Thirty-third edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 23:38:50 +0100)

Intelligence news

Cuban spy trial

The FBI busted Cuba's "Wasp Network" of spies some time ago. The five suspects are now on trial and the newspapers in Miami are covering the event with much enthusiasm.

A few items that came up are interesting enough to mention here in N&O. According to several sources at least one of the five is trained in the revolution's Cold War methods of cryptography. The five suspects served as Castro's eyes and ears in South Florida, communicating with their bosses by telephone and via coded shortwave radio transmissions and encrypted e-mail.

China

The Electronic Telegraph in London reports that people caught stealing or leaking state documents on the Internet could face the death penalty. This was announced by China's Supreme People's Court recently. Those engaged in spying activities such as stealing, detecting, purchasing or leaking state secrets, either through the Internet or elsewhere will be executed or given a prison term ranging from 10 years to life.

Echelon

The Dutch Parliament was shocked, Echelon exists! Several members of Parliament reacted like they never heard of Echelon before. Yeah, right :-)))

Systems used to "bug" telephones, faxes and e-mail, like the American-British Echelon, are not limited to a few Western countries. Investigative, security and intelligence services "in countries of various political complexions" use such systems. Companies and criminal organizations are also capable of tapping information channels on a large scale. So wrote Defense Minister De Grave in a memorandum issued on Friday 19 Jan, entitled "Large-scale bugging of modern telecommunications systems", which has been approved by the cabinet. This is the first time the existence of the Echelon espionage network has been officially recognized. Rumors to the effect that the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand have established such a system has never been formally confirmed by the countries in question. Investigations by the French, Belgian and European parliaments, however, indicate that Echelon does exist. Echelon will be on the agenda of a special session in the Lower House on 22 Jan.

<Source: NRC Handelsblad, Rotterdam, the Netherlands>