IP: Interview w. Bruce McIndoe, lead architect, Echelon II

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Bo Elkjaer <boo () datashopper dk>
Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 23:27:58 +0200 (CEST)
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Interview w. Bruce McIndoe, lead architect, Echelon II (fwd)

Dear Dave Farber

Thought you might find this interesting. The article ran this saturday in
Denmark and was posted today on John Youngs site www.cryptome.org.

As a follow up, the issue will be debated - once again - in the danish
parliament and one of the danish members of the EU parliaments temporary
Echelon committee, Torben Lund, has stated, that he will discuss the new
information from Bruce McIndoe with the leader of the temporary committee,
Gerhard Schmid (DE).

Yours respectfully

Bo Elkjaer, Denmark


ECHELON'S ARCHITECT
Echelon now has a big brother. Meet Bruce McIndoe, lead architect for
Echelon II, the 'most productive intelligence program' in history

By Bo Elkjaer and Kenan Seeberg

Meet Bruce McIndoe. He has information that the Danish government and
several others around the globe, continuously pretends isn't there.
McIndoe knows that Echelon is real. Because he helped to build it.
    "Yes, that's right", McIndoe confirms to the Danish paper Ekstra
Bladet today
    Bruce McIndoe dedicated more than ten years of his life to
Echelon. He helped to finalize the original Echelon system starting in
1987. After that, he started to design Echelon II, an enlargement of the
original system.
    Bruce McIndoe left the inner circle of the enormous espionage
network in 1998, a network run by the National Security Agency, the
world's most powerful intelligence agency, in cooperation with other
Western intelligence services.
    Ekstra Bladet tracked down Bruce McIndoe to IJet Travel
Intelligence, a private espionage agency where he is currently second in
command.
    IJet Travel Intelligence is an exceedingly effective, specialized
company that employs former staff members of the NSA, CIA, KGB and South
African intelligence services.
    The company's task is to furnish reports for top executives from
US business and industry that reveal everything about the destination to
which they are travelling for their multinational company. All the
information they need to make the trip as safe as possible. The company
resembles a miniature version of his previous employer, the world's most
powerful intelligence agency, the NSA.
    And they are almost neighbours.
    Bruce McIndoe's new company is headquartered in the state of
Maryland, near the NSA's gigantic Fort Meade headquarters.
CURIOUS SPY
    We phone IJet Travel Intelligence and a secretary asks us to spell
our names. Bruce McIndoe calls back one hour later, at the very minute we
had agreed on. He starts by asking the first questions.
    "It appears you have written a lot about spies, intelligence and
Echelon before."
    "Well, you might say that."
    "You have especially written a lot about Echelon, haven't you?"
    "Yes, we have, some two hundred articles."
    Bruce McIndoe is more than just casually inquisitive when he
calls. He hasn't wasted any time and obviously ran a background check on
the two curious reporters from Denmark, and it all took less than an hour.
    Now that he has broached the subject of top-secret Echelon
himself, we decide to get right to the point.
    "You were one of the architects for Echelon II. When did you work
on that program for the NSA?"
    "When I was at CSSI. We worked for the NSA most of the time that
CSSI existed. Mainly from 1987 until four years ago. At that time, my
company was bought out by a company known as the Computer Science
Corporation. Although CSSI was involved in many large-scale projects for
the NSA, Echelon was probably the biggest."
    "Is Echelon II some sort of superstructure to Echelon?"
    "Yes. Echelon has existed for a long time, as you know, and they
needed to update the system."

SILLY POLITICIANS
    "Have you kept up with the European Echelon discussion and the
report issued by the European Parliament?"
    "Yes, I have followed it quite closely, actually. At least I know
that some countries are uncertain about the entire program, and I'm
familiar with their considerations on whether they shall continue to
support it. The US government and its allies have already run into
somewhat of a challenge."
    "What do you mean by that?"
    "Well, they can't avoid the glare of publicity anymore. If I
perform a search on the word 'Echelon' right now, I can find maybe one
thousand articles dealing with Echelon, so it is a pretty well-known
system by now. And as you know, many people mildly disapprove of Echelon.
So accepting the use of it poses a challenge to many countries."
    "The European Parliament is airing the possibility that the EU
should make its own Echelon system?"
    "Well, there are three possible options. They can openly join
Echelon and demand more control, they can make their own system or they
can refrain from having one. But in my opinion, pretending it doesn't
exist just isn't an option. Especially not after September eleventh."
    "Were you ever involved in the first Echelon system?"
    "Only at the end of it. It was already operational when I entered
the picture.
    "The report of the European Parliament firmly establishes that
Echelon is a global surveillance system which intercepts private and
commercial communication and that it is led by the US in concert with
Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as second partners. But
the Parliament is not totally sure the system is named Echelon."
    Bruce McIndoe laughs dryly and somewhat indulgently about the
thought of our silly European politicians. IJet Travel Intelligence's
website proudly, and with surprising candour, mentions McIndoe's
contribution to making Echelon II. The website states that:
    'Bruce was one of the lead architects for the National Security
Agency's Echelon II program, identified as one of the most productive
intelligence programs in the agency's history.'

LISTENING IN ON EVERYTHING
"On the whole, it doesn't take long to verify the existence of Echelon if
you look at the US Defence Department's budgets. And besides, code names
are usually not classified as top secret. This practice enables people in
the right circles to refer to the program, yet without revealing its
capacity or how it operates."
    "So you are the person who can document that you have made Echelon
II?"
    "Yes, that's for sure. I can even do so without revealing any
secrets. Echelon II is the successor, so to speak, of the original Echelon
system."
    "Can you tell us whether it is used to monitor all types of
communication?"
    "No system of such enormous magnitude would only be used for a
single purpose. They use it for everything they can, if they feel it's
necessary. Whenever they need to exploit its potential, they do it."
    Bruce takes a little breather while he considers whether he has
said too much:
    "But it doesn't mean they're a bunch of wild cowboys. There are
rules, you know, that stipulate what they are allowed to monitor, and they
definitely don't ignore the laws of any individual countries. Not American
laws either. This poses somewhat of a challenge, of course, but after they
get a court order, they can do just about anything they please," explains
McIndoe, who emphasizes that he is no expert in these matters.
    In 1998, Computer Science Corporation took over Bruce McIndoe's
company - and with that the Echelon contract with the National Security
Agency. Shortly afterwards, Bruce McIndoe co-founded the company he now
works for. A company where he makes great use of his experience from
working with the largest espionage system in the world.

AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION
"Tell us something about the company you work for now."
    "Okay. In short, we have transferred everything I did for the NSA
and other services to a private company that then sells intelligence to
businesspersons. We get information on everything from local diseases,
outbreaks of malaria epidemics and local unrest to strikes, the weather
and traffic conditions. Our customers are large multinational companies
like Prudential and Texas Instruments. We also work for institutions like
the World Bank and the IMF."
    "Your offices resemble a command post at the NSA's Fort Meade
headquarters?"
    "Yes, exactly. Our staff are also former intelligent agents who
have either developed or run espionage operations for US intelligence
agencies or people from the UK, South Africa and Russia."
    "How does the NSA feel about the fact you're applying the same
technology in the private sector?"
    "A lot of the technology developed at the NSA will sooner or later
find its way into civilian life. Things like word spotting, automatic
translation, language recognition and so on. But since we don't try to
hide our work and primarily use open sources, the NSA doesn't complain."
    Yet the architect for Echelon II indirectly reveals some secrets
to us. One of the ways Echelon works is by using words and voice
recognition, as well as automatic translation.


-- 


EOT




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