERMANY ENCOURAGES TECHNO/COMM DEFENSE STRATEGY IN RESPONSE TO ANGLO TECHNO-INVASION

From: "Ellis Smith"

June 6,1999

Germany has apparently woken up to the slight of hand activities of the US DOJ activities regarding encryption and electronic interdiction. (ILETS/DIRT) What is absolutely amazing is under the pretense of chasing gangsters and terrorist's all these countries never thought about the simple fact that they're all gangs of one form or another and that with a little gratuity, corporate activities could just as easily be included in the monitoring routines. Its just business... like any other.

Ellis
_______________________

Germany Endorses Strong Crypto

Wired News Report

5:20 p.m. 3.Jun.99.PDT

In an apparent response to corporate spying allegedly conducted in Europe by the United States, Germany is encouraging citizens and businesses to use strong cryptography.

"[Germany] considers the application of secure encryption to be a crucial requirement for citizens' privacy, for the development of electronic commerce, and for the protection of business secrets," reads a translated version of a policy framework document released

Wednesday by Germany's Federal Department of Business and Technology (BMWI).

"The federal government will therefore actively support the distribution of secure encryption. This includes in particular increasing the security consciousness of citizens, business and administration.

Australia recently became the first nation to admit it participates in Echelon, a previously secret global surveillance network capable of intercepting electronic communications anywhere in the world.

Echelon is said to be principally operated by the United States' National Security Agency and its UK equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters. In addition to Australia, the system relies on cooperation with other signals-intelligence agencies in Canada and New Zealand.

Earlier this month, UK investigative journalist Duncan Campbell submitted Interception Capabilities 2000, his report on Echelon, to the European Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel.

Campbell had been asked to investigate the system in the wake of charges made last year in the European Parliament that Echelon was being used to funnel European government and industry secrets into US hands. In the wake of the report, the Australian government confirmed the Echelon alliance to media in follow-up interviews.

Though Wednesday's German government statement does not mention Echelon, the document alludes to the specter of industrial espionage.

"For reasons of national security, and the security of business and society, the federal government considers the ability of German manufacturers to develop and manufacture secure and efficient encryption products indispensable," the statement said. The government added that it would take additional measures to strengthen its domestic crypto software industry.

The policy also cautioned that while encryption may be used to criminal ends, the need to protect electronic commerce overrides any such concerns. The department said it would prepare and release a report on the criminal uses of cryptography within two years.

The US government restricts the export of strong crypto on the grounds that it might be used by terrorists and hostile nations to conceal communications.

- Posted by: Putrefied Cow <waste@zor.hut.fi

27 May 1999 Source: Hardcopy Business Week, May 31, 1999, pp.110-111.

INTELLIGENCE
THEY'RE LISTENING TO YOUR CALLS

Echelon monitors phones, E-mail, and radio signals

You think the Internet brings grave new threats to privacy? Then you probably don't know about Echelon. Run by the super secret National Security Agency, it's the grand- daddy of all snooping operations.

Business and political leaders are waking up to the alarming potential of this hush-hush system. A combination of spy satellites and sensitive listening stations, it eavesdrops on just about every electronic communication that crosses a national border ; phone calls, faxes, telexes, and E-mail ;plus all radio signals, including short-wave, airline, and maritime frequencies. Echelon's globe-straddling system also listens in on most long distance telecom traffic within countries. Ditto for local cell-phone calls.

Indeed, if a phone call or message travels via satellite or microwave relay during any part of its journey, it probably gets picked up by Echelon. So the lion's share of all telecommunications traffic is bugged because even undersea phone cables and fiberoptic terrestrial systems often have microwave links somewhere in the loop. "Americans should know that every time they place an international call, the NSA is listening," says John E. Pike, a military analyst at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. "Just get used to the fact ;Big Brother is listening."

In Europe, Big Brother may soon get a second set of ears. The European Parliament is working on a junior version of Echelon. A resolution outlining the technical standards for tapping such new tech systems as the Internet was approved on May 7.

Encryption is no guarantee of privacy either. The NSA, which is bigger than the Central Intelligence Agency and runs Echelon from its headquarters at Ft. Meade, Md., has little trouble unscrambling messages encoded with most commercial encryption software. With a little more time, NSA can probably break "crypto" schemes with so- called keys almost 1,000 bits long, says Lisa S. Dean, vice-president for technology at the Free Congress Research & Education Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. "That's why 1,028 bits is used by most organizations that are concerned about confidentiality."

If it's any consolation, the vast bulk of all communications are never heard or seen by people. Echelon's chief task is sifting through civilian telecom traffic for clues about terrorist plots, drug-smuggling cartels, political unrest, and other intelligence requested by the Pentagon, government strategists, and law-enforcement agencies. Supercomputers screen the so-called intercepts for key words related to such matters. If the computers don't spot anything suspicious, the tapes get erased after a month or so.

LEAKS AND POACHERS.

Still, like any technological tool, Echelon is subject to political abuses&and there have been some. During the Reagan Administration, Echelon intercepted phone calls by Michael Barnes, then a Democratic Congressman from Maryland, to Nicaraguan officials, and transcripts were leaked to the press. Echelon can also backfire: On two occasions, Canadian spooks who collaborate with the NSA used Echelon to pick up information on pending U. S.China grain deals and steal the business with lower prices.

Echelon has been operating with little fanfare for decades. It springs from a secret pact signed in 1948 by the U. S., Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand&the countries running Echelon's main listening posts (map). Then, last year, the system was hauled into the glare of public scrutiny by a study prepared for the European Parliament by Omega Foundation, a British market researcher. Europeans were enraged by its finding that "within Europe, all Email, telephone, and fax communications are routinely intercepted" by the NSA. "Unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the Cold War," the report noted, "Echelon is designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organizations, and businesses in virtually every country."

From: "d.linen"
linen@flash.net

...snip...@niehs.nih.gov 27 May 99 8:46 am

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/05/cyber/articles/27network.html

An international surveillance network established by the National
Security Agency and British intelligence services has come under scrutiny in
recent weeks, as lawmakers in the United States question whether the network,
known as Echelon, could be used to monitor American citizens.
Last week, the House Committee on Intelligence requested that the
National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency provide a detailed
report to Congress explaining what legal standards they use to monitor
the conversations, transmissions and activities of American citizens.

<snip

Until last Sunday, no government or intelligence agency from the member
states had openly admitted to the existence of the UKUSA Agreement or
Echelon. However, on a television program broadcast on Sunday in
Australia, the director of Australia's Defense Signals Directorate
acknowledged the existence of the agreement. The official, Martin
Brady, declined to be interviewed for the "Sunday Program," but provided a
statement for its special on Echelon. "DSD does cooperate with
counterpart signals intelligence organizations overseas under the UKUSA
relationship," the statement said.

<snip>

According to the report, Echelon is just one of the many code names for
the monitoring system, which consists of satellite interception stations
in participating countries. The stations collectively monitor millions
of voice and data messages each day. These messages are then scanned and
checked against certain key criteria held in a computer system called the "Dictionary." In the case of voice communications, the criteria could
include a suspected criminal's telephone number; with respect to data
communications, the messages might be scanned for certain keywords,
like "bomb" or "drugs." The report also alleges that Echelon is capable of
monitoring terrestrial Internet traffic through interception nodes
placed on deep-sea communications cables.

<snip>

ILETS, THE PHONE COMPANY, THE BANK, THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY AND THE UFO COMMUNITY

by Ellis Smith

Alpha testing to Beta Testing - What better way to test electronic warfare technologies then an intellectually and technologically superior public control group?

Yesterday afternoon while going through email I noted a very unusual note generated by a gentleman to a nondescript post. Rather then reply, the note was converted to an attachment, then re-sent to a very large distribution lis. The attachment with a three word reply.

(This is not to infer the gentleman himself was the responsible party. As anyone involved in softwar's knows, nine times out of ten the originating parties had no clue their email was being altered or tampered with in process of distributing it.)

It struck me as very odd as to what purpose one would one go to this effort in order to forward an attachment of a prior email for a three word response. Something here did not compute. As many might already realize, virus's and trojan horses can only be successfully transmitted by either hypertext links and/or email attachments.

I confronted the gentleman on the list, not directly but indirectly, asking as to why such an effort to convert to an attachment for such a minuscule response? He was not even aware it had been converted and according to the list moderator not everyone received it as being an attachment. This is even odder.

Within five minutes of my email being successfully distributed to those online I was knocked offline as was one of our own subscribers in Texas which is very far away from California or New York/New Jersey.

As I was about to pick up the phone to contact THE PHONE COMPANY to inquire as to why I was no longer able to connect, when our subscriber called me directly stating "I've just been knocked offline and I cannot get back on". She has relentlessly been pursued by the hackers we've focused on for the past year and so she called to ask my advice. Needless to say, I told her her timing was impeccable as I too was unable to get online having been unexpectedly disconnected.

I spent the next two and one half hours working my way thru *THE PHONE COMPANY's Corp. structure. It seems that even "THE PHONE COMPANY was unable by phone to reach it's own PHONE COMPANY's Internet Services Division.. After 7 attempts and 2 hours I finally got thru. It seemed that the entire North Jersey servers had just had their password systems crashed and no one could log in.

North Jersey is the most densely populated area in the nation.

THE PHONE COMPANY had only just discovered the "outage" 20 minutes before I "worked" my way through their corporate structure even though the network had actually been down 2 hours. Apparently no one could get through in order to inform them their system was down.

Texas and NJ do not share a common carrier. The coincidence of the email, our outages and THE PHONE COMPANY suddenly crashing simultaneous defies statistical probability. Not to mention that less then four months ago when our system was destroyed, THE PHONE COMPANY was hacked at that time also (according to Network Engineers who will not be quoted for fear of their jobs or lives) and was shut down completely for many , many hours.

Now, suddenly in light of this massive outage; this "FBI STORY" comes out via MSNBC.

(Hackers Vrs. FBI - MSNBC)

Yeah right.

Lets try my story.

In June of 1998 ILETS witnessed the software being displayed at a vendor convention in NYC and purchases it.

Mid July unknown military/intelligence cost centers contracted "a known Internet corporate executive of wealth, resources and whom they had purchased and set up into his previous position of wealth and fame". They gave him the military contract to devise and test this product into a workable and verifiable weapon.

They utilized data centers around the globe to Alpha test their product and tailor it to defeat their target test group and succeeded by compromising the individual test group they determined would be the greatest challenge. The UFO community's demographic's are such that the average user is intellectually and technologically adept if not superior and they possess a foundation of belief that assumes a conspiracy is waged against them. Meaning in essence, they are already prepared defensively. Once this community was compromised they proceeded to compromise A MAJOR CREDIT CARD/BANK COMPANY by initiating falsified credit debits repeatedly from an account in Florida to a retail site in North Dakota which just happens to be the legal Corporate headquarters of the same bank.

They then defeated A MAJOR COMMUNICATIONS HUB NETWORK SOURCE, namely THE PHONE COMPANY; by knocking them completely offline for hours.

After the results were proven in ALPHA testing, the reports were generated and provided to the Pentagon. During this time war erupted in the Balkans. When Clinton was presented with the choices available and when the aerial bombing was proving to not be producing the results expected; this new technology was brought to his attention.

Last week Clinton signed an executive order allowing this technology to be put into action and approved its use in acquiring Serbian funds clandestinely and to disrupt their communications systems. Within two days of the signing of this Executive Order, Beta testing began and hence THE PHONE COMPANY was hit again, as were the same members of their test Alpha group and I'd wager the BANK and CREDIT CARD customers were as well. This all being part of the final validation process before they go live in Europe.

How many people lost tons of money for the nonsense that ensued when THE PHONE COMPANY password server was raided and rendered incapacitated?

How many credit card holders are going to be over charged by $50.00 transaction across the board as they test their capabilities to usurp their Banking systems overseas?

And if anyone wonders why the US MILITARY and the rest of these slimy b******* read my site, it must certainly and primarily be DIRT, ILETS and its Domestic Testing.

Amazing what kind of attention a guy in a bathrobe can get eh?

Ellis

From: "Ellis Smith"

Nice to know our tax dollars are being used so effectively with a limited
budget. How come they can triple their work efforts in domestic
espionage but not manage to do so with say food stamps or rental
assistance with the same budgets?

Ellis
____________________________________________________

Forwarded from NewsScan Daily:

NewsScan Daily, 21 May 1999 ("Above The Fold")

************************************************************

NewsScan Daily is a summary of significant information technology news,

written by John Gehl & Suzanne Douglas. It is a FREE service of

NewsScan.com. Visit us at http://www.NewsScan.com/.

************************************************************

ELECTRONIC WIRETAPS TRIPLED LAST YEAR

The number of wiretaps placed by state and federal law enforcement officials on cell phones, pagers, e-mail and other telecommunications devices nearly tripled last year, and for the first time wiretaps on cell phones and pagers outnumbered those on conventional telephones. About three-quarters of the 1,329 wiretaps authorized were related to drug cases, according to a report issued by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Wiretaps on wireless communications devices -- cell phones and pagers -- more than doubled, from 206 in 1997 to 576 last year, and for the first time, five e-mail wiretaps were implemented. (USA Today 21 May 99) http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctf213.htm

********************

EU PLAN FOR INTERNET SNOOPING UNDER ATTACK

The U.K. House of Commons Select Trade and Industry Committee has released a report criticizing the European Union's Enfopol resolution, which would force Internet service providers and telecommunications carriers to establish an infrastructure that would enable law enforcement agencies to intercept Internet traffic. Calling the plan unjustified and
unfeasible, committee chairman Martin O'Neill said, "We felt the civil-liberties
arguments outweighed the security arrangements. If (the intelligence services) could justify what they were doing in terms of results, people would want to do it. Otherwise, it's a leap in the dark." O'Neill also noted that such restrictions could damage the climate for e-commerce in

Great Britain, and Europe in general.

(TechWeb 21 May 99)

http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990520S0022

- Posted by: Putrefied Cow <waste@zor.hut.fi

International Conspiracy Threatens Internet Privacy

ILETS - DIRT - ECHELON
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 1999 7:15 PM

ILETS - STATE DEPT-WASHINGTON

This is purely a personal opinion and should not be held as reason for bombing, espionage, insertion of radioactive material or legal entanglements of the ridiculous kind. This is an expression of free speech and personal interpretation that are guarantee under the constitution and should any retribution be inherited from this expression we are prepared with counsel, legally to respond.

Now, having said this...

According to ABC news this evening Data Warfare permission has been authorized by President Clinton. This is a surprise? Frankly no.

The UFO community having endured close to a year of bizarre hacking and viral attacks should not find it unusual that the Dept. of State has finally been given clearance to perform the tasks legally and in a mode of direct warfare that they've already more then tested and perfected on this nations own population for the past year.

Numerous reports and occurrence have transpired over the past

year that although leave no definitive proof nor verifiable audit trail that this is the case; still, any idiot with half a consciousness can follow with the slightest amount of grey matter.

It began with the release of the "top five groups to watch for the millennia". The usual terrorist cells, drug dealers, communist infiltrators, right wing armed white supremacist extremist groups and UFO buff's? What was wrong with this picture?

What makes the UFO investigative community unique is the demographic's. Most are technically trained and disciplined, are relatively well off economically, are dedicated and have a premise of paranoia as their base line of investigative endeavors. What better target group to test the most invasive and technologically complex projects initiated to date then on a target group who are already expecting technological invasion, are technologically savvy to the state of the art in data interception and defensive arts and who are most likely to not raise a public flag should things go awry?

What is fascinating is that true to form in the US ability to devise superior technology their efforts were fast and perfected easily, taking under a year to quantify their ability and project viability. They compromised *A Major Bank* Visa, *A Phone Company*, hundreds of individual labs an personal computers and God only knows how many commercial interest's in they're qualification routines.

Now, with this completed, President Clinton signs off on allow this project to go live in a "war zone" to go after Milosovech's and Serbia's Bank Accounts.

Big Surprise. Its nice to know that somehow we played a BS bit part in the overall strategy to deprive genocidal maniac's the ability to wage war on innocent civilians. However I will reiterate, that I would appreciate NATO continuing with the effort on the other criminal states in the world, namely South Dakota, Minnesota and Arizona who are also actively engaged in their own genocidal war on innocent civilians.

Since NATO and the US feel that hypocrisy is somehow explainable, having endured their testing at great personal monetary loss I might add, makes the effort far less noble and far more nauseating.

IMHO ,

Ellis

___________________________________________________________

Ellis Smith" smithorg@bellatlantic.net

Once again, thanks to the Europeans, we're receiving even more info on the US's war on the electronic community and civilians as a whole, complements of ILETS and its associated membership and strategic alliances.

Ellis

Spying on the Spies

by Niall McKay

12:15 p.m. 10.May.99.PDT

The National Security Agency has its ear to the world, but doesn't listen to everyone at once. That was one conclusion of a new report, Interception Capabilities 2000, accepted late last week by the European Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA).

The panel commissioned Duncan Campbell, a British investigative reporter, to prepare a report on Echelon, the US-led satellite surveillance network. "I have no objection to these systems monitoring serious criminals and terrorists," said Glyn Ford, a British Labour Party member of parliament and a committee member of STOA. "But what is missing here is accountability, clear guidelines as to who they can listen to, and in what circumstances these laws apply."

Campbell was asked to investigate the system in the wake of charges made last year in the European Parliament that Echelon was being used to funnel European government and industry secrets into US hands. "What is new and important about this report is that it contains the first ever documentary evidence of the Echelon system," said Campbell.

Campbell obtained the document from a source at Menwith Hill, the principal NSA communications monitoring station, located near Harrogate in northern England. The report details how intelligence agencies intercept Internet traffic and digital communications, and includes screen shots of traffic analysis from NSA computer systems.

Interception Capabilities 2000 also provides an account of a previously unknown, secret international organization led by the FBI. According to Campbell, the "secret" organization, called ILETS (International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar), is working on building backdoor wiretap capabilities into all forms of modern communications, including satellite communications systems.

"[The report] is undoubtedly the most comprehensive look at Echelon to date because of its attention to detail -- [and] the NSA's use of technology," said John Young, a privacy activist in New York. Although the United States has never officially acknowledged Echelon's existence, dozens of investigative reports over the past decade have revealed a maze-like system that can intercept telephone, data, cellular, fax, and email transmissions sent anywhere in the world. Previously, Echelon computers were thought to be able to scan millions of telephone lines and faxes for keywords such as "bomb" and "terrorist." But Campbell's report maintains that the technologies to perform such a global dragnet do not exist.

Instead, Campbell said that the system targets the communications networks of known diplomats, criminals, and industrialists of interest to the intelligence community. The report charges that popular software programs such as Lotus Notes and Web browsers include a "backdoor," through which the NSA can gain access to an individual's personal information.

Citing a November 1997 story in the Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, the report said that "Lotus built in an NSA 'help information' trapdoor to its Notes system, as the Swedish government discovered to its embarrassment." The report goes on to describe a feature called a "work factor reduction field" that is built into Notes and incorporated into all email sent by non-US users of the system. The feature reportedly broadcasts 24 of the 64 bits of the key used for each communication, and relies on a public key that can only be read by the NSA.

Lotus could not be reached for comment.

The new report emerges as politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are growing increasingly concerned about Echelon and its capabilities. "I believe that it's time that there is some congressional scrutiny of the Echelon project and I am examining a way to do that," said Representative Bob Barr (R-Georgia). "I understand the need for secrecy -- I was with the CIA myself -- but Echelon has raised some questions about fundamental policy and constitutional rights."

Barr is concerned that the NSA is using its Echelon partners to help it sidestep laws that forbid the US government from spying on its own people. So far, there has been very little scrutiny of spy systems in the United States, according to Patrick Poole, a privacy advocate and lecturer in government and economics at Bannock Burn College in Franklin,Tennessee. "The only significant examination of spy systems in the United States was the Church Report, which was prompted by Watergate in the early '70s," said Poole. "I hope that Europe's interest in the Echelon system will spark some new debate in the US."

Echelon is believed to be principally operated by the NSA and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters.

The system also reportedly relies on agreements with similar agencies in other countries, including Canada's Communications Security Establishment, Australia's Defense Signals Directorate, and New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau.

___________________________________________________________

Source

: Codex Data Systems http://www.thecodex.com/
http://www.codexdatasystems.com/cdsnews.html

Want to know they're saying about D.I.R.T.?
Military and Government Agency Access ONLY
Certain Information is Restricted and Closed To Unauthorized Use.
PLEASE READ ACCESS WARNINGS, IF ANY, AND ABIDE BY THEM.
All accesses verified.
Access to restricted area is granted upon receipt of your
official request on agency letterhead.

Call 914-627-0011 for details or fax Official Agency letterhead
to: 914-627-0211

Technical Specifications

Sale of this technology is restricted to military, government
and law enforcement agencies only... For additional information
we require a written request on official letterhead signed by an
authorized official...
Codex Data Systems, Inc. will be happy to provide a demonstration
to any authorized agency
The first public demonstration of D.I.R.T. was on June 5, 1998
at the SpookTech98 Conference in New York City

Network World - July 1998
DIRT Bugs Strike!
By Winn Schwartau

"Imagine being able to monitor and intercept data from any PC in
the world anytime you want.
Then DIRT's for you.
DIRT stands for Data Interception by Remote Transmission, and if
Codex Data Systems in Bardonia, New York has anything to say
about it, will become the next law enforcement tool to help stop
the bad guys.
The cops are having a terrifically hard time dealing with
cybercrime, and they all put on-line child pornography at the
top of the list because of the emotional response to it.
Suspected terrorists, drug traffickers, money launderers, are
also potential targets for DIRT as are various criminal
organizations which employ anonymity, remote control and
encryption to hide themselves. DIRT represents a fabulous, but
questionably legal/ethical means of information gathering by
intelligence agencies as well as private investigators.
Thus Frank Jones and Codex Data Systems begat DIRT. "We have to
give law enforcement the tools they need to get real criminals.
So many of them are now using encryption, DIRT allows law
enforcement to read encrypted messages."
DIRT operates surreptitiously like a Trojan Horse. It is
transmitted secretly to a target via email in several ways:
either as a proprietary protocol, self extracting executable,
dummy segment fault, hidden ZIP file, application specific
weakness, macro, a steganographic attachment or other methods
the company's technical wizard, Eric Schneider will not divulge.
Once the DIRT-Bug is successfully embedded in the
target machine, two things occur. One, all keystrokes
at the keyboard are secretly captured and when the
target machine is connected on-line, it will stealthily
transmit the captured contents to a remotely located
DIRT-Control Central for analysis. This is how encryption keys
are to be discovered and later used to develop evidence in
criminal cases.
Secondly, when the target is on-line, his PC will invisibly
behave like an anonymous FTP server, giving the folks at
DIRT-Control Center 100% access to all resources. So much for
privacy!
Dave Banisar Staff Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information
Center in Washington, DC. said DIRT "Sounds like something the
Stasi would have developed." The problem is enforcement and
abuse he points out. "The only way to control this technology is
after the fact, during the trial when the police have to show
how they obtained evidence."
When I first saw DIRT demonstrated in New York (June 5, 1998), I
thought, "What if this gets out to the entire Internet
community. what will happen if we no longer ever trust our
email?"
The vast majority of computer crime goes unrecognized,
unreported and unprosecuted. Despite the fact that the use of
DIRT or a DIRT-like clone developed by the computer underground
violates the Computer Abuse Act of 1984 and an assortment of
other laws, the ability to control it remains extremely slim.
And the uses for DIRT-like software stagger the imagination.
All that someone with DIRT needs to know is your email address.
Period. All he has to do is send you an email, with the embedded
DIRT-Trojan Horse and he's home free, and you are a clueless
victim.
Large organizations usually worry about hackers breaking and
entering their networks. Now they have reason to worry that
DIRT-Bugs could invade their networks as well; whether launched
by an investigating law enforcement authority, international
competitors or spies, or just hackers. The last thing in the
world they want is for critical workstations to be broadcasting
passwords, encryption codes and providing complete system access
to whoever controls DIRT-Central.
Unfortunately, most firms with whom I deal have little
implementation of the minor policies they have developed. Thus,
defending against DIRT can be difficult. However, organizations
which utilize NAT and proxies in their firewalls achieve some
degree of confidence that DIRT's remote access capability will
not function. Just the keyboard strokes (and associated private
information) will be broadcast to DIRT-Central.
According to the developers at Codex Data Systems, if you are a
solitary PC sitting on a dial-up or a cable modem, there is
nothing - today - you can do except don't click on your email
attachments. Of course, ignoring email from strangers is always
a good idea. But, if I were a cop or a bad guy using DIRT, I
would certainly go after your home PC as well as the one at
work. It's a whole lot easier, and I am going to learn just as
much.
With the advent of more and more powerful Trojans, such as DIRT
(which only occupies 20K), the threat to our networked systems
gets clearer and clearer. As Frank Jones, the inventor says,
"There are no more secrets with DIRT."

TechWeek - Sept. 1998

Beware the Keystroke Cops
by Sarah Ellerman

Getting DIRT on criminals
"There is another powerful tool for surreptitiously intercepting
data, but it is only available to law enforcement and the
military. Called DIRT (Data Interception and Remote
Transmission), it was released in June by Codex Data Systems,
Inc. Investigators need only know your e-mail address to
secretly install the program. Once they do, investigators can
read your documents, view your images, download your files and
intercept your encryption keys. DIRT was developed to assist law
enforcement in pedophilia investigations, but future uses could
include drug investigations, money laundering cases and
information warfare.
How is DIRT different from Back Orifice? The sale of DIRT is
restricted, while Back Orifice is free for the downloading.
Also, there are already fixes available for Back Orifice, but no
way yet to defend against DIRT. "
Most feel secure when they encrypt their data, but it's an
illusion of comfort if a keystroke monitor is involved. DIRT
defeated Pretty Good Privacy in a matter of minutes at a recent
conference simply by stealing the user's key as it was typed
in."
Internet & Intranet Business & Technology Report - Oct. 1998
D.I.R.T. - The Ultimate Competitive Intelligence Tool
by Deb Cameron
"Codex Data Systems, Inc. of New York has created Data
Interception for Remote Transmission (DIRT), a surveillance tool
designed for law enforcement professionals. DIRT is similar to
BO in some respects, but it is smaller (less than 18K versus
120K for BO) and yet more stealthy. It runs as a much lower
level process and is virtually undetectable. In addition, it
cannot be stopped by firewalls.
DIRT was originally developed to aid in the investigation of
child pornographers and other isolated criminals using
standalone PCs. By becoming a spy in the user's computer, the
law enforcement official can gather needed evidence to
successfully prosecute a criminal case. Frank Jones, creator of
DIRT, surveyed the market for computer surveillance tools to aid
law enforcement professionals. When he found no suitable
products, he began developing DIRT, which he continues to
enhance.
DIRT logs all keystrokes on the target workstation and transmits
them the next time that system is online. Because users type in
their encryption pass phrases at the keyboard, which are then
transmitted via DIRT, the product helps law enforcement
officials decrypt documents and provides them with substantial
evidence for criminal investigations. All DIRT communications
are encrypted on their way back to the DIRT Control Center,
protecting them in case they are intercepted by a random system
administrator.
In the latest version of DIRT, the agency need not send the
software as an e-mail message at all; the law enforcement agency
needs only the e-mail address or the IP address of the target
system. (At the very least, the variety of techniques described
here should make users wary of dismissing the idea that a third
party could install software without their knowledge.)
DIRT currently runs on Windows 95, 98, and NT systems and a Unix
version is being developed. Only qualified law enforcement
agencies can purchase DIRT; furthermore, Codex currently sells
the software only to U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Jones emphasizes that surreptitious surveillance tools, such as
Back Orifice and keystroke logging facilities, are illegal to
develop or possess in the United States, according to U.S. code
2512. These tools are illegal even if they are used by network
administrators unless each end user explicitly agrees to the
monitoring.
DIRT is legal because it is a law enforcement tool that can only
be sold to law enforcement agencies. DIRT itself is not a threat
to the average corporate network, but the knowledge that such a
tool exists should make users consider whether their networks
are secure. Security is clearly a relative term, and
organizations ignore security issues at their own risk."
Additional Info requests by Authorized Agencies ONLY

cds@ucs.net

©©©© Copyright 1998-1999 CodexDataSystems, Inc All Rights Reserved

________________________________________________________________

April '99
Last November hackers from Hong Kong began assaulting the IUFO
list and one could actually see the progress they were making
in infiltrating it. They managed after about 50 tries to steal
my email and begin sending email to the list as if it were me.
Fortunately everyone there has known me for many, many years and
we apprehended the gentleman. I even received an apologetic
note from him and his "company". They even went so far as to
recognize my efforts on China's behalf in supporting many of their
issues. We thought that was it for that. By December, another
list began to be assaulted in a far more insidious way. Slipping
virus's, compromising both ICQ and the AOL-IM gateway they worked
full time on seizing control of individual systems which not only
provided them a means to leap about the Internet undetected but
to wind up owning the systems they seized in essence. *A Major Bank*
Visa got compromised, *A Phone Company* and a host of really visable
and detrimental systems were absorbed and infiltrated. Now none
of these companies are going to admit it but take my word for it,
these people have come to OWN the Internet and anyone/everyone
they deem worth monitoring or destroying. In fact, as I was tracking
them and getting very close to nailing them, my system was finally
compromised and destroyed by the CIH virus thus my computer became
a potted plant. The month it was down while I scrapped up the
pennies to replace it, I had more hits to my little site then during
its entire duration up to that point. They were checking to see
how long or when I would recover. The following note out of Europe
I believe finally identifies who these villains are and it is my
belief that they utilized a series of list's and list members to
test their software. We determined that these people were a group
that had 24/7 coverage globally, had technical resources that were
state of the art and an agenda that was geared and designed to
monitor or control any and every system via the Internet. As you
will read, this note exposes a group who fulfill the criteria we
already ascertained, exactly. My thanks to SWingate of IUFO and
DCampbell of IPTV for this exceedingly important story.

Ellis
______________________________

From: "Ellis Smith"

Everything you ever wanted to know about the state of the art
regarding deprivation of the right to privacy, free speech and the
right to peaceably assemble... now brought to you on a global
basis. Leave it to the Brit's to come out with things we should have
been aware of years ago... and leave it to us to export more
draconian fascist means to deprive all peoples everywhere of the
basic rights's we've come to laughably believe we enjoy. Folks, its
going to be a very strange year indeed.

Ellis

**************************

Subject: Latest developments on international interception policy

THE ENFOPOL AFFAIR
INTERNATION COLLABORATION ON TAPPING : THE HIDDEN HAND OF ILETS
30 APRIL 1999

To : John Young (www.jya.com), uk-crypto, LACC, IP, others
From : Duncan Campbell (mailto:iptv@cwcom.net
http://www.gn.apc.org/duncan)

This note contains pointers to articles just published about the
latest developments in European Union communications interception
policy, including monitoring the Internet. The most important
article identifies a hitherto unknown FBI-founded organization
called ILETS, which has met in secret for 6 years, and which has
- unknown until now - led initiatives around the world to build
comprehensive interception systems into new telecommunications
systems.

The full story about ILETS is published this week in Telepolis, the
European on-line magazine, at:
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/enfo/6398/1.html

And in German at:
http://www.telepolis.de/tp/deutsch/special/enfo/6396/1.html

The news story is in English in the Guardian (UK) at:
http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/The_Paper/Weekly/Story/0,3605,45981,00.html

And also in Telepolis:
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/enfo/6397/1.html

And in German at:
http://www.telepolis.de/tp/deutsch/special/enfo/6395/1.html

The latter three reports describe how the latest version of the
ENFOPOL interception plan has just been leaked in London. It reveals
that although the name of the key document has been changed, European
officials still want to make tapping the Internet official European
policy by the end of May. They are pressing on, despite domestic
opposition in Germany and Austria and recent criticism by the
European Parliament.

The new document is called ENFOPOL 19. It was obtained this week by
the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR). (The name
ENFOPOL (Law ENFOrcement/POLice matters) is the generic title given
to documents on these subjects by the European Commission.)

FIPR has put the ENFOPOL 19 document online at:
http://www.fipr.org/polarch/index.html

These articles bring up to date the story of secret co-operation on
interception between the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK
(ie, the UKUSA group), and the so-called "G5" group of EU nations
(Germany, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK). Outside,
the EU Norway and Hong Kong are members of ILETS. Within the EU,
Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Eire, Denmark,
Finland, Spain and Portugal have participated in ILETS.

This co-operation was first noticed in 1997, when the Statewatch
group in London found and publicised an EU resolution on interception
that had been adopted in January 1995, but which was not published
until November 1996.

Observers noted that the European 1995 policy bore an unmistakable
resemblance to US legislation, in particular the 1994 Communication
Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). Since then legislation
passed and/or proposed in Australia and other EU states has shown the
same similarities.

The article about ILETS now reveals how this has happened, through a
common technical document called "IUR1.0" or "IUR95".
An updated IUR, which made new demands for Internet interception,
security measures, automatic downloading of subscriber personal
information (among other measures) was drawn up in 1998. In
September 1998, it was presented to the EU's Police Co-operation
Working group as "ENFOPOL 98".

In November 1998, the German on-line magazine Telepolis obtained and
published ENFOPOL 98. The stories above describe how ENFOPOL 98 has
progressed since.

The original ENFOPOL 98 story was reported in English in December 1998: http://www.gn.apc.org/duncan/Enfopol_98_Obs.htm

Telepolis has put the original (and scary) ENFOPOL 98 plan online at:
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/enfo/6334/1.html

And in German at:
http://www.telepolis.de/tp/deutsch/special/enfo/6326/1.html

Erich Moechel and Armin Medosch have published English language
accounts of their scoop at:
http://www.telepolis.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/1667/1.html
http://www.telepolis.de/tp/deutsch/special/enfo/6329/1.html

The original scoop (in German) is at:
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/1663/1.html

1999 STOA REPORT ON GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS SURVEILLANCE AND ECHELON

Further information about ILETS and communications interception will
be published in the near future by STOA, the Science and Technology
Options Assessment Office of the European Parliament. This is
contained in a detailed report I have written for STOA, "Interception
Capabilities 2000" (IC2000).

The full title of the IC2000 report is "The state of the art in
Communications intelligence (Comint) of automated processing for
intelligence purposes of intercepted broadband multi-language leased
or common carrier systems, and its applicability to Comint targeting
and selection, including speech recognition". This is one of four
reports commissioned by STOA, concerning "The development of
surveillance technology and risk of abuse of economic information".
The other three studies cover legal, cryptographic and general issues.
IC2000 provides a documentary account of new ECHELON sites, systems
and targets and an assessment of current Comint technology.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

* Further information would be welcome as to the extent to which the
IUR1995 and 1998 "requirements" have progressed into law in
individual member or related countries.

* Among the issues currently being discussed in the ILETS group is
cross-border interception arrangements and agreements; interception
of Iridium and other satellite-based personal communications (mobile
radio)systems.

Duncan Campbell
IPTV, Edinburgh
iptv@cwcom.net
http://www.gn.apc.org/duncan

______________________________________________________________________

To find out more... thanks to D. Linen

Ellis

View of "information warfare and U.S. critical infrastructure":
URL Details
URLed World Description: DIRT- Data Interception by Remote
Transmission - D.I.R.T.
http://www.codexdatasystems.com/cdsnews.html
Valuation: 168
LINK to SITE

Keywords:

*infowar: air force, army, cia, classified, communication, crime,
defense, espionage, fbi, federal, government, information warfare,
intelligence, military,national security, navy, nsa, secret, spies, spy,
state, surveillance *system-qualities: secur, software, system, verif
disciplines: comput, econom, electr, research genre: classi,
communications, data, e-mail, information, network, review, software,
warning organizations: agency, college, committee, department, federal,
state roles: general, investigator

Annotation:

...money laundering cases and information warfare. How is DIRT...

...questionably

legal/ethical means of information gathering by intelligence... (4 more)
www.codexdatasystems.com/cdsnews.html [excerpted by google]

TO Links:

1."D.I.R.T." Hacking - The World's Greatest Hacking Links - Hacking
- Hacking - Hacking
(Virtual) TO Links:

1.Hacking - The World's Greatest Hacking Links - Hacking - Hacking -

Hacking
How to Build a HERF Device
How to Build a LASER Listener

(no link text)

1.The Army C2 Protect Program Management Plan (PMP)
USA
United States Army

2.Information Superiority
USAF
United States Air Force

3.Information Technology Security Bulletin 43 RCMP
Royal Canadian Mounted Police

4.Command, control and communications systems
DND
Department of National Defense

DREO
Defense Research Establishment, Ottawa

CFC
Canadian Forces College

5.FBI - ANSIR Program FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation

6.(CCIPS) - Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section DOJ
U.S. Department of Justice

DEA
Drug Enforcement Administration

USMS
U.S. Marshals Service

7.krdpsum.htm USSS
U.S. Secret Service

ATF
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

USCS
U.S. Customs Service

FINCEN
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

8.DCI BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS CIA
Central Intelligence Agency

NRO
National Reconnaissance Office

9.NSA INFOSEC Page - Centers Of Academic Excellence in Information ... NSA
National Security Agency

10.IW: Considering the New Battlefield IW Information Warfare IW
from Canada
CSE
Communications Security Establishment

11.CSIS 1996 Public Report
CSIS
Canadian Security Intelligence Service

Contiuned on page 2 (see below)

Front Page or Contents

Techno Warfare/ MACRO-USGOV Espionage Operations - Page 1
 Techno Warfare/MACRO-USGOV Espionage Operations - Page 2
 Techno Warfare/MACRO-USGOV Espionage Operations - Page 3
Techno Warfare/MACRO-USGOV Espionage Operations - Historicals