The Echelon system was developed to deal with external communications: initially those concerning countries considered as potential enemies. The end of the Cold War, however, signalled a change and, with vast resources to hand, new targets were found in international crime.
Despite the military changes that came about, reflected in reduced spending and slimmer armies, the funds appropriated for Echelon increased. Communications from, or to, any country outside the UKUSA agreement, such as Thailand, have become fair game especially as these do not fall within any legislation protecting the rights and privacy of individuals. Domestic communications of those nations are a different matter, however, and here the law-keepers have taken a different tack which, nevertheless, will affect communication in Thailand.
The legal (and illegal) tapping of telephones is not new, but the law has always taken a dim view of law-enforcement agencies who overstep the mark. In a 1928 judgement, Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "The evil incident to invasion of the privacy of the telephone is far greater than that involved in tampering with the mails." Legislators in most free countries have normally held out against the excessive demands of those charged with enforcement, while acknowledging the difficult job they have to do: balancing freedoms against the need to rein in criminals.
With many years experience of tapping telephones based on wire technology, the arrival of digital systems brought the realisation that law enforcement also needed to update as equipment would be inadequate. Beginning in the early 1990s, the FBI began a series of initiatives that would not only ensure access to any digital system, but greatly enhance the capacity to intercept any communication. The initial thrust was to cover digital telephones but has been greatly expanded since the increase in Internet use and even includes pagers.
When United States' lawmakers were distinctly unenthusiastic, European police forces were invited to a series of meetings and they took up the ideas with alacrity. Indeed, so keen are they that most recent decisions on increases in police powers have been driven from Brussels and the EU, with the full backing of the FBI. News reports of the progress of surveillance plans and legislation blame European bureaucrats and law agencies for all the planning when the primum mobile is the FBI, with the backing of the NSA.
In 1993, when Congress balked at the proposals, the FBI gathered a group of agencies under the title "International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar." It is ILETS that has been guiding the Europeans ever since. Membership of the group expanded and now includes Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the U. K. as well as the original host nation, the U.S.A. Almost all telephone equipment used in Thailand comes from corporations based in one of these countries.
Legislation to control electronic surveillance, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) was passed by the United States Congress in October 1994. By 1998, in a joint two-page letter to Ted Stevens, Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, several organisations were highly critical of the way in which the FBI was trying to expand its surveillance capabilities beyond the limits of the Law, and to circumvent any challenges in the Courts: power without accountability.
Over the last few years, several of the strategies that the FBI was asking Congress to include in an amended Law began to find their way into European outlines and documents, via ILETS. By keeping these documents away from legislators, and from the public, there has been no proper discussion of the effects of such mooted changes in law.
The original ILETS plans emerged in 1994 as ENFOPOL90 (a European law enforcement classification) but this was never officially published. All communications about the document were via telex.
Over the last four years, ILETS members--law enforcement agencies, not governments--have convinced themselves not only that they must be able to monitor all communications, but that the service providers (ISPs, telephone companies, equipment manufacturers, pager operators) must provide the means by which they may do so.
In 1998, ILETS met in Rome and the resulting ENFOPOL98 document included the need for Internet interception. This was not simply surveillance capabilities, but real-time interfacing. The police (or other agencies) would be able to monitor every single communication, for every user, no matter which country the communication came from.
This requirement was included in European legislation passed in Brussels on 7 May this year.
Also in this law were requirements to provide "geographical location information on cellular phone users . . . along with decryption of encoded messages . . . and implementation of interceptions" within a few hours or minutes.
According to Simon Davis, writing in the Daily Telegraph on 10 January this year, this tagging system "will create a data processing and transmission network that involves not only the names, addresses and phone numbers of targets and associates, but email addresses, credit card details, PINs and passwords."
Last year too, in Russia, the successor to the KGB, the Federal Security Service (FSB), which is not a member of ILETS, initiated legislation with the same purposes.
The System for Operational-Investigative Activities (SORM) will, according to US News, force each service provider to install a "black box" connecting its network to the local FSB office via fibre-optic cable. That would enable state-sponsored snoopers to collect and examine E-mail, as well as data on addressees and recipients and Web surfing habits. All ISPs, not only have to provide a real-time, full-time interface with the local FSB bureau, but have to pay for it as well.
Although laws passed in the European parliament are not immediately enforceable in the member countries, there is a process by which those countries are required to include the provisions in their legal frameworks within a certain time-frame. In time-honored fashion of rushing through faulty laws with a lack of proper debate, the vote took place on a Friday afternoon, "when three-quarters of the MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) were absent.
As there were new European elections at the beginning of June, many Members may have been otherwise engaged.
Shortly before the European Parliament passed that law, a new version of the police strategy, now called ENFOPOL19, was formulated. According to security writer, Duncan Cambell, whose reports may be read in the German publication,
These include "plans for tapping Iridium and other satellite-based personal communications systems"; requirements for personal information of subscribers to be made available; and a new approach to the control of cryptography. The philospophy here is that "all code must be capable of being broken."
Europe and the United States may seem a long way away, but what occurs there, especially in regard to how communications operate, will affect us in Thailand. Europe, pushed by the United States agencies, will pass legislation that controls every aspect of the way we communicate, either privately or in commerce : and the information passed will be accessible by those who have no business in such matters.
Where all of the proposals go totally wrong is in the way that, for the first time, the World's police, encouraged by United States agencies, are forcing legislators to give them unrestricted access to private communications.
They have never had this before.
Any interception of communications had to be under some legal authority, such as a warrant or court order.
The move towards digital control is driven by the police forces, but it is evident that legislators are forgetting the responsibilities placed on them by the voters who put them in office, and whom they protect. Unchecked law enforcement agencies lead to police states and dictators.
The words of Justice Brandeis, written 71 years ago are still relevant:
"Whenever a telephone line is tapped, the privacy of persons at both ends of the line is invaded, and all conversations between them, on any subject, and although proper, confidential, and privileged, may be overheard. Moreover, the tapping of one man's telephone line involved the tapping of the telephone of every other person whom he may call, or who may call him. As a means of espionage, writs of assistance and general warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when compared with wire tapping."
Links for Further Information.
For further information, e-mail to Graham K. Rogers.