Frenchelon Stories Making the Rounds
July 5th, 2013The ECHELON Trigger Words Generator has used the term Frenchelon since around 2001.
Via: ZDnet:
An investigative report by French daily paper Le Monde has uncovered what it calls the “French Big Brother”: Its own local version of the PRISM-like systems in place in the US and the UK.
Le Monde’s report states that French external intelligence agency the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) has been intercepting metadata from phone calls, emails, and internet activity from domestic services, as well as between France and other countries.
The information was captured and stored in a database in servers that a total of six French intelligence agencies and Paris’ prefectural police have access to. The other agencies are the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DRM), the Directorate of Protection and Security of Defense (DPSD), the Central Directorate of Internal Security (DCRI), the Directorate of National Intelligence and Customs Investigations (DNRED), and the country’s anti-fraud division, Tracfin.
It is believed that the data is compressed and stored in a datacentre spanning three floors in DGSE’s basement. Le Monde has linked the PRISM-eque system to DGSE’s supercomputer, which its technical director Bernard Barbier has previously spoken about.
According to Le Monde, the supercomputer is able to process tens of millions of gigabytes of data, and generates enough thermal energy to heat DGSE’s buildings.
