huridocs-tech A Suspicious Eye on U.S. 'Big Ears'

FYI
Harsh Kapoor
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The Washington Post
24 July 2000


A Suspicious Eye on U.S. 'Big Ears'

By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July      24, 2000; Page A01


 BAD AIBLING, Germany –– Looking like a set of gigantic golf balls, the
high-powered listening post operated by the U.S. National Security Agency
in this picturesque village 40 miles south of Munich was long regarded as
one of the West's most formidable assets during the Cold War.

The Bad Aibling station's vast array of parabolic antennas and satellite
communications gear could monitor Soviet Bloc troops in such extraordinary
detail that, as one veteran intelligence agent put it, "we could hear their
teeth chattering in Ukraine."

But now that the Soviet military threat is a thing of the past, some
Germans are asking why the NSA continues to maintain its most elaborate
foreign eavesdropping facility in their back yard. The answer, contends a
growing collection of critics: The "big ears" at Bad Aibling are conducting
economic espionage against Europe.

The United States denies that, saying it never passes intercepted
information to U.S. companies. Yet Europeans note that officials in
Washington have acknowledged that U.S. intelligence data about possible
bribery figured in Saudi Arabia's decision to cancel a big airliner
contract with Airbus Industrie of Europe. The order eventually went to
Airbus's U.S. competitor, the Boeing Co.

"It's amazing that we still put up with this kind of thing," said Else
Huber, a Green party activist who organized a town meeting in May to
challenge the presence of the U.S. listening post. "There is a lot of
discomfort about what the Americans are doing, but every now and then they
throw a party to keep the locals happy. The fact they are still here
watching over us 10 years after the collapse of the Soviet empire is a
crying shame."

Two weeks ago, reflecting growing mistrust on the issue, the European
Parliament voted to open an investigation into whether the United States is
spying on European businesses.
A committee was appointed to scrutinize the so-called Echelon spy system,
which intelligence specialists say can intercept billions of telephone
calls, e-mails and faxes every hour in all corners of the globe. The
network is said to be operated by the United States in conjunction with
Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and to work like a powerful
Internet search engine, targeting key words, voices or other data gleaned
from listening posts, such as Bad Aibling.

"I don't know what they think they're investigating or where they intend to
proceed," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said of the European
probe. "The notion that we collect intelligence in order to promote
American business is simply wrong."

At a recent public hearing of the Senate intelligence committee, Lt. Gen.
Michael Hayden, the NSA director, said the agency has trained its vast
resources on gathering information about terrorism, weapons proliferation,
money laundering and corporate corruption. He denied that any of that data
were passed to U.S. companies or that reports of illegal behavior were
handled between governments.

R. James Woolsey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993 to
1995, said at a recent Council on Foreign Relations seminar that it would
be "madness" for the U.S. government to become entangled in deciding what
companies should benefit from espionage activity. But he said there are
instances in which corruption discovered through surreptitious means must
be brought to light.

"You collect intelligence on bribery by some of our friends abroad who like
to win contracts through bribery, and then you tell the U.S. government so
it can try to get the other government not to award the contract on the
basis of bribery," Woolsey said. "But you don't go to the American
corporation and say, 'Hey, you're about to lose because some of our friends
are bribing the president of the country in question.' "

The United States followed that prescription in 1994 by urging Saudi Arabia
to break a $6 billion deal for passenger jets with Airbus after U.S.
intelligence passed along evidence of bribes, Clinton administration
officials have acknowledged. The contract was awarded to Boeing, Airbus's
main rival.

Similarly, the French firm Thomson-CSF lost a major weapons contract to an
American rival, Raytheon Co., when the United States provided Brazil with
details of corruption picked up through eavesdropping.

Those moves infuriated the French government, which has been urging Germany
and Britain to shut key NSA listening posts in Europe, including Bad
Aibling and two sites in England. French Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou
said Europe must become "particularly vigilant" because such U.S.-run
facilities have clearly "been diverted toward economic espionage and the
surveillance of competitors."

Both Germany and Britain have dismissed the French demand, saying they
accept at face value the American position that no economic espionage is
taking place against friendly partners. "France's argument does not carry
much weight, especially because the French themselves are well known for
commercial spying activity against neighbors and allies," said a senior
German diplomat.

What irks the German government, however, is Washington's continuing
refusal to reduce its Cold War intelligence apparatus to a scale
commensurate with modern threats. A German cabinet member said a recent
government study concluded there are probably 12,000 American intelligence
agents still active in Germany--down from a Cold War peak of about 20,000.

In Bad Aibling, where Americans working at the NSA facility account for
about one-tenth of the population of 16,000, relations between the two
communities remain friendly if guarded. "It would be a terrible economic
blow if the Americans left," said the mayor, Felix Schwaller. "They pay
their rent, they spend a lot of money in our stores, and besides, they
throw good barbecue parties."

Their workplace stands in a wooded area outside town, protected by barbed
wire fences and concrete barriers at the front gate. Officials at the
facility refused to comment for this article.

Schwaller and others say they can understand how the German government may
feel a need to control the eavesdropping of the American "Big Brother."
Many people here are struggling with nagging fears--whether real or
imagined--that their faxes, phone calls and e-mails are monitored.


"This is the biggest eavesdropping operation of all time. It has no time
limits, has not been ordered by any judge and is not controlled by our own
government," said Bernd Kretschmann, a Green party politician. "Sometimes
people even hear American voices in the background when they are having a
telephone conversation. Lately, the problem has gotten better because they
have no doubt improved the system."

Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, head of a research institute for peace studies in
nearby Weilheim, said he has tried to soothe local nerves by arguing that
the Americans must have better things to do than to listen to their
conversations or sift through their e-mail.

"The Americans have told us on several occasions that they are not
interested in spying against us, but that they are mainly [interested] in
picking up signals about money-laundering activities in Switzerland and
Liechtenstein," he said. "I guess that's a legitimate target--just so long
as they don't start looking into our own bank accounts."


© 2000 The Washington Post Company


        

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