Isn't Israel Supposed to be our Allies?

[Natoma]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/09/01/pollard/index.html

Jonathan Pollard has spent nearly 18 years in prison, 16 of them as part of a life sentence for spying against the United States on behalf of a U.S. ally -- Israel.

Pollard is scheduled to appear at a hearing Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Washington on whether he should be allowed to appeal his life sentence.

Israel initially said Pollard was a rogue spy, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later acknowledged that he was an Israeli agent, and in 1995 granted him citizenship.

Uhm,

Maybe I'm being naive on this, but aren't allies not supposed to spy on one another and steal classified documents? Yeesh.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Uhm,

Maybe I'm being naive on this, but aren't allies not supposed to spy on one another and steal classified documents? Yeesh.

That's very niave of you. Every country, every leader, and every security force is ultimately on the lookout for its own country. America and it's foreign/economic policies is one of the prime examples of this.

An enemy is just someone you trust less than your allies. Saddam Huessain was an ally of the US a few years back, when he was fighting against Iran. So were the Taliban when fighting against the Russians in Afganistan.

 

[epicstruggle]

Uhm,

Maybe I'm being naive on this, but aren't allies not supposed to spy on one another and steal classified documents? Yeesh.

That's very niave of you. Every country, every leader, and every security force is ultimately on the lookout for its own country. America and it's foreign/economic policies is one of the prime examples of this.

An enemy is just someone you trust less than your allies. Saddam Huessain was an ally of the US a few years back, when he was fighting against Iran. So were the Taliban when fighting against the Russians in Afganistan.

Very true. Also Israel cannot count on the US to always back them up. If Iraq and Iran can establish and moderate republic govermnents. And work to get rid of their extremist elements, they US will have very little choice but to start supporting some arab/muslim issues.

later,

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

The only reason that America backs Isreal is because the US wants a friendly country in the region, and American pressure and promises of backup is what prevents fundamentalist Arab countries attacking Israel directly and having Israel respond with nuclear retaliation.

America spies on all it's allies, and in fact there's been a lot of recent evidence that the US uses it's resources (like Echelon) to steal industrial secrets from it's allies in the EU, and passes it to American companies. Economic power is just as useful as political or military power.

 

[zurich]

Isreal's done a lot worse than spy on America heh. Do some googling, you'll find some pretty far out things (like giving Patriot missile tech to China, behind US backs). Ofcourse, alot of it is bunk, but not all.

 

[DemoCoder]

America spies on all it's allies, and in fact there's been a lot of recent evidence that the US uses it's resources (like Echelon) to steal industrial secrets from it's allies in the EU, and passes it to American companies. Economic power is just as useful as political or military power.

No industrial secrets were stolen if you mean to say technology or legitimate business information. The incidents in question are the French being caught BRIBING foreign governments to win contracts. The US was monitoring the Saudi and Brazilian governments, and caught wind of Airbus and Thompson bribing government officials.

The French themselves have been accused of bugging first class airline seats and French business class hotel suites.

The US has openly announced it will use its intelligence network to detect corruption in international bidding. Bribery is a criminal offence in trade in the US, even if the bribe receipient is overseas, and many have been caught and prosecuted. Bribery is not illegal in most other countries, an unfair trade disadvantage, although this is changing. The UK passed antibribery provision into their antiterrorism bill.

Bribery is an inefficiency in the market. In open bidding, all participants in the process are able to see what each bidder is offering. With bribery, the full extend of the bid is hidden. Everyone is aware of the "open bid", a combination of products, services, and money. However, no one is aware of the private incentives being offered.

If European companies want to offer "signing" bonuses to negotiators, to say, choose Airbus, don't use bribery. Simply make it an open signing bonus, and let other companies try to match or exceed it. Atleast that way, what's going on is fully transparent and accountable.


Although, the signing bonuses themselves are somewhat suspect, because they corrupt the individual decision makers, and they may not choose a contract winner based on best value delivered, but instead, how much they are personally enriched.


This is not to say that US companies still don't try to bribe. It is harder and riskier however. Direct payouts could get you a jail term or huge fine that is way more costly, not to mention bad PR. Instead, US companies use lobbying tactics like they do on capital hill. Wine and dine, expensive "gifts", financial and political pressure, etc (e.g. "I know Senator X, and you have that foreign aid bill coming up which might grant you a loan. If you don't sign, I might not be able to persuade him to write your country into the bill provisions.")



There should in fact be worldwide spying on government<->industry business dealings because of the inherent corruption. Everyone should spy on everyone to keep those deals honest.

 

[PatrickL]

Democoder you are totally wrong; The only purpose of Echelon is to make Economical and Industrial spying despite what you seem to think.

 

[DemoCoder]

Amazing how you can speak with such assurance despite the fact that

1) there is no proof that Echelon actually exists
2) there are no facts regarding "Echelon"'s capability (Facts == Government documentation as to the existence) Everything else is speculation, ala "NSA can crack RSA, DES, etc"

3) If Echelon exists, it was built during the Cold War for a decidely different purpose
4) US high tech companies don't need to "steal" technology


If such a network actually existed and were being used to spy on foreign business dealings, it is infact less morally objectionable than the corrupt bribery happening in the first place.

Western economics operates on transparency: public court records, public companies, patent instead of trade secret, level playing field (attempt to combat insider trading), etc.

If we have to resort to international spying to stop corruption, so be it.

Any comments on French bugging of airlines and hotels? Eh?

The information regarding Echelon in indy media and foreign press is on the borderline of UFO media. Lots of people claiming the existence of something, rumors pointing towards something big, but ultimately, nothing concrete.

(Note: the NSA/GCHQ does have the capability of listening and there are plenty of listening posts. But this is not Echelon. The claims regarding Echelon: intercept every voice transmission, every fax, every email, able to run searches on all communications, etc are balderdash. If Echelon exists, why can't we find Osama, Omar, and Saddam?)

It is believable that the NSA can listen in on communications when they know what they are looking for: e.g. Osama's satellite phone number.

But the idea of a worldwide TIVO for all communications sounds like a creation of a moron who has seen too many Tom Clancy novel-movies. You know, the people who think spy satellites can see license plates, faces, and watch breasts on the beach with real time video.


I'm still waiting for those Mach 6 Aurora spy planes/bombers/whatever to start flying. You know, because Project Aurora was found in a budget request authorization like Project Echelon, therefore, it MUST be in existence, and infinitely capable?

I expect in a few years, we'll be hearing rumors about how the US Total Information Awareness project is tracking the personal habits of every citizen in the world as well.

BTW, the French have their own so-called French-elon system.

Here's my prediction as to what Echelon is: the equivalent of a scanner for satellite and cellular communications that can listen in on unencrypted transmissions, and on specific cellular/mobile transmissions. It is not a "full capture" system, and but more like a wiretap.

A full capture system would need to capture billions of daily phone calls, atleast 1200 bps, requiring a system with an effective storage rate of over 1.2 terabits (being conservative).

Now factor in performing voice recognition and indexing (for searching) on a billion data streams, every day. I happen to know that a state of the art call center using a voice recognition server can handle about 200 simultaneous streams on a $250,000 box. Let's say calls are evenly distributed, yielding about 50 million an hour. This would require about $62 billion in hardware.

And all of it can be defeated by simply using off the shelf encryption.

 

[SMarth]

Uhm,

Maybe I'm being naive on this, but aren't allies not supposed to spy on one another and steal classified documents? Yeesh.

Yes, you're incredibly naive if you ever think that, but don't feel bad, you're not alone...

1) there is no proof that Echelon actually exists

You're either in denial or on drugs... 8)

 

[DemoCoder]

Uhm,

Maybe I'm being naive on this, but aren't allies not supposed to spy on one another and steal classified documents? Yeesh.

Yes, you're incredibly naive if you ever think that, but don't feel bad, you're not alone...

1) there is no proof that Echelon actually exists

You're either in denial or on drugs... 8)

The proof of Echelon is like the proof of Aurora. It "exists", but what proof doesn't exist for is the media's portray of its capability. There are two Echelons: The real Echelon, which is simply a project to network existing listening posts of the US, British, and Australians and share the data (systems that are merely evolutions of what existed for atleast 40 years), and the media "Echelon" which is a Tom Clancy fantasy.

Spy Satellites exist, but their capabilities are vastly inferior to what common people think they can do.

Proponents of the Echelon hypothesis frequently claim it can capture all phone calls, all emails, all mobile phone calls, and all faxes. Do you think this is even close reality?

If you tell me that the US has tapped satellite com and undersea cables, I can believe it. If you tell me that they can "tap" conservations if they know what they are looking for, I'll believe it. But if you think they can capture even a fraction of all worldwide transmissions and simulatenously database them for analysis, YOU are the one that is on DRUGS.

 

[Humus]

Bribery is not illegal in most other countries, an unfair trade disadvantage, although this is changing. The UK passed antibribery provision into their antiterrorism bill.

Is it really so? Sounds a little unintuitively to me. Pretty much everyone would agree that bribery is immoral and bad for the market, I would have thought it would be illegal pretty much everywhere. It's definitely illegal here in Sweden.

 

[DemoCoder]

Dosmestic bribery is illegal in most Western nations, the question is, is it illegal for a UK or French citizen to bribe someone in a foreign country. The answer appears to be no.

But atleast in the UK, it is now illegal

http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/10024--m.htm#109

The US has been leading a charge to criminalize international bribery: http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/econ/bribes/2ndreport000629.htm

 

[Bigus Dickus]

I agree with pretty much everything you say DC, except for your blowing off of military combat technology. Don't forget when the F117 first flew. It's not all UFO-like saucer-ships and Mach10 super fighters, but what we see of military technology is certainly not the cutting edge.

I work on classified naval surface warfare technology, and some things that sound "fantastic" are not so far-fetched after all.

 

[pax]

I doubt Israel gave patriot tech to China. That sounds a bit wild to me. Israel is so dependant on US diplomatic and financial support it couldnt do without. It might try a few things like its cooperation with South Africa which woulnt affect it adversely or involve any real selling of intelligence or tech from its biggest ally...

I dont like Israel gov behavior in some circumstances but I dont think its a suicidal gov...

 

[SMarth]

The proof of Echelon is like the proof of Aurora.

Those two are completly different, there's no comparaison at all. Echelon have implications in many countries and it's a much larger project. Serious reporters around the world have produce quite a shitload of evidences about its existence. And it's really not hard to beleive, in fact it's to be expected. On the other hand, Aurora is just a name, and if it exists, it's a much more close secret known by very few peoples. And the only bit of serious evidences there might be, is that the us millitary have been testings secret planes. Doh! They'd been doing that since forever, and no one with half a brain will deny that. But saying that they have a usable mach 6+ plane is pure fabulation.

But feel free to deny the evidences, it won't change anything. Our posts are problably already in their databases

 

[DemoCoder]

Well then, why don't you post exact evidence of exactly what Echelon's capabilities are. You should be able to produce this evidence very easily.

BTW, evidence is not an essay by some journalist. It's hard facts about the capabilities of Echelon. And puh-lease, don't tell me that NSA/GCHQ listening posts are evidence of Echelon claims. The USAUK have been tapping communications since World War I, from the days of telegrams over telegraph lines.

Simply being able to intercept a fraction of communications and perform analysis is not what Echelon is being claimed to do. Echelon is supposed to be able to intercept all communications and run keyword searches on everything.

e.g. Echelon is supposed to be a GOOGLE/TIVO for the entire world.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

DC:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Echelon&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

BD:

I work on classified naval surface warfare technology, and some things that sound "fantastic" are not so far-fetched after all.

Can I crack a Navy joke please?
You are right, things like Roswell New Mexico do exist. The government does hide flying saucers and aliens in it's defense aresenal.

I know more technological things exist BD but please don't say we have warp drives or lasers the size of flies that can cut open the earth any second.

 

[PatrickL]

DemoCoder, i guess you can ask a job at Nvidia PR. Your denials should fit perfectly with that job.

 

[DemoCoder]

DC:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Eche...start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Irrelevent. If you pick the two most "authoritative" sources: The EU parliament report and the FAS, you'll see that they have no information as to the actual capabilities of "Echelon". Moreover, these reports depend on other third hand reports from book authors like Bamford, and disgruntled ex-government workers who may or may not even have the access to classified information they claim they do.

(how many credible ex-government agents have come forward to claim the US has UFOs in its possession! In fact, there are plenty)

The evidence in this reports is entirely circumstantial and hearsay.

#1 Yes, NSA SIGINT/COMINT exists. DUH! And NSA has the neccessary listening posts to intercept most SATCOM.

#2 But the existence of one does not imply that "Echelon" can monitor ALL conversations worldwide. The capability that Echelon has is more like a WIRETAP and less like a WORLDWIDE TEXTSEARCH.

I am willing to bet that the way "Echelon" "works" is that a narrow band of frequencies are chosen for interception, the interception is performed, post-processed by voice recognition (non-real time), indexed, and then searched.

I am willing to bet that it cannot capture all communications, in fact, I am willing to bet that they don't have the resources to capture and analyze all satcom transatlantic phone calls.

And again, the EU reports show that none of the so-called US Echelon activity was used to do anything more than detect illegal sanction violations or bribery. Any "theft" of business information was done with HUMINT.

Fact is, it's far easier to just get a job at company and then steal some powerpoints or files off the network then to try to use some elaborate worldwide capture system. Just send in a CIA agent dressed like a geek.


I'm hardpressed to see what actual technology would have to be stolen. Most corporations feed off of publically available research, and many openly publish their R&D in journals (HP, Microsoft, IBM, Motorola, Lucent, GM, Ford, etc) I expect the same from Eurozone companies.

At best, I could see internal plans being spied on. Like for example, what is NVidia planning for the NV40? Or ATI on the R420. That information would be highly valuable, but I doubt if either ATI or NVIDIA had schematics of each other's chips it would really be of use to their designers.


My point is, Echelon, as defined by the people squawking loudly about it is a far far more mundane system than they imagine it to be: able to scan every human conversation like a google search.

 

[DemoCoder]

DemoCoder, i guess you can ask a job at Nvidia PR. Your denials should fit perfectly with that job.

Nice way to sidestep your responsibility to back up your argument. Mayb e you can ask for a job from the Iraqi Information Minister you nut.

Let me save you the trouble by quoting the EU's report on Echelon Key Findings

Contrary to reports in the press, effective "word spotting" search systems automatically to select
telephone calls of intelligence interest are not yet available, despite 30 years of research. However,
speaker recognition systems – in effect, "voiceprints" – have been developed and are deployed to
recognise the speech of targeted individuals making international telephone calls;

It follows that, within constraints imposed by budgetary limitation and tasking priorities, the United States can
if it chooses direct space collection systems to intercept mobile communications signals and microwave cityto-
city traffic anywhere on the planet. The geographical and processing difficulties of collecting messages
simultaneously from all parts of the globe suggest strongly that the tasking of these satellites will be directed
towards the highest priority national and military targets. Thus, although European communications passing
on inter-city microwave routes can be collected, it is likely that they are normally ignored. But it is very highly
probable that communications to or from Europe and which pass through the microwave communications
networks of Middle Eastern states are collected and processed.