Nicky Hager
Craig Potton Publishing
Box 555, Nelson, New Zealand
$25 (New Zealand) 1996
Sample chapters at http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/sp/
This was mentioned briefly in the Guardian some months ago. Hager has done a Duncan Campbell and stitched together, in incredible detail, New Zealand’s contribution to the NSA-run global network of communications interception. But his work goes much further than that and anyone interested in GCHQ or the NSA, the history of signals intelligence since WW2, the relationship between politicians and spooks, the anti-nuclear campaign in New Zealand, or, indeed, the geo-politics of that part of the Pacific, will find something of value here.
His central discovery is a system known as Echelon, a bunch of super computers which scan the world’s communications – phones, telex, e-mail – for key-words and filter out the messages in which they appear. Want to trigger Echelon? Make a long-distance call and say Iraq, nukes, plutonium. That should ensure that the content of your call is printed out somewhere in the Echelon network.
The book comes with an introduction from former New Zealand Prime Minister, David Lange, acknowledging that he knew almost nothing about this system – even though, as Prime Minister, he tried to find out what the New Zealand end of the NSA network was doing. As usual the state didn’t bother informing the politicians. Jeffrey T. Richelson, co-author of The Ties that Bind, calls this a masterpiece; and his word I would take.
To inquire about payment for a copy ring the publisher at (NZ country code) 03 548 9009; fax 03 546 9192.