{"id":107080,"date":"2018-03-05T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T12:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=107080"},"modified":"2018-03-05T07:24:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T07:24:09","slug":"the-powerful-global-spy-alliance-you-never-knew-existed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/03\/the-powerful-global-spy-alliance-you-never-knew-existed\/","title":{"rendered":"The Powerful Global Spy Alliance You Never Knew Existed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australian Defense Facilities Pine Gap, Feb. 19, 2016. Photo: Kristian Laemmle-Ruff<\/p><\/div>\n

1 Mar 2018 – <\/em>It is one of the world\u2019s most powerful alliances. And yet most people have probably never heard of it, because its existence is a closely guarded government secret.<\/p>\n

The \u201cSIGINT Seniors\u201d is a spy agency coalition that meets annually to collaborate on global security issues. It has two divisions, each focusing on different parts of the world: SIGINT Seniors Europe and SIGINT Seniors Pacific. Both are led by the U.S. National Security Agency, and together they include representatives from at least 17 other countries. Members of the group are from spy agencies that eavesdrop on communications \u2013 a practice known as \u201csignals intelligence,\u201d or SIGINT.<\/p>\n

Details about the meetings of the SIGINT Seniors are disclosed in a batch of classified documents from the NSA\u2019s internal newsletter SIDToday, provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden and published today by The Intercept. The documents shine light on the secret history of the coalition, the issues that the participating agencies have focused on in recent years, and the systems that allow allied countries to share sensitive surveillance data with each other.<\/p>\n

The SIGINT Seniors Europe was formed in 1982, amid the Cold War. Back then, the alliance had nine members, whose primary focus was on uncovering information about the Soviet Union\u2019s military. Following the attacks on the U.S. in September 2001, the group grew to 14 and began focusing its efforts on counterterrorism.<\/p>\n

The core participants of the Seniors Europe are the surveillance agencies from the so-called Five Eyes: the NSA and its counterparts from the U.K., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. As of April 2013, the other members were intelligence agencies from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden.<\/p>\n

The alliance \u2013 which the NSA sometimes refers to as the \u201c14 Eyes\u201d \u2013 has collaborated to monitor communications during major European events, such as the Olympics in 2004 (hosted in Greece), the Winter Olympics in 2006 (hosted in Italy), and the soccer World Cup in summer 2006 (hosted in Germany). Between 2006 and 2007, as part of a counterterrorism operation, the agencies began working<\/a> on \u201cexploitation of the Internet,\u201d which was described by the NSA as a \u201chuge step forward\u201d for the group, because some members of the alliance had previously been \u201creluctant to acknowledge there was such a thing as the Internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A Canadian Navy sailor on board a helicopter patrols the waters off the coast of Somalia as they escort a World Food Program ship on Sept. 17, 2008, providing an anti-pirate escort for the ship taking food aid to Somalia.
Photo: Simon Maina\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

As of 2010<\/u>, the agencies were focused<\/a> on targeting suspected terrorists, sharing intelligence related to piracy in the Horn of Africa, and they were collaborating on the development of new surveillance tools and techniques. According to the documents, the Seniors Europe had its own dedicated communication network called SIGDASYS, through which each agency can share copies of intercepted communications. The group also used a system called CENTER ICE to share intelligence about the war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The documents indicate that the Seniors Europe hold an annual conference, each time in a different location. In 2013, for instance, the group gathered in Sweden; in 2011, it met in the U.K; in 2010, in Germany; and in 2009, in Canada. In 2013, the NSA expressed an interest in creating a permanent facility that would host representatives from the Seniors Europe in a joint collaborative space. The NSA discussed the idea with its U.K. counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The British were \u201call in\u201d on the proposal, according to the NSA. However, from some unnamed members of the SIGINT Seniors, there was \u201cpersistent pushback\u201d on the plan.<\/p>\n

The NSA thought the facility<\/a> would be best hosted in the U.K., as this would \u201cbe optimal in terms of having the most flexibility in tuning the operation to benefit the Five Eyes.\u201d The agency also suggested the idea of France potentially hosting the unit, but outlined its reservations about setting up the spy hub in continental Europe. \u201cSome European nations may be leery about hosting a facility in their nation,\u201d the NSA noted, partly due to \u201cassociated concerns for European human rights laws.\u201d (Both NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, declined to answer questions for this story. GCHQ issued a statement asserting that it adheres to \u201ca strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The Pacific division of the SIGINT Seniors is younger than the European branch. The NSA formed it in 2005, with the aim of \u201cestablishing a collaborative effort to fight terrorism in the Asia-Pacific region.\u201d In March 2007, the NSA said that it was<\/a> in the process of \u201craising ideas for expanding [SIGINT Seniors Pacific\u2019s] intelligence focus beyond counterterrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NSA was passing the Indians selected top-secret material, and India began leaking some of the intelligence.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The founder members of the Pacific alliance were the spy agencies from the Five Eyes, as well as South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand. By 2013, France and India had joined the Pacific group. The NSA was particularly keen<\/a> on having India on board as part of a broader U.S. government effort to improve relations with the country, and \u201cfelt strongly that India\u2019s participation in multilateral intelligence sharing would help mature its Indian SIGINT agencies as well as provide regional [counterterrorism] expertise.\u201d In March 2008, then-NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander led a delegation of officials \u2013 including representatives from Singapore and New Zealand \u2013 to New Delhi, where he asked India\u2019s spy agencies if they would like to join forces. Three months later, the Indians accepted.<\/p>\n

The Pacific group used a system called CRUSHED ICE to share information. According to an NSA document dated from November 2007<\/a>, CRUSHED ICE is a secure network that enables sharing of secret intelligence, collected from intercepted communications, about counterterrorism. \u201cThe system allows for collaboration by way of voice, binary-file\/email exchanges, analysis and reporting, graphics and mapping, communities of interest, collection management, and other applications as needed,\u201d the November 2007 document stated.<\/p>\n

For the countries invited to participate in the SIGINT Seniors, there are obvious benefits. They can learn new surveillance techniques from the world\u2019s most powerful spy agencies and at the same time, obtain information about their own countries or regions that they otherwise may have been unable to access. But not all nations who have been invited to join the alliance have jumped on board. According to an NSA document<\/a> from March 2007, Japan refused to sign up to the Pacific group, expressing concerns that \u201cunintended disclosure of its participation would be too high a risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

A downside of SIGINT Seniors is the risk that a partner will mishandle sensitive information. This happened on at least one occasion with India. By the time terrorists had struck Mumbai in a series of attacks in November 2008, the country had been admitted to the Pacific group. The NSA was passing the Indians selected top-secret material, such as interrogation reports and recordings of intercepted phone calls. In the weeks following the Mumbai incident, India began leaking some of the intelligence \u2014 \u201cat times it seemed a daily occurrence,\u201d the NSA\u2019s country desk officer complained<\/a>. The NSA limited the provisioning of top-secret information to India after repeated warnings and meetings left it dissatisfied. Still, the NSA, which had deployed analysts to India, remained hopeful Indian intelligence agencies would \u201cmature \u2026 into the partners NSA needs in South Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SIGINT Seniors likely remains active today and has probably grown its capabilities in recent years. According to the 2013 \u201cblack budget\u201d \u2013 a portion of the U.S. federal budget dedicated to secret intelligence-gathering work \u2013 the NSA was that year working to bolster both the European and Pacific branches of the SIGINT Seniors, and planned to \u201cexpand the level of cooperation on [counterterrorism] and explore other potential areas of collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Documents published with this article:<\/em><\/p>\n