The super secret joint US/UK/Canada/Australia/New Zealand military intelligence monitoring operation known as ECHELON, which I wrote about previously, is used to spy on commercial transactions as well as on Greenpeace and other Canadian based environmentalists!
This is from an official EU background report on ECHELON published in 2001.
A note CSE stands for Communications Security Establishment and is the intelligence and encryption section of the Department of Defense.
5.7.3. Mike Frost (former Canadian secret service officer)
Mike Frost worked for more than 20 years for the CSE, the Canadian secret service1. The
listening post in Ottawa was just one part of a worldwide network of spy stations.2 In an
interview with CBS, he said that all over the world, every day, telephone conversations, emails
and faxes are monitored by ECHELON, a secret government surveillance network.3
This also included civilian communications. In an interview he gave for an Australian TV
channel, he said by way of example that the CSE actually had entered the name and telephone
number of a woman in a database of possible terrorists because she had used an ambiguous
phrase in a harmless telephone conversation with a friend. When searching through
intercepted communications, the computer had found the keyword and reproduced the
conversation. The analyst was unsure and therefore recorded her personal details.4
The intelligence services of the ECHELON community also helped each other by spying on
each other's behalf so that at least local intelligence services could not be accused of anything.
For instance, GCHQ asked the CSE to spy on two British government ministers when Prime
Minister Thatcher wanted it to tell her if they were on her side.5
5.7.4. Fred Stock (former Canadian secret service employee)
Fred Stock says he was expelled from CSE, the Canadian secret service, in 1993 because he
had criticised the new emphasis on economic intelligence and civil targets. The
communications intercepted contained information on trade with other countries, including
negotiations on NAFTA, Chinese purchases of cereals and French arms sales. Stock says the
service also routinely received communications concerning environmental protests by
Greenpeace vessels on the high seas.6
1 Communication Security Establishment, subordinate to the Canadian Ministry of Defense, engaged in SIGINT
2 NBC TV interview '60 Minutes', 27.2.2000; http://cryptome.org/echelon-60min.htm
3 Rötzer, Die NSA geht wegen ECHELON an die Öffentlichkeit;
http://www.heise.de/bin/tp/issue/download.cgi?artikelnr=6633&rub_ordner=special
4 NBC TV interview '60 Minutes', 27.2.2000; http://cryptome.org/echelon-60min.htm
5 Interview on the Australian Channel 9 on 23..3.1999;
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/8789/sunday1.htm
6 Bronskill, Canada a key snooper in huge spy network, Ottawa Citizen, 24.10.2000,
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/990522/2630510.html
In fact the startling conclusion they come to is that ECHELON is NOT used for military spying, security or anti-terrorism but is solely interested in intercepting private and commercial communications, in other words corporate secrets and corporate spying.
13.2. Conclusions
The existence of a global system for intercepting private and commercial communications
(the ECHELON interception system)
That a system for intercepting communications exists, operating by means of cooperation
proportionate to their capabilities among the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand, is no longer in doubt. It has been established that this system is operated on the basis
of the UKUSA Agreement. That its name is in fact ECHELON seems likely in view of the
evidence, but this is a relatively minor detail. What is important is that its purpose is to
intercept private and commercial communications, and not military communications.
Which really should not surprise anyone, since President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared fifty years ago that America was run by the Military Industrial Complex,in this historic epoch of state capitalism.
All intelligence is corporate intelligence in search of advantages for a national capital against its competitors. War is military expansion of that capital in search of markets and resources.
This then is the real Anglo-American Imperium protecting its capital interests against the rest of the world. Three of the allies went to war in Iraq, and the other two abetted it.
H/T to Skillluminati Research a fun little conspiracy theory blog in the tradition of Robert Anton Wilson.
And a further H/T to Dream's End another fun little conspiracy theory blog
All courtesy of UFO Review and their news aggregator.
Which I would not have found it they had not picked up The Origin of American Conspiracy Theories
See
Spying
Statist Anti-Terrorism Act
Paranoia and the Security State
State Security Is A Secure State
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