Interview with Duncan Campbell

"They spy on companies and interest groups," says Duncan Campbell, who has looked at the listening post at Aflandshage near Copenhagen in Denmark. "The facilities at Aflandshage are hardly distinguishable from the Echelon installation in New Zealand."

Physicist and technology expert Duncan Campbell has no doubt. Denmark is involved in illegal surveillance together with the other primary participants in the so-called Echelon system, the US, England, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

"My best guess is that the facilities at Aflandshage were additionally expanded shortly after the end of the Cold War. In 1990 or perhaps a little later."

What does that mean?

"Well it means that Aflandshage is in any case not part of NATO's defense against Russia and the other East Bloc countries like it was before. Everything indicates that the large parabolic antennas and accompanying buildings are used in the same way as the facilities in the other countries: to intercept communication from commercial satellites that transmit the phone and fax conversations of ordinary people. And to forward the intercepted information."

BREACH OF DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES

In addition to his physics degree, Duncan Campbell is also a journalist and has closely cooperated with a group of British women who are protesting against the largest listening station in the Echelon system. It is located in a beautiful area on Menwith Hill near [Harrogate], England. With the help of cunning tricks, the women have sneaked into the base more than a hundred times and removed thousands of classified documents from the secretive base. With the help of these papers, and from information from anonymous agents, Campbell has acquired a unique knowledge which last year resulted in an extensive report on the global surveillance, ordered by the European Parliament.

"The problem is that most democratic countries have laws that protect the sanctity of private life and do not allow the lawful political activities of their citizens to be monitored and registered. In order to monitor someone, you must have grounds for suspicion and be authorized to do so by a judge. Echelon is a total breach of these principles. A great number of categories are coded into the system, and under each category there are even more code words. Many of the words are used in normal daily conversation. Not only the rights of ordinary people are infringed; Echelon also monitors interest groups like Amnesty International, Greenpeace and private companies. Several examples of industrial espionage exist in which the US intelligence service has passed on information to US companies that was intercepted from satellites.

BREAKS THE LAW

How can you be so sure that this is possible?

I have seen the footage taken inside the systems while they were in operation. Both from Menwith Hill, England and Waihopa, New Zealand. TV-Free from New Zealand succeeded in filming in the Waihopa base, and the operations room was almost completely devoid of staff. The process is totally automated and operates at lightening speed. In addition, I also made a documentary for which we set up a tiny parabolic antenna beside the base on Menwith Hill. The information it intercepted was unbelievable after we positioned it to listen in on the same satellite at which the large parabolic antennas in the base are aimed."

Isn't it reasonable that the system has the capability to monitor terrorists and the like?

"Sure it is. But there is all the difference in the world between conventional surveillance and monitoring and this system in which the law is consistently and constantly being broken by the very people who should be making sure that others obey the law. They are purely and simply exchanging information which is illegal for the local intelligence agencies in the individual countries to collect."

Is it still called Echelon?

"The code name Echelon is only part of the entire system, and everything seems to indicate that they have switched codes. Last I heard it was 'Magistrand'."