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Onyx (interception system)
Encyclopedia
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
intelligence gathering system maintained by the Swiss Army. The costs of the system are not public, but the amount of 100 million Swiss franc
Swiss franc
The franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein; it is also legal tender in the Italian exclave Campione d'Italia. Although not formally legal tender in the German exclave Büsingen , it is in wide daily use there...
s has been mentioned several times, in particular in 2000 by Werner Marti, SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....
deputy to the National Council of Switzerland
National Council of Switzerland
The National Council of Switzerland is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland. With 200 seats, it is the larger of the two houses....
. In March 2005, journalist Urs Paul Engeler estimated that the costs (hidden in various military construction budgets) reached 400 million CHF . The Onyx system was launched in 2000, originally under the name SATOS-3 (the SATOS 1 and 2 systems were started in 1992, in particular to intercept faxes), and was completed in late 2005.
Purpose
The goal of the system is to monitor both civil and military communications, such as telephone, fax or Internet traffic, carried by satellite. Onyx uses lists of keywords to filter the intercepted content for information of interest, and the choice of keywords by the intelligence community must be approved by an independent commission. The system is not supposed to monitor internal communications; however, the monitoring of a communication between a person in Switzerland and someone in another country is allowed. The Swiss Federal CouncilSwiss Federal Council
The Federal Council is the seven-member executive council which constitutes the federal government of Switzerland and serves as the Swiss collective head of state....
has indicated that Onyx is not linked to other foreign systems such as ECHELON
ECHELON
ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement...
; according to the Council, the confusion and rumours about this issue are due to the sale by Swisscom
Swisscom
Swisscom AG is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Along with Swiss Post, it is a successor company to the former state-owned PTT. Its headquarters are located at Worblaufen near Bern...
to Verestar (now SES Americom
SES Americom
SES Americom was a major commercial satellite operator based in the United States. Formerly RCA Americom and GE Americom, the company became one of the principal parts of SES S.A.....
) of the ground satellite communication station of Leuk
Leuk
Leuk is a municipality in the district of Leuk in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.Since it controls access to the Gemmi Pass, it had some importance from the time of Roman Raetia. The Leukerbad thermal baths are just North of Leuk, towards the pass...
(next to the Onyx site) in 2000. The use of the system is controlled by an independent control authority composed of members of the federal administration.
Active sites
Active sites include the following:- ZimmerwaldZimmerwaldZimmerwald was until 31 December 2003 an independent municipality in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. It is located on a hill in the proximity of the city of Bern in the Bernese Mittelland...
(Canton of BerneCanton of BerneThe Canton of Bern is the second largest of the 26 Swiss cantons by both surface area and population. Located in west-central Switzerland, it borders the Canton of Jura and the Canton of Solothurn to the north. To the west lie the Canton of Neuchâtel, the Canton of Fribourg and Vaud. To the south...
) 46°53′12.46"N 7°28′41.41"E - Heimenschwand (part of the municipality of BuchholterbergBuchholterbergBuchholterberg is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.-Geography:Buchholterberg has an area, , of . Of this area, or 57.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 34.9% is forested...
, Canton of Berne) 46°49′52.81"N 7°42′57.99"E: 3 antennas. - LeukLeukLeuk is a municipality in the district of Leuk in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.Since it controls access to the Gemmi Pass, it had some importance from the time of Roman Raetia. The Leukerbad thermal baths are just North of Leuk, towards the pass...
(Canton of Valais) 46°19′05"N 7°38′43"E: 4 antennas.
Intercepted black sites fax
On 8 January 2006, the Swiss newspaper Sonntagsblick (Sunday edition of the BlickBlick
Blick is a German-language daily tabloid newspaper published in Zürich, Switzerland since 1959 by Ringier.It has a circulation of 275,000 and a readership of 750,000 . Only the free daily 20 Minuten has a higher circulation in Switzerland....
newspaper) published a secret report produced by the Swiss government using data intercepted by Onyx. The report described a fax sent by the Egyptian department of Foreign Affairs to the Egyptian Embassy in London, and described the existence of secret detention facilities
Black site
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black project is conducted. Recently, the term has gained notoriety in describing secret prisons operated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , generally outside of U.S. territory and legal jurisdiction. It...
("black sites") run by the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. The Swiss government did not officially confirm the existence of the report, but started a military judiciary procedure for leakage of secret documents against the newspaper on 9 January 2006. While the authenticity of the fax was implicitly confirmed during the trial, the reporter and newspaper were cleared of all charges on 17 April 2007.
External links
- Swiss Federal Council. Système d’interception des communications par satellite du Département fédéral de la défense, de la protection de la population et des sports (projet «Onyx») — Rapport de la Délégation des Commissions de gestion des Chambres fédérales du 10 novembre 2003 — Avis du Conseil fédéral 24 March 2004 .
- Photos of the Zimmerwald site on Cryptome
- Other photos of the Heimenschwand and Zimmerwald sites
- Photos of the Leuk site