The 70-Year Spy Alliance the U.S. Says It May Cut Off
Born out of WW II, it’s world’s deepest collaboration among spy services. But U.S. has threatened to limit intelligence it gives.
(Bloomberg) -- Born out of World War II, Five Eyes is the world’s deepest and most comprehensive collaboration among spy services. The intelligence-sharing arrangement among the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand has endured for decades but faces new stresses in an era of privacy concerns and strained international alliances.
1. Why ‘Five Eyes’?
It’s shorthand for the security classification of intelligence documents shared among the group: SECRET – AUS/CAN/N.Z./U.K./U.S. EYES ONLY. The club began in 1946, when the U.S. and the U.K. agreed to institutionalize the intelligence sharing that helped them win the war; the U.K. had broken Germany’s Enigma code, giving it access to German war communications, while the U.S. had cracked Japan’s Purple cipher. Canada joined the club two years later, and Australia and New Zealand in 1956. The group is so good at keeping secrets that its existence wasn’t revealed to the public until the mid-2000s.
2. How much intelligence is shared?
It’s not clear, but a lot. Most of whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s vast 2013 dump of classified U.S. National Security Agency data, for instance, was marked “FVEY”, meaning it was available to other Five Eyes members. When the U.S. and U.K. began what became Five Eyes, they agreed to an unrestricted exchange of intelligence on the communications of foreign nations. At the time, this meant mostly intercepted radio signals and phone calls. The deal allowed the two countries to rely on each other’s listening posts around the world, without having to duplicate infrastructure, and to track nuclear-armed Soviet submarines. Open-source research suggests that the five national agencies still divide the world into zones of specialization, to maximize their resources. But with the advent of the internet, the communications monitored have expanded exponentially. Advocates say the collaboration has been critical to international security, used to positive effect in the Afghanistan war as well as in counter-terrorism operations in the Philippines and East Africa.
3. Why the concerns about privacy?
Snowden’s 2013 disclosures showed that the U.S. gathers and holds huge amounts of data on its own citizens and raised concerns that some of it was being gleaned from the Five Eyes network. In essence, critics said, Five Eyes was allowing the U.S. to circumvent restrictive domestic surveillance laws by borrowing from its allies. In response, President Barack Obama announced in January 2014 that the NSA’s surveillance programs would be overhauled, including introducing new rules about how signals intelligence collected abroad could be used. Snowden attacked Five Eyes as a supranational organization, unanswerable to democratic oversight by its respective national governments.
4. Why is the alliance being strained?
Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has threatened to limit the intelligence it supplies to allies, including its Five Eyes partners, unless they join its campaign to ban equipment from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. in new 5G mobile networks. The U.S. warned other countries that Huawei 5G equipment, chips and software, could be outfitted by Chinese intelligence agencies for spying purposes. Australia and New Zealand have taken steps to block Huawei’s access, but the U.K. decided to let Huawei play a limited role in developing its next-generation broadband networks. (Huawei can supply equipment such as antennas and base stations but not what British authorities deem to be the more sensitive core parts of 5G networks.) Huawei has always denied that any of its equipment has been compromised, and no evidence has been brought forth showing that it has. Huawei is favored by some telecommunications companies for its technological edge and low cost.
5. What does Trump say about Five Eyes?
“We have an incredible intelligence relationship, and we will be able to work out any differences,” he said last June after meeting when then-U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May. After the U.K. announced that Huawei wouldn’t be excluded from its 5G buildout, the Trump administration said it was “disappointed.” Other decades-old alliances and arrangements, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the World Trade Organization, have likewise come under pressure due to Trump’s policy of “America First.”
The Reference Shelf
- Bloomberg Businessweek on how 5G could add trillions of dollars to the global economy and why U.S. politicians fear Huawei.
- A Bloomberg QuickTake on fears of 5G espionage.
- A U.S. lawsuit unearthed new details on the origins of Five Eyes.
- An Open Canada report on Canada and the Five Eyes.
--With assistance from Marc Champion.
To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Vickers in New York at evickers4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Leah Harrison Singer at lharrison@bloomberg.net, John O'Neil, Laurence Arnold
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