page_title: RAF Menwith Hill
section_title: ECHELON Interception System
hierarchical_section_title: RAF Menwith Hill / ECHELON Interception System
context_page_description: Royal Air Force Menwith Hill is a Royal Air Force station near Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, which provides communications and intelligence support services to the United Kingdom and the United States. The site contains an extensive satellite ground station and is a communications intercept and missile warning site. It has been described as the largest electronic monitoring station in the world.
  RAF Menwith Hill is owned by the Ministry of Defence, but made available to the US Department of Defense under the NATO Status of Forces Agreement 1951 and other, undisclosed agreements between the US and British governments. Her Majesty's Government is entitled to possession of the site and retains control over its use and its facilities, though the administration of the base is the responsibility of the US authorities, with support provided by around 400 staff from Government Communications Headquarters, in addition to United States Air Force and US National Security Agency personnel. In 2014, the number of American personnel was reduced as part of a streamlining of operations due to improvements in technology.
context_section_description: In 1988, investigative journalist Duncan Campbell revealed, in an article entitled "Somebody's listening" and published in New Statesman, the existence of the ECHELON surveillance program, an extension of the UKUSA Agreement on global signals intelligence Sigint. He also detailed how the eavesdropping operations worked. Duncan Campbell presented a report commissioned by STOA concerning the ECHELON system, at a "hearing of the Committee on Citizens Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the subject the European Union and data protection" which prompted the European Union to set up the Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System.
  On 5 July 2000, the European Union set up the European Parliament's Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System stated that the global system for the interception of private and commercial communications was operating by means of "cooperation proportionate to their capabilities" among the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand under the UKUSA. ... It seems likely ... that its name is in fact ECHELON." The Committee raised concerns about the incompatibility of the interception of private and commercial communications with the fundamental right to respect for private life (Article 8 of the ECHR). They were also concerned that interception of commercial communications could be used for "competitive intelligence-gathering rather than combating corruption." During the early 1970s, the first of what became more than eight large satellite communications dishes were installed at Menwith Hill.
  In 1999 he wrote a report on COMINT entitled Interception Capabilities 2000 for the European Parliament.
  In 1996 author and investigative journalist, Nicky Hager in his book entitled Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network, provided a detailed account of ECHELON, the worldwide electronic surveillance system used by an intelligence alliance of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
  On 3 November 1999, the BBC reported that they had confirmation from the Australian Government of the existence of a powerful "global spying network" codenamed Echelon, that can eavesdrop on every single phone call, fax or e-mail, anywhere on the planet" with Britain and the United States as the chief protagonists. They confirmed that Menwith Hill was "linked directly to the headquarters of the US National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Meade in Maryland."
caption: Aerial view of RAF Menwith Hill.
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