Sensitive e-mails ‘being read by spy network’
Computer users were today urged to encrypt their e-mails in a bid to protect themselves against a worldwide electronic spy network which does not officially exist.
The danger comes from the Anglo-American ‘‘Echelon’’ intelligence operation, say Euro-MPs in a report at the end of a year-long inquiry.
They have been investigating allegations that the spy system is being used to gather Europe’s sensitive industrial secrets and pass them to British or American rivals.
And their report says that in the process of industrial spying, Echelon is eavesdropping on millions of daily communications between ordinary people.
It warns the Government that Britain could be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights because of its participation in the global spying operation.
Any official response to the report will be strictly limited - America flatly denies that Echelon exists and the UK Government’s response to questions about the system is itself all but encrypted.
‘‘Interception of communications is a vital tool in countering the risks posed by a number of dangers to society,’’ said a Foreign Office spokesman when the inquiry began.
‘‘That includes terrorists, international drug dealers, criminals and those who would like to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.
‘‘We have always made it clear that the civil rights of EU citizens are not jeopardised by legally-endorsed interception as practised in the UK.’’
The Echelon operation is based at Fort Meade in Maryland, America, and at GCHQ in Cheltenham.
It was set up in 1948 by the US, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and was active throughout the Cold War as a vast electronic eavesdropper, able to interpret information from telephones, faxes or computers - even tracking bank accounts.
The first concrete evidence of the use of Echelon came when former CIA director James Woolsey revealed to the French newspaper Le Figaro that eavesdropping equipment had been used to intercept European companies’ electronic messages.
But he denied that it was a industrial espionage - it was just being used to check for sanction-breaking and corruption, he claimed.
The European Parliament decided to investigate after UK involvement in Echelon was condemned by Britain’s EU partners as a breach of the legal requirements on all member states.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Francis Maude said the European Parliament inquiry was ‘‘nothing more than a political witch hunt’’ to put the UK’s special intelligence relationship with the United States on trial.
The report throws the spotlight on Britain’s divided loyalties between its long-time spying partners in the US and its European neighbours.
But it provides no firm evidence that the Echelon system has been used for commercial espionage.
Britain has a good track record in regulating the intelligence services and the strict guidelines governing the types of information allowed to be collected, processed and distributed do not include commercially-sensitive material.
But the report - which has no legal clout - raises questions about how discriminating a global electronic spy system can be.
Its findings that the use of the system by Britain may be illegal will now be studied by the European Commission.
