Twenty-first edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 22:41:18 +0100)

To catch up and pass Echelon

Source	Newspaper "Segodnya"
Author	Andrey Soldatov
Translator	Al

Printed with kind permission of Andrey Solodatov

--- To catch up and pass ECHELON! ---

Russia does not give in to America in the area of industrial espionage

Recently it has become known that the ECHELON computer system, belonging to the American National Security Agency (NSA), is able to intercept every telephone call, fax, and communications on the global Internet in all corners of the world, raising a huge scandal, most of all in the countries of Europe. Discussions in the western media created a new sensation about how ECHELON not only works for the government, but also for American companies. Businessmen and journalists are outraged, the NSA is keeping silent, and behind all this with an ironic smirk Russian intelligence quietly watches. The fact is that Russia possesses an analogous "Echelon" system covering almost all electronic information circulating around the world, including commercial. An exclusive investigation, with which we will familiarize the reader, indicates that in the Russian intelligence service, just as in the American, in addition to the government there are commercial customers interested in industrial espionage.

- Big Brother will listen to all

The USSR created a global information interception system during the Cold War. In its present state it belongs to the GRU and FAPSI and all of its collected information flows into the SOUD information system - "The Integrated Information Assessment System." To this day SOUD hasn't been mentioned once in the Russian press. Not only active but also former intelligence officers refuse to talk about it. The only Russian-language book in which references SOUD is the work by the defector Gordievskiy, "KGB - Reconaissance Operations." It is true that Gordievsky gave a different decipherment of SOUD: "Operational and Institutional Information System." However, foreign information about SOUD is also meager.

According to information from foreign sources, the agreement between Eastern Bloc countries for the formation of SOUD was signed in 1977, though the system began functioning at full capacity only in 1979. The reason for its founding was the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow: the first mission for the system was the collection of information about possible hostile actions by foreign intelligence services during the games. During Soviet times SOUD participants were the intelligence services of the USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Mongolia, Cuba, the GDR, and Vietnam. Into the SOUD databases flowed dossiers on agents, journalists, "hostile" organizations, diplomats, cultural and commercial attaches, and airline representatives - in general, everyone who could qualify as a potential threat to the USSR. The databases were accessible only by the highest officers of the intelligence services of the Warsaw Pact. Information requests on any SOUD subject required a maximum of four hours to process (excellent performance for the late 1970s). SOUD is more alive than dead

There is information indicating that the very idea of SOUD belonged to the STASI, the intelligence service of the GDR, but the KGB insisted that the headquarters of the system be located in Moscow. The second computer center was installed in the GDR, and after the reunification of Germany it passed to the BND, the FRG intelligence service. The loss of the the GDR supercomputer dealt a blow to the very existence of SOUD.

However, per our information, it would be premature to speak about the death of SOUD. Firstly, it is absolutely known that today in the Russian intelligence services there is at least one informational database system, of similar function to and on similar scale as SOUD. This is the so-called Integrated Database (OBD), the general progeny of Russian counterintelligence and of the intelligence services of the CIS member countries.

Secondly, there is objective information about the "tentacles" of SOUD and the means by which the system obtained information. These tentacles were the Soviet and now Russian radio-interception centers scattered around the world. Among these are the Lourdes electronic center in Cuba, the radio-intercept base at Cam Ranh Bay (Vietnam), and also monitoring equipment installed in Soviet embassies and consulates. All these spy centers are in a state of operational readiness. For example, the Russian government pays special attention to the state of the "Russian Electronic Center" (official name of the Lourdes complex) in Cuba. In November, 1992, according to American information, Moscow renewed an agreement with Havana regarding usage of the base. In 1993 Cuban Interior Minister Raul Castro announced that Russia continues to receive 75% of its intelligence information with the help of the Lourdes complex. In October, 1995, according to information made public in US congressional hearings, Cuba and Russia concluded an agreement about the continuing operation of Lourdes until the year 2000. And in 1997, according to the Sunday Times, Russia began to implement modernization of the base.

Furthermore, according to our information, in November, 1997 Boris Yeltsin signed order N461-rp, "On the conclusion of agreement between the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of the Republic of Cuba on mutual cooperation within the sphere of military counterintelligence." Among other things in the decree is the following clause: "Taking into account the agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the government of the Republic of Cuba on the tenure of the Russian electronic center on the territory of the Republic of Cuba from 3 Nov. 1992, the authorized body of the Cuban party will provide the necessary assistance to the representatives of the authorized body of the Russian party in the organization and conducting of operative-investigative measures for the provision of security of Russian military installations located on the territory of the Republic of Cuba."

Different radio interception centers, inherited from the USSR, also continue to be actively used by the Russian intelligence service. In 1993 Russia signed a contract with Vietnam for the continuation of service of the radio-intercept base at Cam Ranh Bay. In 1994 Vice Premier Yuri Yarov visited this base. And in 1995 especially because of the intercept center at Cam Ranh, information was uncovered about narcotrafficking operations carried out by former Russian intelligence agents.

- For the Russians - real pride

In principle, the very existence of SOUD can be a reason for national pride to the Russians. At least because our loss in the area of intelligence after the USSR disintegrated didn't turn out to be so noticeable. If it weren't for one circumstance. The fact is, that the American twin of SOUD - the ECHELON system - after the end of the cold war broadened its sphere of operation. Added to its traditional function was industrial espionage.

During the summer of 1998 a grandiose scandal was raised in Europe when it became clear that thanks to ECHELON-intercepted communications, several major contracts with European and Asian concerns were thwarted. American companies profited from this. For example, Raytheon, who in 1994 intercepted a Brazilian contract for the sale of radar systems by the French company Thomson CSF. Or AT&T, who in 1990 took away from the Japanese firm NEC a contract for the purchase of telecommunications equipment by the Indonesian government.

A silly question: did any of these two companies financially support the electoral campaigns of the folks that were in power by that time?
In such a case, this would just -somehow- be their return on investment....
(The best way to invest in America would not be to buy a Congressman, but a President, maybe....)

Now even foreigners are in agreement that the Russian monitoring network in the area of industrial espionage doesn't fall far short of its better-known American counterpart. Thus, according to the British publication "Financial Mail," the Russian base at Lourdes now plays a considerably greater role in economic espionage than previously. As proof of these facts: in 1992, for the signing of the agreement to continue the use of Lourdes, the Kremlin didn't send a military functionary or representative of the intelligence service, but Aleksandr Shokhina, then answering to the government in matters of international economic activity. The British assert that on 7 Feb. 1996 Boris Yeltsin instructed Russian intelligence to strengthen its activity toward the purchase of American trade and economic secrets. The center in Cuba was named as the primary source of these secrets. And the director of the American Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes, in congressional hearings on 22 February 1996, stated directly that FAPSI now uses Lourdes extraordinarily heavily for the sustainance of the Russian economy.

- Espionage on a commercial basis

In whose interest is SOUD employed and who is the customer of its information? Today it is obvious that in the USA ECHELON is operated in the interest of specific corporations. But in Russia? Certainly, it is known only that the ideological base for exploiting the potential of the GRU and FAPSI in the interest of specific commercial structures is already in place. For example, not long ago Boris Berezovsky announced that he found it funny when someone said that George Soros was a CIA agent. But everone says the CIA has long worked for Soros instead. And the state - it operates first and foremost in the interests of big money. It is true that the Russian intelligence services prefer not to talk about how the list of companies is built that have the right to special sources of intelligence.