Thanks again to Terry Hanstock and Dr David Turner for contributions. Comments and info welcome – my e-mail address is
Electronic Privacy/ECHELON
- Cryptome
http://cryptome.org/
http://jya.com/crypto.htm - John Young’s acclaimed New York-based website on encryption and intelligence. Constantly updated, John Young and his ISP, Verio, have stood firm against requests to remove material that might be embarrassing to the agencies concerned (cryptome. org/mi5-verio.htm). Cryptome’s archives contains older material.
- Echelon – Developments in the US and Europe
http://www.echelonwatch.org
http://www.aclu.org/echelonwatch/index.htm - US: Further hearings into NSA spying activities are expected to be held by the US Congress’ House Govt Reform and Oversight Committee. In connection with these hearings, Duncan Campbell has written a report for Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (see www.epic.org).
Europe The European Parliament may soon ratify proposals to modify international law to deal with international communications espionage, and to set up a temporary special Committee of inquiry (opposed by UK govt) to further investigate Echelon. These proposals, known as the Echelon resolution, drafted by Graham Watson MEP, Chairman of the Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs C’tee, assert that international spying on communications should be identified as a breach of fundamental human rights. (www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/6724/1.html)
The European Parliament held hearings on ‘The EU and Data Protection’ in February 2000, when Duncan Campbell’s report on the global spy network, Echelon, entitled Interception Capabilities 2000 (www.iptvreports.mcmail.com/stoa_cover. htm) was presented to the EP’s Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights Committee. This report contributed to the developments in the European Parliament and US Congress outlined above. The agenda for this meeting: www.europarl.eu.int/dg2/hearings/20000222/libe/agenda/en/default.htm
For an outline of the four studies on aspects of communications surveillance, (of which IC 2000 is one) produced for the STOA panel of the EP (and arising from an earlier study, An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control [cryptome.org/ stoa-atpc. htm]) and an analysis of data protection and human rights in the EU, and the European Parliament’s role in protecting these rights, see The Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information (cryptome.org/dst-pa.htm)
Duncan Campbell’s IC 2000 report describes the collection of economic information by the NSA using Echelon and related systems, and details particular instances where such information has been used to block deals between European firms and other
countries, with US firms winning the contracts. A letter from ex CIA Director James Woolsey to the Wall Street Journal (March 17 2000) in response to claims of Echelon and the US spying on European industries, admits ‘Yes, my continental European friends, we have spied on you…….Why, then, have we spied on you?…….we have spied on you because you bribe.’ However, Woolsey claims that information is not passed directly to US companies (cryptome.org/echelon-cia2.htm). See also ‘Former CIA Director says US Economic Spying Targets “European Bribery”‘ (www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/ech/ 6662/1.html)Irish magazine The Phoenix (May 5 2000) claims that Ireland is to join the Echelon network in June 2000 (cryptome.org/ echelon-ie.htm)
- Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill
Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) RIP Information Centre http://www.fipr.org/rip/index.html - A lot of info on the RIP Bill, still going through Parliament. The RIP Bill requires ISPs to maintain ‘reasonable interception capabilities’ and contains powers to compel decryption: the police may serve a written notice to demand that a communication be decrypted, or that the private decryption key be handed over. Failure to provide a decryption key makes you liable to up to two years imprisonment and/or a fine.
‘Tipping-off’ someone that their communications are being intercepted makes one liable to up to five years and/or a fine. Includes: Legal opinion by Justice and FIPR – RIP’s contentious decryption powers, requiring the defence to prove that they do not possess a decryption key, probably breaches Article 6 of the ECHR: the right of a person to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and a test case under the Human Rights Act, which comes into force in October 2000, is likely. The prohibitive costs to ISPs of providing interception facilities required by the Bill. RIP resources – briefings, press releases and analyses of the Bill; media coverage; key reports. See also Cyber-rights and Cyber-liberties (www.cyber-rights.org)
The Internet and Libel
Perhaps the most serious threat so far to free speech on the internet in the UK became apparent in March 2000 when Demon Internet agreed to pay £15,000 damages and £230,000 costs to Laurence Godfrey, a physicist who said he had been defamed by two postings on the net. This case seemed to establish that in UK law internet service providers are subject to the same libel laws as newspapers and other media, whereas in the US, ISPs have immunity over their content. Since this case, several websites have been closed by their ISPs for fear of the legal costs associated with a libel action. See Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet in Britain for more information. CACIB has had to move it’s own website to a US-based ISP as a result of the Demon case.
In contrast, a recent US Supreme Court ruling (May 2000) protects US ISPs against libellous content, and treats then as carriers, on the same basis as telephone companies.
Shayler, Gadaffi plot
- MI6 CX document on the Gadaffi Plot
http://cryptome.org/qadahfi-plot.htm - The release of this sensitive document onto the internet in Feb 2000 set off a search for those responsible, and further action against David Shayler, the presumed culprit, and his contacts. Cryptome carries a translation of the document, which was first released onto California-based Yahoo website, which closed after a few days.
The document, marked CX95/53452 and UK SECRET/ DELICATE SOURCE/UK EYES ALPHA, is entitled ‘Libya: Plans to Overthrow Qadahfi in early 1996 are well advanced’. It describes a coup plot against Gadaffi and proves MI6 knowledge of the plot, via an agent codenamed Tunworth. Shayler had earlier claimed MI6 involvement in such a plot, and payments made by MI6 to Tunworth; Foreign Sec. Robin Cook had vigorously denied any MI6 involvement in such a plot.
- Public Friend No.1 Press Release on the plot
http://cryptome.org/shayler021600.htm - Shayler’s vindication over the existence of the plot; his submission to Jack Straw in Nov 1999 on how he was briefed on the Gadaffi plot, describing how he came to be informed of the plot by an MI6 officer codenamed PT16/B.
The names of the two MI6 officers alleged by Shayler to be involved in the Gadaffi plot, and code-named PT16/B and PT16 were revealed in the Portuguese weekly Tal&Qual (March 10 2000) by Frederico Duarte (cryptome.org/qadahfi-mi6.htm), and later identified in Free Press, (journal of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, No 115, March-April 2000 (see below) as David Watson and Richard Bartlitt.
- Libyan Intelligence in the UK
http://cryptome.org/mi5-lis-uk.htm - Top Secret Delicate Source ‘UK EYES A’ (ALPHA) intelligence report, dated 1 December 1995, leaked to the internet, detailing the activities of a Libyan spy, Bazelya, and how blunders by the British intelligence services may have led to the assassination of a Libyan dissident in London. See also Duncan Campbell’s article on this on Telepolis (www.heise.de/tp/ english/special/info/6743/1.html), ‘New British Intelligence Action Against Web Leaks’
Archives and Released Documents
- Foreign Relations in the United States
http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/frus.html - The Foreign Relations of the United States series is the ‘official documentary historical record of major US foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity’. Now comprising over 350 volumes. The more recent volumes make use of declass’d records, Presidential tape recordings, and other documents. Currently 21 recent volumes are on-line, including those on the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
- Centre for the Study of Intelligence
http://www.odci.gov/csi/ - Conducts research on intelligence and publishes classsified and unclassified editions of the Studies in Intelligence journals. Includes publications, intelligence research, intelligence history (publishing and teaching – CIA history and the CIA’s Cold War records) Published books, all online, include: CIA and the Vietnam Policy makers: Three episodes 1962-1968; Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939-57; CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates; At Cold War’s End: US Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 1989-91
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/19335/art-1.htmlhttp://www.odci.gov/csi/books/cubamis/book1.pdf
A pdf version of a 1992 print book containing many declassified documents on the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, including many important CIA documents on this event.
National Security Archive
- The National Security Agency Declassified
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB23/index.html - Electronic Briefing Book on the NSA’s foundation and management, providing 15 original documents dating from 1948 to 1998, including: May 1982 The Sigint C’tee, its mission and functions; Oct 1980 US Signals Intelligence Directive; Dec 1971 Dept of Defense Directive specifying NSA’s role in signals intelligence, the role of the Sec of Defense in appointing and supervising the work of the NSA’s Director and the authorities assigned to the NSA Director; and a recent organisation chart.
- Declassified Documents on Iran and the US
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB21/index.html - From the National Security Archive. Declass’d documents date from 1947 to 1991
- The Ultrasensitive Bay of Pigs
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB29/index.html - Newly declassified portions of the Taylor Commission Report (charged by President Kennedy with investigating the Bay of Pigs incident); the new release consists of 8 documents.
- Secrets From Behind the (Crumbling) Iron Curtain
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19991105/index.html - New Documents from Soviet/E Europe archives Reveal Why There Was No Crackdown on the Revolutions of 1989; the National Security Archive and E. European partners release recently obtained verbatim transcripts of historic meetings – 1989 Politburo, Roundtable, Gorbachev talks.
- Cold War Bibliography
http://www.cmu.edu/coldwar/bibl.html - Provided by Carnegie Mellon University’s Cold War Science and Technology Studies Program. Includes Institutions of the Cold War; Recent Books; Comparative and International Aspects of the Cold War; The Cold War and American Culture.
- Foreign Terrorist Organisations
http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/fto_1999.html - Info about organisations designated as terrorist groups by the US government in 1999, with criteria for designation and details of activities of each organisation.
- Opensecrets.org
http://www.opensecrets.org - Subtitled ‘The Online Source for Money in Politics Data’. Includes Election 2000: The Presidential Race; the money behind the candidates – financial profiles of candidates; top contributors to the candidates.
- The Center for Public Integrity: The Buying of the President
http://www.publicintegrity.org/reports/bop2000/thebook.htm - ‘In The Buying of the President 2000, Charles Lewis and the CPI shine their spotlight on the special (and often secret) interests that have heavily invested in the politicians who are seeking the nation’s highest office.’
- Factbook on Intelligence
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/facttell/index.html - Updated version of the CIA Factbook on Intelligence, a history and guide to the CIA.
- German Propaganda Archive
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ - Nazi and East German propaganda, translated. ‘Includes both propaganda itself and material produced for the guidance of propagandists. The goal is to help people understand the two great totalitarian systems of the twentieth century by giving them access to primary material’. Compiled by Calvin College Professor of Communications and Sciences Randall Bytwerk. Includes speeches and essays from leaders, anti-Semitic writings and cartoons; articles by propagandists.
- SchNews – Bilderberg Papers
http://www.schnews.org.uk/bilderberg/index.html - The Bilderberg Meeting at Sintra, Portugal, in June 1999. Includes: Introduction; Participants; Agenda (incl. Kosovo; current controversies; genetics and life sciences; redesigning the international financial architecture; NATO’s future.)
- The Trilateral Commission Homepage
http://www.trilateral.org/ - ‘Formed 1973 by private citizens of Europe, Japan and North America to help think through the common challenges and leadership responsibilities of these democratic industrialised areas in the wider world’. About the TC; membership (Chairman, Deputy Chairmen, Directors and Exec Ctee); Recent Activity – meetings, reports, publications.
- The Council on Foreign Relations
http://www.foreignrelations.org/ - ‘Founded 1921 by businessmen, bankers and lawyers determined to keep the US engaged in the world’. The CFR’s mission is ‘to foster America’s understanding of other nations…’. The CFR is a national membership organisation, with 3,600 members including nearly all current and former senior US govt officials who deal with international matters, also scholars and leaders in business, media, human rights and other non-govt groups. Study Groups and Roundtable form the CFR’s intellectual core – aim to improve insight into international affairs and develop new ideas for US foreign policy. Includes Foreign Affairs magazine and CFR publications.
Media
- Campaign For Press and Broadcasting Freedom
http://www.cpbf.demon.co.uk/ - ‘The CPBF is an independent voice for media reform. We work to promote policies for a diverse, democratic and accountable media.’ The UK based CPBF campaigns for a more accountable media, the break-up of media concentration, the rights of citizens to redress for unfair coverage, and the right of journalists to report freely. Includes CPBF Manifesto; Free Press (bi-monthly journal); events; links to media-related unions and organisations.
- International Consortium of Investigative Journalism
http;//www.icij.org/ - Launched 1997, the ICIJ is a project of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org) an investigative research org. The ICIJ marshals the talents of leading investigative reporters worldwide to focus on issues that have no national barriers. Includes: investigative reports by ICIJ members, eg tobacco smuggling by BAT; Tools of the Trade – includes info on US Public Record laws – FOIA.
Human Rights
- Article 19
http://www.article19.org/ - The international Centre against censorship. ‘Named after Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we work worldwide to combat censorship, by promoting freedom of expression and access to official information’. Includes: news; press releases; issues; details of Article 19’s programmes world-wide; publications; links.
- Liberty
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/ - ‘An independent non governmental organisation which works to defend and extend individual rights and freedoms in England and Wales’ Includes Policy briefings on Bills before parliament; publications; campaigns; human rights test cases; legal advice.
eg implications of the new Human Rights Act, which comes into force Oct 2000, at www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/
Europe
- EU Website
http://europa.eu.int/index-en.htm - Starting point for EU institutions – European Parliament, Commission, Council, Court of Justice, and other agencies.
- European Commission
http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm - Includes key speeches; press releases; official documents (work prog; action plans; guidelines; green papers; white papers; communications; bulletin of the EU; reports; press releases); profiles and portfolios of the 20 Commissioners; homepages of the directorates-general and services of the Commission; access to Commission documents; a citizen’s guide (how to obtain a doc pub’d by the European Commission, many can be retrieved electronically; access to internal, unpublished Commission docs)
- European Parliament
http://www.europarl.eu.int/sg/tree/en/ - Menu includes: President, political groups; EU institutions; National Parliaments; EP info offices and ombudsman. Overview of the EP; members of the EP; EP News; useful addresses Activities: Plenary Sessions; Parliamentary C’tees; Public Hearings; meetings and agendas; PQs; Legislative Observatory. Press.
References: key topics and EU policies; treaties and basic docs; rules of procedure; official journals; studies and reference documents; bulletins; STOA (Scientific and Technical Options Assessment,www.europarl.eu.int/dg4/stoa/en/default.htm) which helps EP C’tees and members in the assessment of issues with a scientific/technological component. - Council of the EU
http://ue.eu.int/en/summ.htm - Includes: General info, addresses; Public Register of Council Documents; How to submit request for documents; Timetable of meetings; Economic Policy Coordination; Presidency of the Council; Treaty of Amsterdam; Common Foreign and Security Policy.
- EUROPARL search guide http://www.europarl.eu.int/search/en/docsearch.htm
- How to find full text of a document relating to a legislative procedure, ongoing or completed.
EurodicAutom: European Commission Translation Service
http://eurodic.echo.lu/
Translates technical terms, abbreviations and acronyms
British state
- PRO on-line
Public Record Office
http://www.pro.gov.uk/ - The PRO’s online catalogue is a step towards a full online catalogue for the PRO which will be completed in 2001. The catalogue will be an online resource of over 8 million entries covering all PRO documents. It is a database of document references with descriptions of the documents (not images, only their reference numbers) and of the classes in which they are categorised. It can be searched online at:
http://www.pro.gov.uk /finding/catalogue/There are useful information leaflets in the Finding Aids section at
http://www.pro.gov.uk/leaflets/default.htmThe search page is at
http://catalogue.pro.gov.uk/ListInt/browse_keywords_frameset.aspAfter getting the search result, ‘Search Documents’ performs a text search which may bring up a number of references and brief descriptions – can click on ‘details’ for more info. Can help plan visit or order documents in advance of visiting the PRO.
Free trade/investment/WTO
- Global Trade Negotiations Homepage
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidtrade/ - Harvard’s Center for International Development website launched August 1999 ‘to provide a centralised information resource on global trade negotiations…a starting point for research on the WTO Third Ministerial Conference and subsequent trade negotiations’. Site continuously updated and not affiliated to the WTO, and includes a wealth of info and many relevant papers on all aspects of world trade negotiations, and a comprehensive list of research links.
Net activism
- Paul Mobbs’ Free Range Activism website
http://www.gn.apc.org/pmhp/index.htm - Excellent website. ‘Aim of the ‘Free Range’ network is to promote ‘associative action’ to assist work and campaigning by the general public on environmental and social issues’. Includes The Data Centre, an archive of info on all aspects of the environment including energy; genetic engineering; health; pollution; nuclear; transport; wildlife; access to information; freedom and privacy; law; town and country planning. Also the ‘Free Range’ Network for campaigners on environmental and social issues; and the Internet Hotlist – links to the UK parliament, Govt depts, local govt, QUANGOS and research agencies; EU; International Agencies; campaigning groups; media.
- NetAction
http://www.netaction.org/ - Includes Netaction’s Virtual Activist training course (resources for online activism, using the internet and email for campaigning etc: www.netaction.org/training/index.html)
- American on-line resources
- Useful list of American Websites which contain resources for investigative journalism/research is to be found at http://www. village voice.com/issues/0019/kick.shtml