Signals intelligence by alliances, nations and industries comprises signals intelligence (SIGINT) gathering activities by national and non-national entities; these entities are commonly responsible for communications security (COMSEC) as well. Many US and allied SIGINT activities are considered Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) and carry the special security marking "HANDLE THROUGH COMINT CHANNELS ONLY", which is abbreviated as the suffix CCO to the security classification. SECRET SIGINT material would be marked (S-CCO). For exceptionally sensitive TOP SECRET material, there may be an additional codeword, such as (TS-CCO-RABID).
UKUSA Agreement SIGINT and security procedures are closely coordinated under what is called the UKUSA Community, which includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States cooperating in a major SIGINT activity codenamed ECHELON. Of the UKUSA partners, NSA is the US element, Britain's is the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Canada's is the Communications Security Establishment and a few other small groups, Australia's is the Australian Signals Directorate, and New Zealand's is the Government Communications Security Bureau.
ECHELON
It is fair to say that there is something called ECHELON, and it is very large. There is no unclassified definition of what it really does, and there are conflicting unofficial reports on its capabilities and operations. Duncan Campbell is the source of much information, but many of his claims have been challenged by independent sources. It is a 2000 report, and his claims that NSA has published no details of its operations is not the case in 2007. Another extensive report is that of the European Parliament in 2001. Campbell himself refined his definitions a year later. His "strict" definition of ECHELON is that it is a satellite interception component of the partners of the UKUSA Agreement. Even among the UKUSA members, according to Campbell, there may be other satellite interception stations not called ECHELON, probably in Australia and possibly in Great Britain. It is generally accepted that ECHELON is a cooperative system, principally among the UKUSA Agreement partners, to intercept satellite, microwave, and other communications around the world, searching for information of interest to its members. The geographic distribution of the members allows much more effective worldwide coverage. This article does not replace the separate ECHELON Wikipedia article, but will complement it. Campbell cites Jeffrey Richelson as defining, in the 4th edition of The American Intelligence Establishment, an "official" list of "third party" participants in ECHELON (or perhaps the UKUSA SIGINT alliance) as Norway, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Austria, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. Campbell further indicated that US payments to Norway and Denmark were stopped in 1992, and those countries intended to do their own satellite interception. There are also conflicting reports about the relationship, if any, between ECHELON and US government warrantless monitoring wanted by the George W. Bush administration. Many reports focus on ECHELON's capability to intercept signals transmitted through free space, such as microwave and communications satellites. Given that much of the world's communications have moved to optical fiber cables, which are difficult but not impossible to intercept. Much ECHELON specification is based on clues, such as noting the geographic location of various large satellite receiving antennas, then plotting the vertical and horizontal coordinates of the parabolic "dish" of the antenna. These can be correlated with the known positions of communications satellites to project that the antenna is intended to receive the signals of a particular satellite. Other countries may be cooperating with the UKUSA countries, including Ireland and Switzerland. There are also conflicting reports about France cooperating with ECHELON, but also operating an independent capability.
Confirmation of ECHELON Two internal NSA newsletters from January 2011 and July 2012, published as part of the Snowden-revelations by the website The Intercept on August 3, 2015, for the first time confirmed that NSA used the codeword ECHELON and provided some details about the scope of the program: ECHELON was part of an umbrella program codenamed FROSTING, which was established by the NSA in 1966 to collect and process data from communications satellites. FROSTING had two sub-programs:
TRANSIENT: for intercepting of Soviet satellites ECHELON: for intercepting of Intelsat satellites A first satellite ground station for the ECHELON collection program was built in 1971 at a military firing and training center near Yakima, Washington. The facility, which was codenamed JACKKNIFE, became fully operational in May 1973 and was connected with NSA headquarters at Fort Meade by a 75-baud secure teletype orderwire channel.
NATO Communications and data exchange electronics are intended to be interoperable among NATO members, although not all countries will share sensitive data. Tactical information usually will be shared.
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