The national security interests of the UK are intimately entwined in a complex web of international arrangements and agreements, binding us to the national security interests of other nations. In 1943, the British and US governments signed a pact , appropriately called the "British - United States" (BRUSA) agreement, which established procedures for the sharing of information and facilities in the intelligence efforts of the two countries.

Immediately following the Second World War, in 1947, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand signed a National Security pact known as the "Quadrapartite", or "United Kingdom - United States" (UKUSA) agreement. Its intention was to seal an Intelligence bond in which a common National Security objective was created. The five nations carved up the earth into five spheres of influence, and each country was assigned particular targets (Britain, for example, was responsible for intercepting the Chinese , through its Hong Kong listening post, while the US was given other responsibilities to cover from its listening posts in Taiwan, Japan and Korea).

The UKUSA Agreement standardised terminology, code words, intercept handling procedures, arrangements for cooperation, sharing of information, and access to facilities. It is generally understood to be the most secretive agreement in the English speaking world, and creates an intelligence dependence which British journalist Chapman Pincher described as "so great and (its) cooperation so close that I am convinced security chiefs would go to any lengths to protect the link-up".

One important component of the agreement was the exchange of data and personnel. The link means that operatives from, say, the New Zealand signals intelligence agency GCSD, could work from the Canberra facilities of Australia's Defence Signals Directorate, to intercept local communications, and pass on the contents to the Australian Intelligence agencies, without either nation having to formally approve or disclose the interception.

The strongest alliance within the UKUSA relationship is the one between the US National Security Agency (NSA), and GCHQ. The NSA, a brainchild of the Truman administration, was designed as a global infrastructure for eavesdropping on military, diplomatic and economic traffic on the world's emerging telecommunications networks. It was born in silence, with no congressional debate, no controlling authority, and no legislation. Not much has changed in the decades since. The biggest spy organisation on earth conducts its affairs in absolute secrecy.

It is widely understood that the NSA contributes several hundred million pounds each year to GCHQ In return, GCHQ provides full access to the NSA and its operatives in the UK.

In the 1950s, during the development of the "special relationship" between the US and the UK, the NSA received approval to set up a network of spy stations throughout Britain. Their role was to provide military, diplomatic and economic intelligence by intercepting communications from throughout the Northern Hemisphere. One of the bases, Menwith Hill, near Harrogate, was to become the biggest spy station in the world. Its ears - known as radomes - are capable of listening in to vast chunks of the communications spectrum throughout Europe and the old Soviet Union.

The land at Menwith Hill is owned by the British Ministry of Defence who allow the US government to use it. The US Air Force and British War Office signed an initial agreement concerning the land on 11 December 1951. The agreement provided for the land to be acquired and stipulated that the US could "remain in occupation until this agreement, unless otherwise excepted, is either terminated or modified." Construction work started in 1955, and the station became operational in 1959. Inside the closely-guarded 560 acre base are two large operations blocks and many satellite tracking dishes and domes. Initial operations focused on monitoring international cable and microwave communications passing through Britain. In the early 1960s Menwith Hill was one of the first sites in the world to receive sophisticated early IBM computers, with which NSA automated the labor-intensive watch-list scrutiny of intercepted but unenciphered telex messages. Since then, Menwith Hill has sifted the international messages, telegrams, and telephone calls of citizens, corporations or governments to select information of political, military or economic value to the United States.

Every detail of Menwith Hill's operations has been kept an absolute secret. The official cover story is that the all-civilian base is a Department of Defense communications station. The British Ministry of Defence describe Menwith Hill as a "communications relay centre." Like all good cover stories, this has a strong element of truth to it. Until 1974, Menwith Hill's Sigint specialty was evidently the interception of International Leased Carrier signals, the communications links run by civil agencies -- the Post, Telegraph and Telephone ministries of eastern and western European countries. The National Security Agency took over Menwith Hill in 1966. Interception of satellite communications began at Menwith Hill as early as 1974, when the first of more than eight large satellite communications dishes were installed.

According to James Bamford's study of the NSA 'The Puzzle Palace', the relationship between the US and UK agencies is so intimate, that they could be considered to be one organisation :

"Sharing seats alongside the NSA operators, at least in some areas, are SIGINT (signals intelligence) specialists from Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). According to the former Menwith Hill official, the two groups work very closely together. "In fact," he said, "the cooperation was so smooth that when the Brits would put down their earphones for their ten AM tea break, the Americans would simply cover their positions. "

Cooperation between the two agencies is not confined to the interception of non-english speaking countries. It is one of the worst kept secrets in Whitehall that the NSA conducts large numbers of unauthorised wiretaps on British citizens, and passes on the information to GCHQ. Such exchanges are not covered by law (GCHQ operatives also work out of the NSA's headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland, and reciprocate the activity). In 1994 the Home Secretary authorised 871 new wiretaps, yet Menwith Hill is.reported to have 40,000 active telephone lines connected to it. This tactic has been used for decades, but new data and telecommunications technology gives the potential for total surveillance of countless individuals.

The UK-US link-up has the effect of ensuring that US national security interests are instantly reflected in UK domestic policy.

This activity has been all but ignored by Parliament. When MPs such as Max Madden, Alice Mahon and the late Bob Cryer raised questions about the activities of the NSA, the response from government has been to invoke secrecy rules. It has been thus for forty years. In 1996, in a Commons question, Madden asked the Minister for Defence, Nicholas Soames, if he would arrange for Members to be given access to Menwith Hill station. Soames refused on the grounds of "disruption to the operational activities of the station and for security reasons." Only MPs with the highest security clearance are given access - and then only on government business.

In 1984, British Telecom and MoD staff completed a $25 million extension to Menwith Hill Station known as STEEPLEBUSH. The British government constructed new communications facilities and buildings for STEEPLEBUSH, worth £7.4 million. The expansion plan includes a 50,000 square foot extension to the Operations Building and new generators to provide 5 Megawatts of electrical power. The purpose of the new construction was to boost and cater for an 'expanded mission' of satellite surveillance. It also provides a new (satellite) earth terminal system to support the classified systems at the site. With another $17.2 million being spent on special monitoring equipment, this section of the Menwith Hill base alone cost almost $160 million dollars.

British journalist Duncan Campbell spent a great deal of time in the 1980s showing how the MOONPENNY series of radomes were aimed at commercial communication satellites.

Early this decade - after Campbell did most of his major investigative work - a series of identical radomes, known as the RUNWAY, was constructed running east and west across the south edge of Menwith. These are believed to be involved in downloading information from the geosynchronous SIGINT satellites known as Vortex or Magnum.

STEEPLEBUSH II, a subterranean, radiation-hardened facility, has also been installed to process information from the RUNWAY satellites. At the end of 1996, a gigantic radome known as GT-6 was constructed on the southeast end of the base and appears to be dedicated to receiving information from the geosynchronous satellites informally known as Advanced Orion or Advanced Vortex.

The construction of new radome families at Menwith Hill implies that radomes are being used in two ways to violate the civil liberties of British citizens: The geosynchronous satellites downloaded at STEEPLEBUSH II intercept commercial as well as military communications from orbit, and the Moonpenny radomes listen in from the ground on commercial traffic transmitted from space via commercial relay satellites.

The bases are not confined to spying on overseasd communications. A recent report commissioned by the European Commission - "Assessing the Technologies of Political Control" - says Menwith Hill "routinely" and "indiscriminately" monitors countless phone, fax and email messages within Britain.

The report states "Within Europe all email telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency transfering all target information from the European mainland via the strategic hub of London then by satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith Hill in the North York moors in the UK".

The report confirms for the first time the existence of a the secretive ECHELON system.

"The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system but unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the cold war, ECHELON is designed primarily for non-military targets : governments, organizations and businesses in virtually every country The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and then siphoring out what is valuable using artificial intelligence aids like MEMEX to find key words".

According to the report, the ECHELON system uses a number of national dictionaries containing key words of interest to each country. If Britain detects key words of interest to, say, Canadian or US national security, details of the communication will be forwarded to those countries.

The report recommends a variety of measures for dealing with the increasing power of the technologies of surveillance being used at Menwith Hill and other centres. It bluntly advises "The European Parliament should reject proposals from the United States for making private messages via the global communications network (internet) accessible to US intelligence agencies". The report also urges a fundamental review of the involvement of the NSA (National Security Agency) in Europe, suggesting that the activities be more open and accountable.

Such concerns have been privately expressed by governments and MEPs since the cold war, but surveillance has continued to expand. US intelligence activity in Britain has enjoyed a steady growth throughout the past two decades. The principal motivation for this rush of development is the US interest in commercial espionage, a fact acknowledged to Congress by the NSA during the presidency of George Bush.

The report caused widespread controversy throughout Europe, and resulted in a full debate in the European Parliament. On September 14 1998, the plenary session of the Parliament, convening in Strasbourg,took the unprecedented step of demanding that the Americans come clean about the activities of the NSA.