Izvestia, September 25 1998 

'SCANDALOUS "ECHELON"

By Elmar Gusseinov

The whole modern world satellite network is being listened to by American
electronic investigation (systems belong to intelligence agencies). 
Almost all private and state voice, fax and email messages are intercepted. 
The information obtained is used, first of all, in the interest of economic 
espionage.

This sensational claim is made by the specialists of the Committee for
the basic trends of scientific and technological development of the
Euro Parliament. If this information is confirmed in the near future, it
will be the cause of a great scandal between the governments of the 
Old and New world.

'Echelon' is the name of the electronic listening system. Every month
it intercepts about 100 million of the messages transmitted via Intelsat
satellites and other satellite networks. The president of the Committee,
Mr. Allen Pompidou, claims that the interception stations are located in 
American military bases in Germany, New Zealand, Australia, GB and in 
the USA.

The largest station is in Menwith Hill, GB. 1400 American engineers, 
linguists, and programmers are employed there.  According to European 
experts, Echelon is an NSA initiative created about 1980.  Radio location 
'F83' is one of the listening stations.

The 'Echelon' system is based on filtering information by the use of key
words. The final analysis is performed in the head office of NSA in the
USA. 80% of the information obtained is used for industrial espionage.  
According to Mr. Pompidou, among the key words are the names of the 
500 largest French commercial and military firms.

It seems, this information is being used by the UK services also.

Some members of the French parliaments have sent an official Request to 
own government in attempts to know the government's position on operation 
of  the 'Echelon' operation.  French officials inform that the operation of 
'Echelon' is a subject of concern to the French government.

Despite a series of human rights violated by the operation of 'Echelon',
formally, there are no international laws forbidding non-authorized
penetration inside the satellite nets.