Australian Defence Signals Directorate�s (DSD) Kojarena ground station near Geraldton in Western Australia is an important link in the Echelon
Network.
The Australian government admits that DSD's satellite interception station at Kojarena in Western Australia is part of the Echelon system.
Four satellite antennae at the base intercept fax, e-mail, data and telephone calls passing through Intelsat satellites over the Indian and Pacific
Oceans. Australia, however, does not use the codename "Echelon" for its station.
About 80 per cent of the messages intercepted at Kojarena are sent on automatically to the CIA or NSA without ever being seen or read in Australia.
Among the "collection requirements" that the Kojarena Dictionary is told to look for are North Korean economic, diplomatic and military messages and
data, Japanese trade ministry plans, and Pakistani developments in nuclear weapons technology and testing. In return, Australia can ask for
information collected at other Echelon stations to be sent to Canberra.
Australia first to admit "we're part of global surveillance system"
Echelon outed by the head of Australia's Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), Martin Brady.
Australia, one of five countries running the controversial Echelon global surveillance network, has become the first to admit it.
The Australian government has confirmed that the system spies on the international communications of it own and other countries' citizens.
As part of their disclosures, Australian intelligence officials have also published details of secret government orders which restrict spying on
Australian citizens.
Besides requiring European countries to start dealing seriously with the threat of economic espionage through the Echelon system, the Australian
disclosures should force other nations to review whether the protections for their citizens' privacy matches up to the Australian standards - if they
exist at all.
In a series of letters to Australia's Channel Nine "Sunday" programme, revealed this week, the head of Australia's Defence Signals Directorate
(DSD), Martin Brady, states that DSD "does co-operate with counterpart signals intelligence organisations overseas under the UKUSA relationship".
The contents of the letters were disclosed after the Nine Network transmitted a one hour documentary on Echelon.
Under the Echelon system, millions of messages are automatically intercepted every hour, and checked according to criteria supplied by intelligence
agencies and governments in all five UKUSA countries.
The intercepted signals are passed through a computer system called the Dictionary, which checks each new message or call against thousands of
"collection" requirements. The Dictionaries then send the messages into the spy agencies' equivalent of the Internet, making them accessible all
over the world.
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