Kerry visits Poland

[Jaga]

Kerry is in Poland today on the way from Saudi Arabia to Israel. He hopes to improve relationship between European nations and the US.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is coming to Poland to discuss issues ranging from international security and the situation in the Middle East to economic cooperation.

This will be the first visit by a high-ranking U.S. politician to Europe since the revelations that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande were among leaders who reportedly had their phones tapped by the National Security Agency, which is believed to have collected data on millions of Europe-based phone calls.

The reported spying is expected to figure in Kerry's talks Tuesday with Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Poland's foreign and defense ministers. Polish leaders have not been named among the surveillance targets, but Tusk indicated he wants to hear Washington's explanations on the matter.

VIDEO: Kerry on U.S. NSA Surveillance in France

The allegations of U.S. spying on its allies have led European leaders to call for a halt to such practices, while many officials are demanding a suspension of a trans-Atlantic agreement that allows U.S. companies such as Apple or Google to process commercial and personal data of clients in Europe.

In Poland, Kerry also is expected to discuss the defense ministry's plans to spend some $30 billion on upgrading equipment in the next nine years, development of a missile shield in Europe, troop pullouts from Afghanistan and increasing bilateral economic cooperation.

Kerry is making this brief stop in Europe during his visit to the Middle East. On arrival from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday, Kerry is to lay a wreath at the grave of Poland's and Eastern Europe's first post-communist prime minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who died last week at the age of 86 and was laid to rest on Sunday.

[karl]

Jaga

Yes, it is true, Mr. Kerry by his station in life, is trying to apply damage control. Perhaps he will sooth some ruffled feathers, perhaps he will not. It will take some time for the heated temporature to cool after that last eposode of American fingers being caught in the cookie jar.

Perhaps they have learnt their lesson, perhaps they have not. For it is not wise to use centrol control in information gathering as with the NSA. This is the reason of various Deplomatic Missions in host countries. They know their work and do it well with out the interferance of amaters. With this, their opposites know one to the other, in this manner, mistakes are kept at a minimum.

But, as the world slowly turns, each in their own pursuit, will find what ever pleasures will suit their tast..

Karl

[pieter]

Jaga/Karl,

I am sure that the NSA will have spied on Poland too, because Poland is a strategic country on the border of Western-Europe and Eastern-Europe. Bordered Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine (with 17.3% Russians), Belarus (8.3% Russians) to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania (with a large Russian minority) to the north. Due to the past of the People's Republic of Poland (cold war era Warsaw pact and Comecon country) and the idea of old Sovjet structures left (in the form of former KGB, present FSB networks and probably Polish informers or double agents for the Russians. Former Polish communists. SB, Służba Bezpieczeństwa agents, PZPR [communist] party officials, and the Ludowe Wojsko Polskie, the 'communist' Armed Forces of the People's Republic of Poland, with it's Moscow trained and indoctrinated generals and officers ) the USA for sure will spy on important Polish key players. Poland has a Russian minority of 13,000 people (a tiny minority). Who knows what underlying structures or networks have survived the cold war? The same counts for East-Germany, Czech republic, Hungary, Slowakia and etc. The 'Russian' Foreign Intelligence Service SVR (Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki), FSB and other agencies.


A radome at RAF Menwith Hill, a site with satellite downlink capabilities believed to be used by ECHELON.

By the way I see all secret services and intelligent agencies as a sort of states within states. They operate as independent secretive organisations who gather information of enemy states and friendly states. All agencies do that. But not all the agencies have the power and the means of the NSA and ECHELON. ECHELON, originally a code-name, is a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, referred to by a number of abbreviations, including AUSCANNZUKUS and Five Eyes). It has also been described as the only software system which controls the download and dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communications. It was created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s.


Government Communications Security Bureau Waihopai Echelon Station New Zealand

The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) is an intelligence agency of the New Zealand government.
According to the official website the mission of the agency is to contribute to the national security of New Zealand by: providing information assurance and cyber security, foreign intelligence, and assistance to other New Zealand government agencies.


Pine Gap is a satellite tracking station located near Alice Springs in Central Australia. It hosts the largest NSA facility outside America. Pine Gap is an Echelon mainstation.

By the end of the 20th century, the system referred to as "ECHELON" had evolved beyond its military/diplomatic origins, to also become "... a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications." ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks (which once carried most Internet traffic) and microwave links. ECHELON operates the software controlling the collection and distribution of civilian telecommunications traffic conveyed using communication satellites, with the collection being undertaken by ground stations located in the footprint of the downlink leg.


RAF Menwith Hill

Most reports on ECHELON focus on satellite interception; testimony before the European Parliament indicated that separate but similar UK-US systems are in place to monitor communication through undersea cables, microwave transmissions and other lines. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) defines the ECHELON system as follows:

ECHELON is a term associated with a global network of computers that automatically search through millions of intercepted messages for pre-programmed keywords or fax, telex and e-mail addresses.

Every word of every message in the frequencies and channels selected at a station is automatically searched. The processors in the network are known as the ECHELON Dictionaries. ECHELON connects all these computers and allows the individual stations to function as distributed elements an integrated system.


Misawa Air Base Security Operations Center (MSOC)

An ECHELON station's Dictionary contains not only its parent agency's chosen keywords, but also lists for each of the other four agencies in the UKUSA system [ NSA, GCHQ, DSD, GCSB and CSE ]

— Federation of American Scientists






Edward Snowden revealed in June 2013 that between 8 February and 8 March 2013 NSA collected about 124.8 billion telephone data items and 97.1 billion computer data items throughout the world, including in Germany, United Kingdom and France. NSA made 70.3 million recordings of French citizens' telephone data from 10 December 2012 to 8 January 2013. In my opinion these NSA activities are linked to Echelon. The world forgot about ECHELON. But it was in the news in the late ninetees when members of the European parliament asked questions.

Again if the NSA was spying on the leaders of friendly nations like Germany and France, I am sure they listened to the phone conversations of the Polish, Dutch, British, Belgian, Italian, Spanish and Danish leaders too.
In the Netherlands we got the news that our own AIVD intelligence agency was/is cooperating with the NSA. Some Dutch said in an ironical way that the Netherlands is the 51th state of the USA. I wonder how the Polish press and people are reacting to 'the NSA phones tap scandal'?

Cheers,
Pieter

[Jaga]

Karl,

Kerry did a diplomatic faux pas since he misidentifies ex-prime minister Mazowiecki, who recently dies, as a foreign minister. But he has to remember so many names! At least he honored Mazowiecki.

Pieter, I did not realize that the satellite system is so spread all over the world.