The European Union is quietly getting ready to approve legislation that will allow the police to eavesdrop both on Internet conversations and Iridium satellite telephone calls without obtaining court authorization.

The legislation is part of a much wider memorandum of understanding between the E.U., the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway, a nonmember European nation. That agreement allows authorities to conduct telecom surveillance across international borders, according to a Europol document leaked to members of the European Parliament.

If approved, the agreement would permit real-time, remote monitoring of e-mail, as well as of calls placed on satellite telephone networks such as those maintained by Iridium and Globalstar. Unlike most laws in Europe, the agreement will allow law enforcement to listen in without a court order.

Ironically, in September, the European Parliament called for accountability of Echelon, the U.S. National Security Agency's spying network that is reportedly able to intercept, record, and translate any electronic communication--telephone, data, cellular, fax, e-mail, or telex.

Under European law, representatives of each member nation can pass legally binding resolutions. Further, the resolutions don't require the approval of either the European Parliament or the individual parliaments of EU members.

• Your e-mail communications and phone calls overseas are being intercepted by a global government surveillance system.
• Your cellular phone calls to your elected government officials are being monitored by the same mysterious Echelon program controlled by the U.S. National Security Agency.
• Your international faxes are also being copied and analyzed by this 50-year-old international civilian espionage organization.

"Wow," you say. "This is scary stuff. How could our government get away with this? Whatever happened to our right of privacy?"

Most of what we know about Echelon we owe to the investigative reporting of New Zealander Nicky Hager, who spent 12 years digging into the system--work that resulted in the 1996 book Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network.

Here's how Echelon works: First, it targets all international phone company telecommunications satellites from five ground intercept stations. Second, the system targets other civilian communications satellites. And third, another group of facilities monitors international communications as they are relayed from undersea cables to microwave transmitters.

Sounds like an impossible task, doesn't it? But just think of how easy it is for your own personal computer to search the Internet for keywords. That's the same concept employed by Echelon. Each country involved in the program selects categories of intercept interest and corresponding keywords and phrases. Through this method, Echelon has the potential to intercept millions of communications.

The civil rights implications of such spying by our own government is chilling, but it's pretty much old hat. The late CIA Director William Colby testified to Congress more than 20 years ago that the NSA monitored every overseas call made from the United States.

The first annual awards defending the individual’s right to privacy have been made at a ceremony in London. The 1998 UK Big Brother Awards were held on the 50th anniversary of the writing of George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Privacy International announced winners it judged to be the modern-day equivalents of Big Brother in the novel.

Director Simon Davies said the time was now right for the awards. "Surveillance has now become an inbuilt component of every piece of information technology on the planet, we’ve got a long way to go to wind the clock back," he said.

Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, a listening station used by America’s National Security Agency and described as the biggest U.S. spy station in the world, won the special lifetime achievement award.

Just hours after privacy groups began a boycott, Intel Corp. reversed itself Monday and said it would disable a new technology that helps identify computer users as they move across the Internet, AP reported. Intel announced last week that its new Pentium III chip would by default transmit its unique serial number internally and to Web sites that requested it to help verify a user's identity.

Intel now said it will include software that turns off the feature by default in future copies of its Pentium III processors, not yet distributed to the world's computer makers. The company also promised to offer the software to owners of existing Pentium III chips already in production, making it easy to permanently turn off the technology. Intel's concession came only hours after a boycott was announced in Washington by privacy groups, who launched a campaign complete with a parody of the company's ubiquitous ``Intel Inside'' logo. Theirs features the familiar swirl but with the words, ``Big Brother Inside.''

US banks must monitor their customers and alert federal officials to "suspicious" behavior under a government plan that has drawn fire as an Orwellian intrusion into Americans' privacy. A set of proposed regulations released Monday requires banks to review every customer's "normal and expected transactions" and tip off the IRS and federal law enforcement agencies if the behavior is unusual. "It turns us into surveillance agents for the government," said John Ehrensperger, compliance director for Atlanta-based Sun Trust Bank. Ehrensperger stressed that he was not speaking on behalf of his employer. Adopting so-called "Know Your Customer" programs will stifle drug-related money laundering, the Federal Reserve Board has claimed for years.

Unless regulators change their minds, banks will be required to comply no later than 1 April 2000. The Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have published identical requirements. As written, the rules will not apply to credit unions. The banks are required to telephone law enforcement "in situations involving violations requiring immediate attention."

POLICE scientists are close to a major breakthrough that will allow CCTV cameras to "recognise" criminal activity. Using leading-edge neural and pattern recognition technologies, developed for space and defence applications, scientists are confident that it will shortly be possible to police whole areas of the country automatically and alert the authorities to criminal activity. Drawn from a range of organisations, including the police, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency and the Home Office, the work of the team is being partly funded by Brussels. Most of the research is centred on the fusing of information from several sources to present a more accurate report of what the CCTV camera has seen.