Swiss "Echelon" catches sniff of secret prisons: It;'s getting worse

[StClone]

On Crooks and Liars

Mike's Blog Round Up

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

Who knew that Switzerland - home of chocolate, clocks and singing nuns - had it's own version of the Echelon eavesdropping system? Well, it seems they do, it is called Onyx and it has caught up some very interesting stuff from the aether.

For instance about two months ago, according to the Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick, it intercepted a fax transmission from Cairo to the Egyptian embassy in London concerning the much-denied CIA secret prisons in Europe:

The message was picked up by the secret service's Onyx satellite listening system on November 10, just three days after the Council of Europe launched its investigation into allegations that the CIA was running secret interrogation centres in Europe...

http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2006/01/swiss-echelon-catches-sniff-of-cia.html

[mom cat]

1. This is huge...rate it up.

[The Straight Story]

2. See this as well: Security leak could damage Swiss image

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=6370472&cKey=1136901609000

[Sydnie]

3. Amazing! Rec'd too!

...The Egyptian fax stated that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens had been transferred to a Romanian military base near the port of Constanza for interrogation purposes. It added that similar detention centres had been set up in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

[Richard Steele]

4. Kosovo, what a surprise. (Not!) Related thread about Kosovo today:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2033720

Basically, NATO is denying human rights groups access to ONE prison in Kosovo,
while claiming it's been empty for 2 years.
Flunks the smell test, IMHO.

Original article here: http://www.serbianna.com/news/2006/01030.html

[Clara T]

5. MENWITH HILL

THE MENWITH HILL SITE
 
It's the most secret US base in Britain
It's unaccountable, unlawful and undemocratic
It's integral to US plans to fight in and through space
It's the world's largest spy base and it's getting bigger



The Menwith Hill spy base near Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England, is the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. Run by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States, it is one of a global network of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) bases, which monitors the world's communications and relays information to NSA HQ at Fort Meade in Maryland, USA.

The NSA was set up by Presidential decree in 1952 without any debate in the US Congress. Until a few years ago, the existence of the NSA was a secret and its charter and any mention of its duties are still classified.

The American people know very little about it - and they know even less about Menwith Hill.

Find out more about Menwith Hill, the campaign to close it and news of recent developments here, at the Menwith Hill site.

http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/mhs/

[EuroObserver]

6. Nice photo, thanks.

It appears to be not allowed to discuss this subject too much in the UK.

And, as for the usually very solid, stable, law-abiding and exstremely democratic Swiss, what can I say? (see (french) refs, here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2034369 )