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Date: 2000-03-04
UK: "I'm proud we're spying on Europe"-.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- konservativen britischen Selbverständnisses dringend zur Lektüre emfohlen werden: Warum man eher zu einer anderen, uniformen Welt gehört, als zu jener, in der verschiedene Sprachen sind. Unter dem Aspekt des Jämmerlichen gesehen, kommt dies in etwa dem ehedem stark grassierenden Deutschnationalismus des armen kleinen AT-Lands gleich. -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- "I'm proud we're spying on Europe" Daniel Hannan was pleased to hear that Britain and America are keeping tabs on the EU IT WAS the way he said "our communications" that made me so uncomfortable. There we all were, the members of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, gathered to investigate a case of Anglo-Saxon espionage against Europe. And if we were surprised to find that the man giving evidence was himself a British journalist, Duncan Campbell, we were too discreet to show it. Instead, we tut-tutted at his revelations. America, explained Mr Campbell, working in league with Brittain and her old dominions, had developed a surveillance network capable of tapping into telephone calls all over the world. The Americans could intercept e-mails, listen in to satellite calls, and were even modifying one of their submarines to eavesdrop on undersea cables. We could not know for certain at whom this was directed, said Mr Campbell. But since the majority of electronic messages came from this part of the world, it was likely that the submarine would be aimed primarily "at our communications in Europe." My colleagues assumed suitably horrified expressions. But I simply could not get into the spirit of things. Deep down, I felt pleased that the cousins were keeping their guard up, and proud that we were doing our little hit to help them. That Mr Campbell should be lecturing us about how "we" had to develop "our own" software systems, so as to break "our" reliance on American products struck me as -- well, as letting the side down. Mr Campbell has doubtless done some very thorough work, and his conclusions have serious implications. He has uncovered a surveillance network called Echelon, with listening posts all over the world. The US National Security Agency has apparently linked up with Britain's GGHQ and with the equivalent services in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Under an intelligence accord called UKUSA, dating back to 1947, the five agencies pool the information picked up from their various sites. The challenge for our boys, apparently, is not tapping into calls, but knowing how to sift through the information. With millions of messages being intercepted every hour, computer programs called "dictionaries" are employed to recognise key words. They can even pick out the voices of well-known politicians. And, of course, the whole thing is unofficial, and therefore unregulated. There are plainly issues of privacy and data protection here -- although the European Parliament is noticeably less exercised about these when discussing, say, pornography on the internet. But what really bothers MEPs is the suggestion that the information picked up by these spy stations is being used to favour American businesses over their European rivals. The evidence is thin, but Boeing is said to have beaten Airbus to a contract after revealing that Airbus had bribed Saudi officials. And a French company was apparently nudged aside by an American firm in its bid to suppl y Brazil with a new radar system, in a case again involving kickbacks. Thank heavens for Echelon, I thought, guiltily. If these Continentals can win contracts only by cheating, it's just as well that they sometimes get caught out And anyway, the French and Germans are running a joint listen ing post in French Guyana. I simply couldn't get into the "them and us" mentality. Or, more accurately, I saw "us" as the community of free English-speaking nations, not the EU. The French are having all their complexes confirmed. Simply to list the countries involved -- America, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand -- is to wave a red rag at them. Le Monde devoted three pages and an edittori al to the dangers of this "Anglo-Saxon network". A cartoon on its front page showed Britain-- now habitually depicted in that newspaper as a mad cow -- taking telephone instructions from Uncle Sam while attending a Euurop ean summit. In a sense, of course, they are right. When truly vital matters are at stake, the blood of the English-speaking peoples is thicker than the water of the Channel. We don't mind sharing our military secrets with Her Majes ty's Canadian subjects; but ; how many of us could honestly claim to feel the same about the Belgians? It is true that we Anglo-Saxons often seem to be acting in concert. But this is not, as the French believe, because we are subservient to the United States. It is rather that our shared constitutional heritage Often makes us react to things in tile same way. We are keen on personal liberty, for instance, and thus on free trade. We like the rule of law, and dislike bullies, which makes us especially ready to deploy troops against the likes of Saddam: The Echelon affair has implications that go well beyond security. It reminds us of just how much the EU, like any aspirant state, depends on a shared sense of identity among its citizens. Some Europeans have that sense. We don't. The author is a Conservative MEP for the South-East region. Views about articles on this page can be sent to [email protected] .uk -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- relayed by Robert Henderson <[email protected]> via Matthew Gaylor <[email protected]> -.- -.-. Connectivity statt Isolierung http://o5.or.at -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- edited by published on: 2000-03-04 comments to [email protected] subscribe Newsletter - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- 
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