"Echelon hopelessly overestimated"

Confusing statements from German member of the Echelon Committee in European Parliament

The German member of the temporary Echelon committee Gerhard Schmid (Labour) stated on Wednesday that the committee had no hard proof of Americans spying on European business. The Echelon Committee of the European Parliament was set up In July 2000 to verify the communications interception system called Echelon and to detect if European industry is put at risk by the system.

Although the report in Echelon is not yet finished, Schmid said that no hard proof could be found of the existence of Echelon. 'Until we get a secret service or industry to come forward ... we have no proof that it is happening,' said Gerhard Schmid, the EU assembly's vice president, according to the Associated Press. 'We don't have any facilities for conducting investigations into the activities of the secret services. We cannot find out what the American secret services are doing, we cannot find out what the European secret services are doing,' Schmid said.

He also stated that the capacities of Echelon were exaggerated. After six months of listening to experts in communications, national security and other fields, Schmid said that his committee was coming to the conclusion that no single country could do what some claim the United States are doing: eavesdropping on every phone call, e-mail and fax message around the world. 'The possibilities here for such eavesdropping have been hopelessly overestimated,' Schmid said. But, he added, if a group of countries worked together, most strategic areas around the world could be listened into. Schmid warned that even though it was hard to prove, European companies should be aware that economic eavesdropping is probably a reality. 'We have to protect ourselves,' Schmid told AP.

Last week, vice-chairman of the Echelon committee Ellie Plooij (The Netherlands, Liberal Party), told Telepolis that a delegation of the Echelon committee had not yet spoken to American representatives. 'A visit to the United States is scheduled for the beginning of May.'

Plooij further told Telepolis that British governmental representatives first refused to appear in front of the committee. But during a visit to Britain the committee had spoken to several ministers. During this discussions the Brits implicitly acknowledged the existence of the secret UKUSA Agreement, Plooij stated. 'They didn't say it in clear terms. But when we asked if we could see the UKUSA Agreement, the officials told us this was impossible because it is secret.'

Plooij didn't want to comment on the findings of the Echelon committee. But she was convinced that the possibilities of large scale cross bounder interception constitute a threat for citizens and companies:

The remarks of Schmid come at a moment when there is already a lot of confusion around the work of the Echelon committee. In February, Desmond Perkins, an European Commission staff responsible for the cryptographic security system, told the Echelon committee 'the NSA usually check our systems to see that they are being well looked after and not being misused.' After the message had hit the media and caused a stir, the European Commission stated last week that the words of Perkins were misunderstood. The Commission has no links to the NSA and never transmitted material for verification purposes, according to the Commission.

The Greens in European Parliament now call for an open debate on the issue in the plenary session of the European Parliament next week. 'It is extraordinary to think of European secret codes being checked for security by American spies. The truth is that American technological superiority in encryption technology and operating software in computers has created an American capacity to crack everyone else's secrets - or practically everyone's,' said Neil MacCormick. 'The Perkins case reveals again acute failures of managerial control in the European Commission. We must ensure that the reforms in progress just now bring about tight controls on European secrets.'