Following the four EuroParl reports last year on Echelon and electronic surveillance in general, a fifth report has appeared, dated October 1999, but as far as we know not heretofore widely publicized: http://cryptome.org/dst-pa.htm (108K) This report briefly outlines the first four and then examines the history of electronic surveillance and privacy policies in Europe and the US, compares laws and regulations, and makes suggestions for what might be done to resolve conflicts. Now that the US and Europe claim to be reaching an agreement on privacy protection, though details remain to be explained, this report is useful to understand the differences between the US and Europe updating of national security and privacy protection policy in response to latest technology. The big difference, the report states, is that the US allows greater corporate snooping for economic purposes than does Europe. The difference among nations in national security snooping is seen to be negligible, indeed, that all nations go at it tooth and nail, sometimes in cooperation sometimes in competition. On the question of whether national technical means are used for economic advantage, why, it is claimed that nobody, but nobody, does that, what a foolish notion, ridiculous, why even ask, no comment, ever, on means and methods of distributing intelligence products to customers. That word "products," that word "customer." Thankfully, the report singles out France for refusing to go along with anybody's scheme for cooperation on national security and privacy protection, and that paranoia and suspicion of outsiders remain Number 1 and 2. Smart people, those advocates of liberty, equality and fraternity. Using intelligence to boost French business, oh yes, let there be no dissimulation as the six former CIA directors exhibited by C-SPAN yesterday in DC at CFR. Wasn't Deutch amazing at that session? He could hardly restrain himself from screaming "ignoramouses" at the panel members, all of whom except him, appeared to know no more than what's in the daily papers, and, to be sure what's delivered in the kiddie briefings given to the association of retired CIA stupes. Schlesinger's jibe that the DCIs would not criticize their fellow KGB agents now the top echelon of Russia, was winning, as was the admission by several of them that they had no idea how both KGB and CIA bugs in the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations chambers were overlooked. See the CIA Inspector General's report on Deutch's stupid computer use (rather disinfomation distribution under guise of that): http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/ig_deutch.html
