Government Lying on DSD Spying

Revelations that the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) spied on Australian communications with the Tampa have exposed the reality that Australia and the US regularly violate the rights of the citizens of all countries by listening to all their phone, fax and telex conversations.

“The Tampa incident is just the tip of the spying iceberg,” said Denis Doherty, national co-ordinator of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition.

“Government claims that this was a small and one-off infringement of the rule forbidding monitoring of Australian citizens’ communications are deliberate disinformation.

“The United States Echelon spy system is specifically set up to continuously and indiscriminately intercept all the satellite telecommunications of the entire world. Computers then siphon out what is valuable in this mass of information, using key words or names, at a rate of a million message every half hour.

“Yakima near Seattle covers the Pacific, Sugar Grove near Washington monitors transatlantic satellite communications, Morwenstow in Cornwall (UK) covers the Atlantic to the west and Europe and Asia to the east and Waihopai in New Zealand is responsible for the south Pacific.

“The spy base at Geraldton near Perth monitors satellite communications in the Indian Ocean. This inevitably includes communications to and from Australia," Mr Doherty said. “The bases at Shoal Bay and Pine Gap are also involved in this lawless activity.

“Phone calls to and from Australia to Europe go via the Indian Ocean satellite.

“For example, if my wife phones her brother in London, that conversation is monitored from Geraldton.

A 1997 European Commission report was highly critical of Echelon, commenting that the system “is designed primarily for non-military targets: governments, organisations and businesses in virtually every country”.

“The Australian Anti-Bases Campaign welcomes this exposure of the lawless activities of DSD and supports calls for an inquiry into its unbridled power to violate the privacy of the Australia people,” Mr Doherty concluded.

For further information and interviews, contact
Denis Doherty 0418 290 663 9212 0800 (AABCC) 9660 7562 (h)