ＣＩＡと独情報機関、別のスイス暗号機器メーカーもスパイ活動に利用か

【ジュネーブＡＦＰ＝時事】スイスの暗号機器メーカーを米中央情報局（CIA）とドイツの情報機関が秘密裏に所有して各国政府の極秘通信内容を収集していたとされる問題で、別のスイス企業も米独のスパイ活動に利用されていたとする調査報道番組が放送され、スイス政界を揺るがしている。（写真は資料写真）
　スイスでは今年２月、暗号機器メーカーのクリプトを米独情報機関が共謀して利用し、長年にわたって改変した暗号機器を各国政府に販売して極秘通信の内容を抜き取っていたことが明らかになっており、２社目の疑惑浮上に議員らは怒りをあらわにしている。
　新たな疑惑は２５日、スイス公共放送のドイツ語局ＳＲＦが報じた。調査報道番組「ルントシャウ」によれば、クリプトより小規模な暗号機器メーカー、オムニセックも同様に利用され、改変した暗号機器を外国政府や軍に販売していたという。
　オムニセックは、暗号機器を製造していたスイスのグレタグから１９８７年に分離した企業で、２年前に操業を停止するまで音声やファクス、データの暗号化装置を世界各国の政府機関に販売していた。
　社会民主党のセドリック・ウェルムート共同代表は２６日夜、「中立国をうたうスイスで、なぜこのようなことが起き得るのか」とＳＲＦに疑問を呈し、議会による調査を求めた。
　自由民主党のハンスペーター・ポルトマン議員も、「スイス国内でもスパイ活動が行われているかもしれない。そういう疑念を生じさせる疑惑だ」とＳＲＦに述べ、懸念を表明した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/12/01-07:58）

Swiss politicians have voiced outrage and demanded an investigation after revelations that a second Swiss encryption company was allegedly used by the CIA and its German counterpart to spy on governments worldwide.
How can such a thing happen in a country that claims to be neutral like Switzerland? co-head of Switzerland's Socialist Party, Cedric Wermuth, asked in an interview with Swiss public broadcaster SRF late Thursday.
He called for a parliamentary inquiry after an SRF investigation broadcast on Wednesday found that a second Swiss encryption firm had been part of a spectacular espionage scheme orchestrated by US and German intelligence services.
A first investigation had revealed back in February an elaborate, decades-long set-up, in which the CIA and its German counterpart creamed off the top-secret communications of governments through their hidden control of a Swiss encryption company called Crypto.
SRF's report this week found that a second but smaller Swiss encryption firm, Omnisec, had been used in the same way.
That company, which was split off from Swiss cryptographic equipment maker Gretag in 1987, sold voice, fax and data encryption equipment to governments around the world until it halted operations two years ago.
SRF's investigative programme Rundschau concluded that, like Crypto, Omnisec had sold manipulated equipment to foreign governments and armies.
Omnisec meanwhile also sold its faulty OC-500 series devices to several federal agencies in Switzerland, including its own intelligence agencies, as well as to Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, and other private companies in the country, the SRF investigation showed.
- Espionage within Switzerland? -
The findings unleashed fresh outrage in Switzerland, which is still reeling from the Crypto revelations.
This shows that the problem is broader than just one company and we still have no answers on the political responsibility aspect, Wermuth said.
Hans-Peter Portman, a parliamentarian with the Liberal Party, agreed, saying he was particularly concerned to learn Swiss businesses are likely implicated and possibly affected.
This raises the question of espionage even within the country, he told SRF.
An investigation by the Swiss parliament's Control Delegation into the Crypto case concluded earlier this month that Switzerland's own intelligence service had benefitted from the information gathered by its foreign counterparts through the encryption firm.
According to the revelations in February by SRF, the Washington Post and German broadcaster ZDF, Crypto served for decades as a Trojan horse to spy on governments worldwide.
The company supplied devices for encoded communications to some 120 countries from after World War II to the beginning of this century, including to Iran, South American governments, India and Pakistan.
Unknown to those governments, Crypto was secretly acquired in 1970 by the US Central Intelligence Agency together with the then West Germany's BND Federal Intelligence Service.
Together they rigged Crypto's equipment to be able to easily break the codes and read the government customers' messages.
Citing a classified internal CIA history of what was originally called operation Thesaurus and later Rubicon, the reports said that in the 1980s the harvest from the Crypto machines supplied roughly 40 percent of all the foreign communications US code-breakers processed for intelligence.