Five Eyes

Last updated

Five Eyes
UKUSA Map.svg
Members shown in blue
Working language English
Type Intelligence alliance
Members
Establishment
August 14, 1941;83 years ago (1941-08-14)
May 17, 1943;81 years ago (1943-05-17)
NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland, United States National Security Agency headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland.jpg
NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland, United States
ASIO central office, Canberra, Australia Ben Chifley Building viewed from Mount Ainslie June 2014.jpg
ASIO central office, Canberra, Australia
GCHQ, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom GCHQ-aerial.jpg
GCHQ, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
CSE Headquarters, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada CSEC.jpg
CSE Headquarters, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
NZSIS Headquarters, Wellington, New Zealand New Zealand Security Intelligence Service.jpg
NZSIS Headquarters, Wellington, New Zealand

The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. [1] These countries are party to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. [2] [3] [4] Informally, "Five Eyes" can refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries. The term "Five Eyes" originated as shorthand for a "AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US Eyes Only" (AUSCANNZUKUS) releasability caveat. [5]

Contents

The origins of the FVEY can be traced to informal, secret meetings during World War II between British and American code-breakers that took place before the US formally entered the war. [6] The alliance was formalized in the post-war era by the UKUSA Agreement in 1946. As the Cold War deepened, the intelligence sharing arrangement was formalised under the ECHELON surveillance system in the 1960s. [7] This system was developed by the FVEY to monitor the communications of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc; it is now used to monitor communications worldwide. [8] [9] The FVEY expanded its surveillance capabilities during the course of the "war on terror", with much emphasis placed on monitoring the Internet. The alliance has grown into a robust global surveillance mechanism, adapting to new domains such as international terrorism, cyberattacks, and contemporary regional conflicts.

The alliance's activities, often shrouded in secrecy, have occasionally come under scrutiny for their implications on privacy and civil liberties, sparking debates and legal challenges. In the late 1990s, the existence of ECHELON was disclosed to the public, triggering a debate in the European Parliament and, to a lesser extent, the United States Congress and British Parliament. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden described the Five Eyes as a "supra-national intelligence organisation that does not answer to the known laws of its own countries". [10] 2010s global surveillance disclosures revealed FVEY was spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other, although the FVEY nations maintain this was done legally. [11] [12]

Five Eyes is among the most comprehensive espionage alliances. [13] Since processed intelligence is gathered from multiple sources, the information shared is not restricted to signals intelligence (SIGINT) and often involves military intelligence (MILINT), human intelligence (HUMINT), and geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). Five Eyes remains a key element in the intelligence and security landscape of each member country, providing them a strategic advantage in understanding and responding to global events.

Organisations

The following table provides an overview of most of the FVEY agencies that share data. [2]

Main agencies sharing data as part of Five Eyes alliance, by country
CountryAgencyAbbreviationRole [2]
Australia Australian Secret Intelligence Service ASISHuman intelligence
Australian Signals Directorate ASDSignal intelligence
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation ASIOSecurity intelligence
Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation AGOGeo intelligence
Defence Intelligence Organisation DIODefence intelligence
Canada Canadian Forces Intelligence Command CFINTCOMDefence intelligence, geo intelligence, human intelligence
Communications Security Establishment CSESignal intelligence
Canadian Security Intelligence Service CSISHuman intelligence, security intelligence
Royal Canadian Mounted Police RCMPSecurity intelligence
New Zealand Directorate of Defence Intelligence and Security DDISDefence intelligence
Government Communications Security Bureau GCSBSignal intelligence
New Zealand Security Intelligence Service NZSISHuman intelligence, security intelligence
United Kingdom Defence Intelligence DIDefence intelligence
Government Communications Headquarters GCHQSignal intelligence
Security Service MI5Security intelligence
Secret Intelligence Service MI6, SISHuman intelligence
United States Central Intelligence Agency CIAHuman intelligence
Defense Intelligence Agency DIADefense intelligence
Federal Bureau of Investigation FBISecurity intelligence
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency NGAGeo intelligence
National Security Agency NSASignal intelligence

History

Origins (1941–1950s)

The cover page of the first version of the secret UKUSA Agreement in 1946, which was disclosed to the public in 2011 UKUSA1.jpg
The cover page of the first version of the secret UKUSA Agreement in 1946, which was disclosed to the public in 2011

The informal origins of the Five Eyes alliance were secret meetings between British and US code-breakers at the British code-breaking establishment Bletchley Park in February 1941, before the US entry into the war. [14] The first record of these meetings is a February 1941 diary entry from Alastair Denniston, head of Bletchley Park, reading "The Ys are coming!" with "Ys" referring to "Yanks". An entry from 10 February reads "Ys arrive". British and US intelligence shared extremely confidential information, including that the British had broken the German Enigma code and that the US had broken the Japanese Purple code. For the rest of the war, key figures like Denniston and code-breaking expert Alan Turing travelled back and forth across the Atlantic. The informal relationship established for wartime signals intelligence developed into a formal, signed agreement at the start of the Cold War. [15]

The formal Five Eyes alliance can be traced back to the August 1941 Atlantic Charter, which laid out Allied goals for the post-war world. On 17 May 1943, the UK and US governments signed the British–US Communication Intelligence Agreement, also known as the BRUSA Agreement, to facilitate co-operation between the US War Department and the British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). On 5 March 1946, the two governments formalized their secret treaty as the UKUSA Agreement, the basis for all signal intelligence cooperation between the NSA and GCHQ up to the present. [16] [17]

UKUSA was extended to include Canada in 1948, followed by Norway in 1952, Denmark in 1954, West Germany in 1955, and Australia and New Zealand in 1956. [17] These countries participated in the alliance as "third parties". By 1955, a newer version of the UKUSA Agreement officially acknowledged the formal status of the remaining Five Eyes countries with the following statement:

At this time only Canada, Australia and New Zealand will be regarded as UKUSA-collaborating Commonwealth countries. [17]

Cold War

During the Cold War, GCHQ and the NSA shared intelligence on the Soviet Union, China, and several eastern European countries known as "Exotics". [18] Over the course of several decades, the ECHELON surveillance network was developed to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies. [19]

In 1953, SIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. [20] [21] [22] [23]

From 1955 through 1975 during the Vietnam War, Australian and New Zealander operators in the Asia-Pacific region worked to directly support the United States while GCHQ operators stationed in British Hong Kong as part of GCHQ Hong Kong were tasked with monitoring North Vietnamese air defence networks. [24] [25]

In 1961, SIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the assassination of the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, an operation authorized by out-going US President Dwight D. Eisenhower the year before in 1960. [26] [27] [28]

In 1973, the ASIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the overthrow of Chile's President Salvador Allende. [29] [30] [31] [32]

Over a period of at least five years in the 1970s, a senior officer named Ian George Peacock, who was in the counterespionage unit of Australia's ASIO, stole highly classified intelligence documents that had been shared with Australia and sold them to the Soviet Union. Peacock held the title of supervisor-E (espionage) and had top-secret security clearance. He retired from the ASIO in 1983 and died in 2006. [33]

During the Falklands War in 1982, the United Kingdom received intelligence data from its FVEY allies as well as from third parties like Norway and France. [34] [35] [36]

In 1989, during the Tiananmen Square protests, SIS and the CIA took part in Operation Yellowbird to exfiltrate dissidents from China. [37]

In the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, an ASIS technician bugged Kuwaiti government offices for SIS. [35]

ECHELON network disclosures (1972–2000)

By the end of the 20th century, the FVEY members had developed the ECHELON surveillance network into a global system capable of collecting massive amounts of private and commercial communications including telephone calls, fax, email, and other data traffic. The network's information comes from intercepted communication bearers such as satellite transmissions and public switched telephone networks. [38]

Two of the FVEY information collection mechanisms are the PRISM program and the Upstream collection system. The PRISM program gathers user information from technology firms such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft; while the Upstream system gathers information directly from civilian communications as they travel through infrastructure like fiber cables. [39] The program was first disclosed to the public in 1972 when a former NSA communications analyst reported to Ramparts magazine that the Agency had developed technology that "could crack all Soviet codes". [40]

In a 1988 piece in the New Statesman called "Somebody's listening", Duncan Campbell revealed the existence of ECHELON, an extension of the UKUSA Agreement on global signals intelligence. The story detailed how eavesdropping operations were not only being employed in the interests of 'national security,' but were regularly abused for corporate espionage in the service of US business interests. [41] The piece passed largely unnoticed outside of journalism circles. [42]

In 1996, New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager provided a detailed description of ECHELON in a book titled Secret Power – New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network . The European Parliament cited the book in a 1998 report titled "An Appraisal of the Technology of Political Control" (PE 168.184). [43] On 16 March 2000, the Parliament called for a resolution on the Five Eyes and its ECHELON surveillance network which would have called for the "complete dismantling of ECHELON". [44]

Three months later, the European Parliament established the Temporary Committee on ECHELON to investigate the ECHELON surveillance network. However, according to a number of European politicians such as Esko Seppänen of Finland, the European Commission hindered these investigations . [45]

In the United States, congressional legislators warned that the ECHELON system could be used to monitor US citizens. [46] On 14 May 2001, the US government cancelled all meetings with the Temporary Committee on ECHELON. [47] According to a BBC report from May 2001, "The US Government still refuses to admit that Echelon even exists." [19]

War on Terror (since 2001)

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Five Eyes members greatly increased their surveillance capabilities as part of the global war on terror.

During the run-up to the Iraq War, the communications of UN weapons inspector Hans Blix were monitored by the Five Eyes. [48] [49] Around the same time, British agents bugged the office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. [50] [51] An NSA memo detailed Five Eyes plans to increase surveillance on the UN delegations of six countries as part of a "dirty tricks" campaign to pressure these six countries to vote in favour of using force against Iraq. [50] [52] [53]

SIS and the CIA forged a surveillance partnership with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi to spy on Libyan dissidents in the West in exchange for permission to use Libya as a base for extraordinary renditions. [54] [55] [56] [57] [58]

As of 2010, Five Eyes-affiliated agencies also have access to SIPRNet, the US government's classified version of the Internet. [59]

In 2013, documents leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the existence of numerous surveillance programs jointly operated by the Five Eyes. The following list includes several notable examples reported in the media:

In March 2014, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Australia to stop spying on East Timor. This marks the first such restrictions imposed on a member of the FVEY. [67]

Competition with China (since 2018)

On 1 December 2018, Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive, at Vancouver International Airport to face charges of fraud and conspiracy in the United States. [68] China responded by arresting two Canadian nationals. According to the South China Morning Post , analysts saw this conflict as the beginning of a direct clash between China's government and governments of the Five Eyes alliance. [69] In the months that followed, the United States restricted technology exchanges with China. [70] The newspaper reported that these events were seen by Beijing as a "fight ... waged with the world’s oldest intelligence alliance, the Five Eyes." [71]

Starting in 2019, Australian parliamentarians as well as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo prompted the United Kingdom not to use Huawei technology in its 5G network. [72] In 2021, the UK Government announced it no longer planned to use Huawei's 5G technology. [73]

In November 2020, the Five Eyes alliance criticised China's rules disqualifying elected legislators in Hong Kong. [74]

In mid-April 2021, the New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta issued a statement that New Zealand would not let the Five Eyes alliance dictate its bilateral relationship with China and that New Zealand was uncomfortable with expanding the remit of the intelligence grouping. In response, the Australian Government expressed concern that Wellington was undermining collective efforts to combat what it regarded as Chinese aggression. [75] [76] New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern echoed Mahuta's remarks and claimed that while New Zealand was still committed to the Five Eyes alliance, it would not use the network as its first point of communication for non-security matters. While The Telegraph 's defence editor Con Coughlin and British Conservative Member of Parliament Bob Seely criticised New Zealand for undermining the Five Eyes' efforts to present a united front against Beijing, the Chinese Global Times praised New Zealand for putting its own national interests over the Five Eyes. [77] [78] [79] Following the 2023 New Zealand general election, the new New Zealand Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters promised closer cooperation with Five Eyes partners. [80]

In late April 2021, the Global Times reported that China's Ministry of State Security will monitor employees of companies and organisations considered to be at risk of foreign infiltration while they travel to the Five Eyes countries. These employees will be required to report their travel destinations, agendas, and meetings with foreign personnel to Chinese authorities. Other security measures include undergoing "pre-departure spying education", and using different electronic devices while at home and while abroad. [81] [82]

In mid-December 2021, the United States Secretary of State; the Foreign Ministers of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand; and the UK Foreign Secretary issued a joint statement criticising the exclusion of opposition candidates by Hong Kong national security law and urging China to respect human rights and freedoms in Hong Kong in accordance with the Sino-British Joint Declaration. [83] [84] In response, the Chinese Government claimed the Hong Kong elections were fair and criticised the Five Eyes for interfering in Hong Kong's domestic affairs. [85] [86]

2023 meeting

The Five Eyes leaders held their first known public meeting [87] at Stanford University's Hoover Institution [88] in California in the US. They had been meeting privately nearby in Palo Alto. Present were:

They made public statements on topics such as the death in Canada of Hardeep Singh Nijjar [88] and Chinese state-backed hackers. [87]

Domestic espionage sharing controversy

The Five Eyes alliance is sort of an artifact of the post World War II era where the Anglophone countries are the major powers banded together to sort of co-operate and share the costs of intelligence gathering infrastructure. ... The result of this was over decades and decades some sort of a supra-national intelligence organisation that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries.

—Edward Snowden [10]

One of the Five Eyes' core principles is that members do not spy on other governments in the alliance. US Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis C. Blair said in 2013, "We do not spy on each other. We just ask." [90]

However, in recent years, FVEY documents have shown that member agencies are intentionally spying on one another's private citizens and sharing the collected information with each other. [11] [91] Shami Chakrabarti, director of the advocacy group Liberty, claimed that the FVEY alliance increases the ability of member states to "subcontract their dirty work" to each other. [92] FVEY countries maintain that all intelligence sharing is done legally, according to the domestic law of the respective nations. [93] [12] [94]

As a result of Snowden's disclosures, the FVEY alliance has become the subject of a growing amount of controversy in parts of the world:

Other international cooperatives

Beginning with its founding by the United States and United Kingdom in 1946, the alliance expanded twice, inducting Canada in 1948 and Australia and New Zealand in 1956, establishing the Five Eyes as it is today. Additionally, there are nations termed "Third Party Partners" that share their intelligence with the Five Eyes despite not being formal members. While the Five Eyes is rooted in a particular agreement with specific operations among the five nations, similar sharing agreements have been set up independently and for specific purposes; for example, according to Edward Snowden, the NSA has a "massive body" called the Foreign Affairs Directorate dedicated to partnering with foreign countries beyond the alliance. [102] [103] [104]

Six Eyes (proposed)

Several countries have been prospective members of the Five Eyes. Israel, [105] Singapore, South Korea, [106] and Japan have collaborated or continue to collaborate with the alliance, though none are formally members. [107] According to French news magazine L'Obs , in 2009, the United States propositioned France to join the treaty and form a subsequent "Six Eyes" alliance. The French President at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, requested that France have the same status as the other members, including the signing of a "no-spy agreement". This proposal was approved by the director of the NSA, but rejected by the director of the CIA and by President Barack Obama, resulting in a refusal from France. [108]

New York magazine reported in 2013 that Germany was interested in joining the Five Eyes alliance. [109] [110] At the time, several members of the United States Congress, including Tim Ryan and Charles Dent, were pushing for Germany's entry to the Five Eyes alliance. [111]

Five Eyes Plus

As of 2018 through an initiative sometimes termed "Five Eyes Plus 3", Five Eyes has agreements with France, Germany, and Japan to introduce an information-sharing framework to counter China and Russia. [112] [113] Five Eyes plus France, Japan and South Korea share information about North Korea's military activities, including ballistic missiles, in an arrangement sometimes dubbed "Five Eyes Plus". [114]

Nine Eyes

A map of the Nine Eyes countries Nine Eyes.svg
A map of the Nine Eyes countries

The Nine Eyes is a different group that consists of the Five Eyes members as well as Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Norway. [103] [104]

Fourteen Eyes

A map of the Fourteen Eyes countries Fourteen Eyes.svg
A map of the Fourteen Eyes countries

According to a document leaked by Edward Snowden, there is another working agreement among 14 nations officially known as "SIGINT Seniors Europe", or "SSEUR". [115] This "14 Eyes" group consists of the Nine Eyes members plus Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. [103] [104]

Further intelligence sharing collaborations

As Privacy International explains, there are a number of issue-specific intelligence agreements that include some or all of the above nations and numerous others, such as: [116] [117]

See also

International relations

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ECHELON</span> Signals intelligence collection and analysis network

ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, also known as the Five Eyes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GCHQ</span> British signals intelligence agency

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Signals Directorate</span> Australian signals intelligence agency

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), formerly the Defence Signals Directorate, is a statutory agency of the Government of Australia responsible for signals intelligence, providing intelligence support to Australian military operations, conducting cyberwarfare and ensuring information security. The ASD is a part of the larger Australian Intelligence Community, and its role within the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance is to monitor signals intelligence in South and East Asia. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) is an agency within the ASD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pine Gap</span> Joint United States and Australian military satellite ground station near Alice Springs, Australia

Pine Gap is a joint United States-Australian satellite communications and signals intelligence surveillance base and Australian Earth station approximately 18 km (11 mi) south-west of the town of Alice Springs. It is jointly operated by Australia and the United States, and since 1988 it has been officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG); previously, it was known as Joint Defence Space Research Facility. It plays a crucial role in supporting the intelligence activities and military operations of the US around the world. The base's role has caused much controversy in Australia leading to various protests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Government Communications Security Bureau</span> New Zealand signals intelligence agency

The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) is the public-service department of New Zealand charged with promoting New Zealand's national security by collecting and analysing information of an intelligence nature. The GCSB is considered to be New Zealand's most powerful intelligence agency, and has been alleged to have conducted more espionage and data collection than the country's primary intelligence agency, the less funded NZSIS. This has at times proven controversial, although the GCSB does not have the baggage of criticism attached to it for a perceived failure to be effective like the NZSIS does. The GCSB is considered an equivalent of GCHQ in the United Kingdom or the NSA in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UKUSA Agreement</span> Multilateral signals intelligence treaty signed in 1946

The United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement is a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The alliance of intelligence operations is also known as the Five Eyes. In classification markings this is abbreviated as FVEY, with the individual countries being abbreviated as AUS, CAN, NZL, GBR, and USA, respectively.

Mastering the Internet (MTI) is a mass surveillance project led by the British communications intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) budgeted at over £1 billion. According to reports in The Register and The Sunday Times in early May 2009, contracts with a total value of £200m had already been awarded to suppliers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Snowden</span> American whistleblower and former NSA contractor (born 1983)

Edward Joseph Snowden is an American former NSA intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. He became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perry Fellwock</span>

Perry Fellwock is a former National Security Agency (NSA) analyst and whistleblower who revealed the existence of the NSA and its worldwide covert surveillance network in an interview, using the pseudonym Winslow Peck, with Ramparts in 1971. At the time that Fellwock blew the whistle on ECHELON, the NSA was a nearly unknown organization and among the most secretive of the US intelligence agencies. Fellwock revealed that it had a significantly larger budget than the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Fellwock was motivated by Daniel Ellsberg's release of the Pentagon Papers. Today, Fellwock has been acknowledged as the first NSA whistleblower.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass surveillance in the United States</span>

The practice of mass surveillance in the United States dates back to wartime monitoring and censorship of international communications from, to, or which passed through the United States. After the First and Second World Wars, mass surveillance continued throughout the Cold War period, via programs such as the Black Chamber and Project SHAMROCK. The formation and growth of federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA institutionalized surveillance used to also silence political dissent, as evidenced by COINTELPRO projects which targeted various organizations and individuals. During the Civil Rights Movement era, many individuals put under surveillance orders were first labelled as integrationists, then deemed subversive, and sometimes suspected to be supportive of the communist model of the United States' rival at the time, the Soviet Union. Other targeted individuals and groups included Native American activists, African American and Chicano liberation movement activists, and anti-war protesters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dishfire</span> Covert global surveillance collection system and database

Dishfire is a covert global surveillance collection system and database run by the United States of America's National Security Agency (NSA) and the United Kingdom's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) that collects hundreds of millions of text messages on a daily basis from around the world. A related analytic tool is known as Prefer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010s global surveillance disclosures</span> Disclosures of NSA and related global espionage

During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Origins of global surveillance</span>

The origins of global surveillance can be traced back to the late 1940s, when the UKUSA Agreement was jointly enacted by the United Kingdom and the United States, whose close cooperation eventually culminated in the creation of the global surveillance network, code-named "ECHELON", in 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global surveillance</span> Mass surveillance across national borders

Global mass surveillance can be defined as the mass surveillance of entire populations across national borders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stateroom (surveillance program)</span>

STATEROOM is the code name of a highly secretive signals intelligence collection program involving the interception of international radio, telecommunications and Internet traffic. It is operated out of the diplomatic missions of the signatories to the UKUSA Agreement and the members of the ECHELON network including Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.

The Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System was a Committee of the European Parliament that was set up in 2000 to investigate the global surveillance network ECHELON. The committee issued its final report in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)</span>

This timeline of global surveillance disclosures from 2013 to the present day is a chronological list of the global surveillance disclosures that began in 2013. The disclosures have been largely instigated by revelations from the former American National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

The United States is widely considered to have one of the most extensive and sophisticated intelligence network of any nation in the world, with organizations including the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, amongst others. It has conducted numerous espionage operations against foreign countries, including both allies and rivals. Its operations have included the use of industrial espionage, cyber espionage. and mass surveillance.

References

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