FC: Report on U.S. using base in Spain to spy on communications

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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From: Montse Doval Avendaño <mdoval () labitacora com>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: The United States uses the Spanish Rota base to spy on 
international communications
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 13:03:41 +0100
Organization: BCSC

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Hi Declan,
I send you this comment about the book Libertad Vigilada (Watching
over freedom) that a Spanish journalist, Nacho García Mostazo, has
published this past January.
Nacho is correpondent of CNN radio in Spain and editor of Tech news
at Libertad Digital.
More information can be found at:
http://cryptome.org/echelon-es.htm
http://adserver.libertaddigital.com/libertadvigilada/english.htm

Regards,
Montse Doval

The United States uses the Rota base to spy on international
communications

Since 1953, Spain has authorised the USA to use its bases on Spanish
territory for espionage purposes. This authorisation has now been
extended and furthermore, it has been set down in writing. In return,
the United States undertakes to improve the exchange of "military
intelligence" and technological cooperation through two secret
documents that Parliament has not had access to. Consequently,
Spanish citizens can see how their right to the inviolability of
communications is eroded as Nacho García Mostazo denounces in his
book "Libertad vigilada" (Watching over freedom).

This year sees the 50th anniversary of the signing of the first
Hispanic-American covenant, that enabled the construction of the
bases of the North American army on Spanish soil. These agreements
have been negotiated several times in recent times, with the
protocols being amended on the basis of the strategic interests of
the signatories and, above all, the changes of the world
geo-political stage. The United States currently continues
controlling two military bases, one in Morón de la Frontera (Seville)
and the other in Rota (Cadiz). The latter, located opposite the
Strait of Gibraltar, takes up 2,400 hectares and the United States
soldiers who are working there call themselves the "Guardians of the
Mediterranean".

At the start of the 60's, the United States Marine installed a large
antenna known in military slang as "the elephants' cage" at the Rota
base. It has a circumference of 500 metres, made up of metal wire
meshing and bars whose technical name is AN/FLR-13. This antenna is
able to capture radio broadcasts that have been made at a distance of
over 5,000 kilometres. In the centre of "the elephants' cage" we can
find the building number 533 used by the Marines, which houses the
Naval Security Group (NAVSECGRU), that has also been stationed in
Rota since the 60's.

NAVSECGRU is the code-breaking division of the United States Marine,
that is to say, it processes codes and passwords in order to
guarantee the security of military communications. Although the unit
forms part of the Navy, its Commander works at Fort George Meade, a
military base located in Maryland, very close to Washington, from
where communications espionage operations on a global scale are
directed. this is because it is there that the central offices of the
National Security Agency (NSA) is located. This is one of the three
United States agencies that is dedicated to intelligence.

In spite of the secret surrounding the operations of the Rota
Security Group, it oddly enough has its own web page on Internet,
where it explains its mission consists of "providing safe and fast
communications for the defence of the United States and its allies".
In other words, its obligation is for the military communications
from Rota leave encoded so that, if they are intercepted by another
country, they cannot be detected. But any specialist in encoding is
also an expert in crypto-analysis, an activity that consists of
decoding the codes of other countries.

Thus, in the same way as they have the obligation to protect outgoing
communications, the members of NAVSECGRU also carry out a
crypto-analysis of the incoming signals. In this case these are the
civil, diplomatic and military communications interpreted by the
"elephants' cage". Curiously, it states on its web page that its
mission is also to "analyse electro-magnetic phenomenon" with the
AN/FLR-13 antenna, a euphemism that is used to try to cover up their
true mission as communication spies.

With Spanish authorisation since 1970

The United States and Spain signed a new Covenant in 1970 by which
the United States military bases returned to Spanish control,
authorising the United States army to use certain facilities in them.
In 1982, with Spain having recently joined up to NATO, another
Covenant was signed in which the use of the installations was
regulated and the authorisations granted by the Spanish government to
the United States army to operate under the Spanish flag were
detailed one by one.

The latest update to the Hispanic-American military agreements took
place on April 10, 2002. This document is accompanied by an appendix
where the installations that exist on the North American bases were
set out. Among others, it admits the existence of a "naval
communications station" which, expressed in this way, seems to be
wholly undefended. The same happens with the "information
installation for maritime monitoring", whose mission is the "matching
and distribution of information in support of the United States
fleet". However, these are the installations operated by the Naval
Security Group, whose mission has already been mentioned.

Furthermore, article 47 of the Covenant states that "it shall be
possible for the Forces of the United States of America to be able to
undertake actions in the field of telecommunications that may be
necessary to 1) meet new operational requirements, 2) improve the
capability of existing systems and 3) to contribute to the welfare
and training of said forces". This means that NAVSECGRU can extend
its installations as it wishes, with the single condition that "there
should be no interference with the existing systems of the Spanish
armed forces", according to the Covenant cited.

Authorisation to spy

In the new document, Spain also grants "authorisation to the criminal
investigation services, that will act in Spain in conjunction with
its counterparts in the State Security Forces and Corps".
Specifically, the authorisation makes reference to the Naval Criminal
Service (NCIS) and the Office of Special Investigations of the Armed
Forces (OSI). Nevertheless, the NCIS admits, on its Internet page,
that it has been installed in Rota since 1993. It confirms that it
has offices and "resident units" there and recognises that it is
responsible for carrying out missions in Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar,
Morocco, the Western Sahara, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia,
Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, Namibia and South Africa".

It also mentions the existence of a protocol on "Industrial and
Technological Cooperation in the Defence Filed" whose content remains
secret and has not even been reported to Parliament. For those who
are unaware of the interest of the Spanish government in buying
United States interception and crypto-analysis communications
technology, this agreement could go unnoticed. But this is not the
case for those who fear that such an exchange be used for Spain to
improve its current capabilities in technological espionage, with the
consequent erosion of the right of inviolability of communications.

Nevertheless, it seems that it will not be necessary for Spain to
purchase this technology directly from the United States since the
new Covenant mentions that "the Spanish authorities shall be entitled
to the acquisition of any equipment, material, dis-mountable
structure or supply that the United States Forces consider surplus to
its inventory and plan to transfer to Spain". In this way, if
NAVSECGRU receives new equipment and does not know what to do with
the old tools, the Spanish army will have "first refusal" to buy
them. In the same respect, if the Naval Security Group orders more
material than it really needs, the Protocol authorises it to pass
this on to the Spanish forces, because the document makes reference
to the "surplus" material, not only second-hand products.

The new defensive agreement likewise makes reference to a new chapter
about "cooperation in military intelligence", whose results are more
than palpable in the fight against the ETA terrorist group. In
accordance with this protocol, which is also secret, the United
States would seem to have placed its enormous communications
espionage networks at the service of the Spanish authorities. Even
though the Spanish espionage authorities do not have direct access to
the technology that the North Americans use, such as the "Echelon"
system, Spanish intelligence forces confirm that the USA has spent
over a year providing valuable intelligence reports that have helped
to trap ETA, to the point where its terrorists have recently been
immobilised, fearful of making a mistake that leads to their capture.

Erosion of the right to the inviolability of communications

However, this success in the fight against terrorism, which all
citizens certainly applaud, also needs to been from another
perspective: the massive espionage systems make "sweeps" of the
communications, intercepting those relating to criminals, but also
those of other citizens who are not. As a spy who was working in the
"Echelon" network explained, there are innocent people who fall
through the "cracks in the system", with the consequent erosion of
the right to inviolability of communications.

There are presently no laws that regulate communications espionage
beyond the borders of the country that carries out that activity, and
with the changes that have taken place in the world following the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States, it is
hard for new legislation to be passed that makes it possible to
regulate it. In practice, the idea that "every citizen is innocent
until proved otherwise" could now be stated in another way: "every
citizen is suspicious until proven otherwise".

So, the decisive factor from now on will be who citizens will be more
afraid of, the criminals or the government. But while sides are
taken, society will remain under the close watch of a group of
talented people that not even George Orwell could have imagined in
his book "1984".

Montse Doval Avendaño
mdoval () labitacora com
www.labitacora.com
www.desdegalicia.com
God put me on earth to accomplish many things.
Right now I'm so far behind that I may never die.

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