FOCUS-Thatcher linked to spy order on ministers

Updated 5:24 PM ET February 24, 2000

NEW YORK, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used a global surveillance network to spy on two cabinet ministers in 1983, former Canadian agent Mike Frost was quoted on Thursday as saying.

The two unnamed ministers were not suspected of being traitors but Thatcher felt they disagreed with her over certain policy matters, Frost said. He said they were spied on by a Canadian agent.

Frost made his allegations to the CBS-TV programme "60 Minutes," according to released excerpts.

In London, no comment was immediately available from Thatcher but Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said the government would draw the allegations to her attention.

"We will make sure Baroness Thatcher is aware of these allegations so she can judge whether they merit a response," a spokeswoman told Reuters.

Frost's allegations came in the same week that a European Parliament report said the Echelon surveillance network, a series of listening posts around the world run by the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, was used for industrial espionage.

The British government denied on Wednesday that it used Echelon for industrial spying in Europe that could help U.S. corporations win contracts ahead of European companies. Echelon was designed to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists, drug lords and other governments hostile to the five members.

"(Thatcher) had two ministers that she said, 'they weren't on side,'...so my boss went to London and did intercept traffic from those two ministers," Frost was quoted as saying in the excerpts released by "60 Minutes."

His comments are due to be broadcast on Sunday.

Frost, who said he worked for Canadian intelligence from 1972 until 1992, alleged the five countries could circumvent domestic laws against spying on citizens by asking another Echelon member to do it for them.

"The British Parliament now have total deniability," Frost said, referring to the alleged spying on the two ministers, whom he did not identify. "They didn't do anything... We did it for them."

A senior British Foreign Office official said in response to the European Parliament report that "any surveillance that there is in Britain has to be authorised in accordance with the law as does any American activity here."

Echelon was capable of intercepting phone conversations, faxes and e-mail messages around the world but sometimes the communications of ordinary, innocent civilians were also monitored, Frost told "60 Minutes."

He cited a woman whose name and telephone number went into the network's database as a possible terrorist because she had told a friend on the phone that her son had "bombed" in a school play.

"The computer spit that conversation out," Frost was quoted as saying. "The analyst ... was not too sure what the conversation was referring to, so, erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady."

-- 007 (@ .), February 24, 2000

Answers

I never knew Thatcher was a baroness. Was this title bestowed or inherited? I guess Reagan was an Earl or something.

-- canthappen (n@ysayer.com), February 24, 2000.

Speaking of traitors: NAME THIS COUNTRY: > > 709,000 regular (active duty) service personnel > > 293,000 reserve troops; > > Eight standing Army divisions; > > 20 Air Force and Navy air wings with 2,000 combat aircraft; > > 232 strategic bombers; > > 13 strategic ballistic missile submarines with 3,114 nuclear warheads on > 232 missiles; 500 ICBMs with 1,950 warheads; > > Four aircraft carriers, and 121 surface combat ships and submarines, plus > all the support bases, shipyards and logistical assets needed to sustain > such a naval force. > > Is this country Russia? . . . No > > Red China ? . . . No > > Great Britain ? . . . Wrong Again > > USA? . . . Hardly > > Give Up? > > Well, don't feel too bad if you are unable to identify this global > superpower because this country no longer exists. It has vanished. > > These are the American military forces that have disappeared since the > 1992 elections. > > Sleep well, America -

-- S BRyan G III (sbrg3@juno.com), February 25, 2000.