Onyx (interception system)

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Antennas near Leuk.
Antennas near Leuk.

Onyx is a Swiss intelligence gathering system maintained by the Swiss Army. The costs of the system are not public, but the amount of 100 million Swiss francs has been mentioned several times[1], in particular in 2000 by Werner Marti, SP deputy to the National Council of Switzerland. In march 2005, journalist Urs Paul Engeler estimated that the costs (hidden in various military construction budgets) reached 400 million CHF [2].

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. Two new antennas were installed in Leuk in 2006, for a total of four antennas at this site.[3] Active sites include Zimmerwald (Canton of Berne), Heimenschwand (part of the municipality of Buchholterberg, Canton of Bern) and Leuk (Canton of Valais).

Report (in French) regarding an Egyptian fax intercepted on 10 November 2005 by Onyx, as published in the Swiss press
Report (in French) regarding an Egyptian fax intercepted on 10 November 2005 by Onyx, as published in the Swiss press

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.[4] The Swiss Federal Council has indicated that Onyx is not linked to other foreign systems such as ECHELON; according to the Council, the confusion and rumours about this issue are due to the sale by Swisscom to Verestar (now SES Americom) of the ground satellite communication station of Leuk (next to the Onyx site) in 2000.[5]

On 8 January 2006, the Swiss newspaper Sonntagsblick (Sunday edition of the Blick newspaper) published a secret report produced by the Swiss government using data intercepted by Onyx.[6] 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 run by the CIA in Eastern Europe.[7] The Swiss government did not officially confirm the existence of the report, but started a judiciary procedure for leakage of secret documents against the newspaper on 9 January 2006.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Valérie de Graffenried, Onyx et ses «grandes oreilles». Le Temps, 9 January 2006 (French)
  2. ^ Urs Paul Engeler, Was sagen Sie jetzt?. Weltwoche 10/05, March 2005 (German)
  3. ^ Swiss Federal Department of Defense, Deux nouvelles antennes sur le site du DDPS de Loèche. 24 October 2005 Press release (French)
  4. ^ Système d'interception des communications par satellite du Départment fédéral de la défense, de la protection de la population et des sports (projet "Onyx"). Report from the National Council (Parliament) on Onyx, 10 November 2003 (French)
  5. ^ Espionnage économique sur le territoire suisse au profit des Etats-Unis Answer by the Swiss Federal Council to a question of Alexander Baumann, member of the National Council. 20 August 2003 (French)
  6. ^ SonntagsBlick, CIA-Skandal US-Folter-Camps: Der Beweis! (German) Accessed on 9 January 2006.
  7. ^ Swissinfo, Swiss may have known about secret CIA prisons. Accessed on 9 January 2006 (English)

[edit] External links

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