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Les vraies raisons des amitiés douteuses de certains politiques américains envers des sectes criminelles
comme la scientologie
Publié sur le journal internet : http://civilliberty.about.com/
URL de la page : http://civilliberty.about.com/library/blnews.htm
Par Jack Gee
A Paris
La France a lancé hier une enquête criminelle contre l'Angleterre et les US, déclarant que
ces pays se sont servis de leur réseau d'espionnage éléctronique mondial pour violer certains
de ses secrets industriels.
Les Américains auraient utilisé des centres d'écoute en Angleterre et dans d'autres pays pour
voler des contrats de grande importance à la France.
"Le Procureur parisien, Jean-Pierre Dintilhac, qui instruit l'affaire, a déclaré qu'il était
inhabituel de la part d'un pays de porter plainte contre un allié. Mais c'est la sécurité
nationale de la France qui est en jeu."
"Nous avons commencé à chercher les preuves que les Américains avec la complicité
de l'Angleterre ont sapé l'industrie et l'économie nationale française."
Dans une autre affaire, le Parlement Européen à Strasbourg votera aujourd'hui l'ouverture de sa propre
instruction concernant l'espionnage par les Américains. L'administration Clinton s'est vantée que
l'industrie américaine avait été très largement aidée par ce qu'elle appelle
la "défense agressive", estimant ainsi qu'elle avait gagné plus de 35 milliards de Livres
sterling (360 milliards de F).
Cette "pratique" a pris la forme de l'usage de la technologie des satellites pour intercepter les appels
téléphoniques, les e-mails et fax de concurrents outre-mer afin de mettre la main sur les dernières
informations du domaine des affaires. L'information est ensuite transmise aux hommes d'affaires américains,
ce qui les avantage dans les discussions.
Entre autres contrats que la France déclare avoir perdu en raison de l'espionnage conduit par l'état
US lors de négociations, il y avait une affaire de 1 million de £ pour le radar de l'avion de combat
européen. L'agrément est allé à la firme américaine Raytheon, au moment où
le groupe français Thompson était sur le point de signer le contrat.
La France a également perdu 3 millions de £ dans un contrat d'aviation avec l'Arabie Saoudite qui
a été remporté par McDonnell Douglas. Le Consortium Européen d'Airbus déclare
qu'il a perdu les commandes parce que les Américains avaient été tenus au courant de négotiations
secrètes avec des clients potentiels.
Mr Dintilhac a demandé aux services secrets de son propre pays, la Direction de la Sécurité
Intérieure du Territoire, de vérifier le rôle néfaste que la CIA et la NSA américaines
ont tenu dans ce réseau d'espionnage dont le nom de code est Echelon.
Le réseau a été établi dans les années 60 afin de protéger la sécurité
nationale, mais depuis la fin de la guerre froide il a servi à pirater l'information.
Ironiquement, alors que le réseau Echelon est en partie piloté par le réseau anglais, des
sociétés anglaises ont également été victimes de l'espionnage industriel et
ont vu des contrats filer chez des concurrents américains. Pour intercepter et filtrer les communications
téléphoniques, fax et e-mails, les américains se servent d'un centre de traitement des données
par satellite situé à Menwith Hill dans le nord du Yorkshire, ancienne base de la RAF. Sous le nom
de F83, le centre des "grandes oreilles" possède 1400 ingénieurs, experts en informatique
et linguistes.
Mr Dintilhac a déclaré que l'information obtenue par les satellites espions est transmise à
la CIA et la NSA, qui ont un staff de 40000 personnes et un budget annuel de l'ordre de 2,5 milliards de Livres
(26 milliards de F).
James Woosley, ancien patron de la CIA a admis récemment: "Les US ont accumulé en secret des
informations au détriment de firmes européennes."
On s'attend à ce que les membres du Parlement Anglais s'opposent à une demande d'examen de la
part des Verts sur cette opération Echelon. Si une majorité vote pour l'ouverture d'une enquête,
36 membres du Parlement seront nommés membres d'un commité spécial d'enquête. Parmi
les questions que les Verts désirent aborder, on trouve celle-ci: "L'Industrie Européenne court-elle
un risque en raison de cette interception globale de l'information?"
URL de la page : http://civilliberty.about.com/library/blnews.htm
UK spies 'stealing' French firms' deals
FROM JACK GEE
IN PARIS
FRANCE yesterday opened a criminal investigation against Britain and the US, claiming they have used a worldwide
electronic spy network to steal its industrial secrets.
The Americans allegedly have been using eavesdropping centres in Britain and other countries to snatch major business
contracts from France.
"It is unusual for one country to try to put an ally in the dock like this," said Paris public prosecutor
Jean-Pierre Dintilhac, who is leading the inquiry. "But France's security is at stake.
"We have started our probe following allegations that the Americans, abetted by the British, are
undermining French industry and the national economy."
In another development, the European Parliament in Strasbourg will vote today on setting up its own inquiry into
high-tech snooping by the Americans. The Clinton administration has boasted that US industry is being boosted by
what it calls "aggressive advocacy", estimating that it has gained to the tune of up to £35billion.
That "advocacy" takes the form of using satellite technology to intercept telephone calls, e-mails and
faxes from competitors overseas in order to get the latest business information. Information is passed on to US
bidders, giving them the advantage in deals.
Among contracts France claims to have lost to the US after state-sponsored snoopers divulged business negotiations
was a £1million radar deal for a European fighter plane. The order went to US firm Raytheon just as France's
Thomson group were about to sign on the dotted line.
France also lost a £3million aircraft contract in Saudi Arabia to McDonnell Douglas. The European Airbus
consortium claims it lost orders because the Americans had been let in on secret negotiations with potential customers.
Mr Dintilhac has called in his country's own secret service, the Directorate for National Surveillance, to look
into the damaging role of America's CIA and National Security Agency in the spy network, codenamed Echelon.
The network was set up in the Sixties to protect national security but since the end of the Cold War it has been
used for information piracy.
Ironically, while the Echelon network is part-operated by Britain's GCHQ, British firms have also fallen victim
to the corporate eavesdropping, seeing contracts go to their US business rivals. To intercept and filter telephone,
fax and e-mail messages, the Americans are using a satellite data processing centre at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire,
a former RAF base. Going under the codename F83, this "big ears" centre has 1,400 engineers, computer
experts and linguists.
Mr Dintilhac said the information obtained by the satellite spies is relayed through the CIA to the NSA, which
has a staff of 40,000 and an annual budget of £2.5billion.
James Woolsey, former head of the CIA, admitted recently: "The US has secretly compiled intelligence information
to the disadvantage of European firms."
British MEPs are expected to oppose a move today by the Greens in the European Parliament to examine the Echelon
operation.If a majority votes for an inquiry, 36 MEPs will become members of a special investigating committee.
Among the questions which the Greens want to put to an inquiry: "Is European industry at risk from global
interception of information?"
Autre façon pour le FBI d'espionner les gens. (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40541,00.html)
C'est intéressant aussi pour le rappel des lois qui gouvernent ce type de choses chez eux.
*****
FBI Hacks Alleged Mobster
by Declan McCullagh
2:00 a.m. Dec. 6, 2000 PST
WASHINGTON -- Nicodemo S. Scarfo, the son of Philadelphia's former mob boss, was almost paranoid enough.
Scarfo, who has been charged with masterminding a mob-linked loan sharking operation in New Jersey, reportedly
used the popular PGP encryption software to shield his computer's secrets from prying eyes.
But when the feds learned of Scarfo's security measures, they decided to do something that would bypass even the
best encryption software: FBI agents sneaked into Scarfo's office in Belleville, New Jersey, on May 10, 1999, and
installed a keyboard-sniffing device to record his password when he typed it in.
A seven-page court order authorized the FBI and cooperating local police to break into Scarfo's first-floor "Merchant
Services of Essex County" office as many times as necessary to deploy, maintain, and then remove "recovery
methods which will capture the necessary key-related information and encrypted files."
The case, which is awaiting trial, appears to be the first in which the U.S. government used such aggressive surveillance
techniques during an investigation, and some legal observers say the FBI's breaking-and-entering procedures go
too far.
"I don't think it's constitutional," says David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center in Washington, D.C. "This case has the potential to establish some very important precedents on this
issue."
Scarfo's prosecution comes at a time when the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system is under increasingly heavy fire
from privacy groups, and the use of data-scrambling encryption products appears to be growing. Last week, for instance,
news leaked out about Yahoo's encrypted Web-based e-mail service it introduced through a deal with Zixit, a Dallas
firm.
Scarfo has been charged with supervising "an illegal gambling business" in violation of state and federal
law and using extortionate loan shark tactics, according to a three-count indictment filed in federal court in
June 2000. He has pleaded not guilty.
"There's nothing that we can talk about or are at liberty to talk about in the case," says Michael Drewniak,
a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of New Jersey. Drewniak would not comment on the use
of encryption, saying "we do not discuss evidence."
The elder Scarfo, who once ran the Philadelphia mob that also dominated the Atlantic City gambling racket, was
imprisoned in 1991 on racketeering charges.
The spring 1999 investigation of the younger Scarfo, who is 35 years old, may be what prompted the Clinton administration
to recommend changing federal law to allow police to conduct electronic "black bag" jobs.
The idea first publicly surfaced in mid-1999, when the Justice Department proposed legislation that would let police
obtain surreptitious warrants and "postpone" notifying the person whose property they entered for 30
days.
After vocal objections from civil liberties groups, the administration backed away from the controversial bill.
In the final draft of the Cyberspace Electronic Security Act submitted to Congress, the secret-search portions
had disappeared.
In January 2000, the Clinton administration seemed to change its mind. "When criminals like drug dealers and
terrorists use encryption to conceal their communications, law enforcement must be able to respond in a manner
that will not thwart an investigation or tip off a suspect," Attorney General Janet Reno and Deputy Defense
Secretary John Hamre wrote in a seven-page letter to Congress.
That letter, however, suggested the feds didn't need a new law -- and would instead rely on "general authorities"
when asking judges to authorize black bag jobs. A related "secret search" proposal resurfaced in May
2000 in a Senate bankruptcy bill.
In the Scarfo case, the FBI in May 1999 asked for "authority to search for and seize encryption-key-related
pass phrases" from his computer as well as "install and leave behind software, firmware, and/or hardware
equipment which will monitor the inputted data entered on Nicodemo S. Scarfo's computer by recording the key related
information as they (sic) are entered."
Although the government has refused to release details, this appears to indicate the FBI was using either a hardware
device -- inserted into the keyboard or attached to the keyboard cable -- or a software program that would quietly
run in the background and record keystrokes. With the PGP private key and Scarfo's secret password, the government
could then view whatever documents or files he had encrypted and stored on his computer.
Ruling that "normal investigative procedures to decrypt the codes and keys necessary to decipher the 'factors'
encrypted computer file have been tried and have failed," U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Donald Haneke granted the
FBI's request.
EPIC's Sobel suggested that Haneke did not, under federal law, have the authority to grant such an order. "The
interesting issue is that they in those (court) documents specifically disclaim any reliance on the wiretap statute,"
Sobel says. "If they're on record saying this isn't communications -- and it isn't -- then that extraordinary
authority they have under the wiretap laws does not apply."
"If we're now talking about expanding (black bag jobs) to every case in which the government has an interest
where the subject is using a computer and encryption, the number of break-ins is going to skyrocket," Sobel
said. "Break-ins are going to become commonplace."
Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, said he believed the government could successfully argue the break-in was
constitutional. "There's nothing in the Constitution that prohibits this kind of anticipatory search,"
says Volokh. "In many respects it's no different from a wiretap."
A lawyer for Scarfo told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he would file a motion challenging the legality of the
FBI's black bag job.
"Anything he typed on that keyboard -- a letter to his lawyer, personal or medical records, legitimate business
records -- they got it all," attorney Donald Manno told the paper. Manno could not be reached for comment
on Tuesday.
Scarfo, who is out on bail, was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for a hearing before U.S. District Judge Nicholas
Politan. The purpose of the hearing was to appoint a new attorney -- Manno has represented a client who may testify
for the government against Scarfo.
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