The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are party to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. Informally, "Five Eyes" can refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries. The term "Five Eyes" originated as shorthand for a "AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US Eyes Only" (AUSCANNZUKUS) releasability caveat.
The origins of the FVEY can be traced to informal, secret meetings during World War II between British and American code-breakers that took place before the US formally entered the war. The alliance was formalized in the post-war era by the UKUSA Agreement in 1946. As the Cold War deepened, the intelligence sharing arrangement was formalised under the ECHELON surveillance system in the 1960s. This system was developed by the FVEY to monitor the communications of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc; it is now used to monitor communications worldwide. The FVEY expanded its surveillance capabilities during the course of the war on terror, with much emphasis placed on monitoring the Internet. The alliance has grown into a robust global surveillance mechanism, adapting to new domains such as international terrorism, cyberattacks, and contemporary regional conflicts.
The alliance's activities, often shrouded in secrecy, have occasionally come under scrutiny for their implications on privacy and civil liberties, sparking debates and legal challenges. In the late 1990s, the existence of ECHELON was disclosed to the public, triggering a debate in the European Parliament and, to a lesser extent, the United States Congress and British Parliament. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden described the Five Eyes as a "supra-national intelligence organisation that does not answer to the known laws of its own countries". Disclosures in the 2010s revealed FVEY was spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other, although the FVEY nations maintain this was done legally.
Five Eyes is among the most comprehensive espionage alliances. Since processed intelligence is gathered from multiple sources, the information shared is not restricted to signals intelligence (SIGINT) and often involves military intelligence (MILINT), human intelligence (HUMINT), and geospatial intelligence (GEOINT).
Organisations
The following table provides an overview of most of the FVEY agencies that share data.
+ Main agencies sharing data as part of Five Eyes alliance, by country Country Agency Abbreviation Role AustraliaAustralian Secret Intelligence Service ASISHuman intelligence Australian Signals Directorate ASDSignal intelligenceAustralian Security Intelligence OrganisationASIOSecurity intelligenceAustralian Geospatial-Intelligence OrganisationAGOGeo intelligence Defence Intelligence Organisation DIO Defence intelligence Canada Canadian Forces Intelligence Command CFINTCOM Defence intelligence, geo intelligence, human intelligenceCommunications Security Establishment CSESignal intelligence Canadian Security Intelligence Service CSIS Human intelligence, security intelligence Royal Canadian Mounted Police RCMP Security intelligence New Zealand Directorate of Defence Intelligence and SecurityDDIS Defence intelligenceGovernment Communications Security BureauGCSB Signal intelligenceNew Zealand Security Intelligence Service NZSIS Human intelligence, security intelligence Defence Intelligence DI Defence intelligenceGovernment Communications HeadquartersGCHQ Signal intelligence Security Service MI5 Security intelligence Secret Intelligence Service MI6, SIS Human intelligence United States Central Intelligence Agency CIA Human intelligence Defense Intelligence Agency DIA Defense intelligence Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Security intelligenceNational Geospatial-Intelligence Agency NGA Geo intelligenceNational Security Agency NSA Signal intelligence
History Origins (1941–1950s)
The informal origins of the Five Eyes alliance were secret meetings between British and US code-breakers at the British code-breaking establishment Bletchley Park in February 1941, before the US entry into the war. The first record of these meetings is a February 1941 diary entry from Alastair Denniston, head of Bletchley Park, reading "The Ys are coming!" with "Ys" referring to "Yanks". An entry from 10 February reads "Ys arrive". British and US intelligence shared extremely confidential information, including that the British had broken the German Enigma code and that the US had broken the Japanese Purple code. For the rest of the war, key figures like Denniston and code-breaking expert Alan Turing travelled back and forth across the Atlantic. The informal relationship established for wartime signals intelligence developed into a formal, signed agreement at the start of the Cold War.
The formal Five Eyes alliance can be traced back to the August 1941 Atlantic Charter, which laid out Allied goals for the post-war world. On 17 May 1943, the UK and US governments signed the British–US Communication Intelligence Agreement, also known as the BRUSA Agreement, to facilitate co-operation between the US War Department and the British Government Code and Cypher School. On 5 March 1946, the two governments formalized their secret treaty as the UKUSA Agreement, the basis for all signal intelligence cooperation between the NSA and GCHQ up to the present.
UKUSA was extended to include Canada in 1948, followed by Norway in 1952, Denmark in 1954, West Germany in 1955, and Australia and New Zealand in 1956. These countries participated in the alliance as "third parties". By 1955, a newer version of the UKUSA Agreement officially acknowledged the formal status of the remaining Five Eyes countries with the following statement:
Cold War During the Cold War, GCHQ and the NSA shared intelligence on the Soviet Union, China, and several eastern European countries known as "Exotics". Over the course of several decades, the ECHELON surveillance network was developed to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies.
In 1953, SIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.
From 1955 through 1975 during the Vietnam War, Australian and New Zealand operators in the Asia-Pacific region worked to directly support the United States while GCHQ operators stationed in British Hong Kong as part of GCHQ Hong Kong were tasked with monitoring North Vietnamese air defence networks.
In 1961, SIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the assassination of the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, an operation authorized by out-going US President Dwight D. Eisenhower the year before.
In 1973, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and the CIA jointly orchestrated the overthrow of Chile's President Salvador Allende.
Over a period of at least five years in the 1970s, a senior officer named Ian George Peacock, who was in the counterespionage unit of Australia's ASIO, stole highly classified intelligence documents that had been shared with Australia and sold them to the Soviet Union. Peacock held the title of supervisor-E (espionage) and had top-secret security clearance. He retired from the ASIO in 1983 and died in 2006.
During the Falklands War in 1982, the United Kingdom received intelligence data from its FVEY allies as well as from third parties like Norway and France.
In 1989, during the Tiananmen Square protests, SIS and the CIA took part in Operation Yellowbird to exfiltrate dissidents from China.
In the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, an ASIS technician bugged Kuwaiti government offices for SIS.
ECHELON network disclosures (1972–2000) By the end of the 20th century, the FVEY members had developed the ECHELON surveillance network into a global system capable of collecting massive amounts of private and commercial communications including telephone calls, fax, email, and other data traffic. The network's information comes from intercepted communication bearers such as satellite transmissions and public switched telephone networks.
Two of the FVEY information collection mechanisms are the PRISM program and the Upstream collection system. The PRISM program gathers user information from technology firms such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft; while the Upstream system gathers information directly from civilian communications as they travel through infrastructure like fiber cables. The program was first disclosed to the public in 1972 when a former NSA communications analyst reported to Ramparts magazine that the Agency had developed technology that "could crack all Soviet codes".
In a 1988 piece in the New Statesman called "Somebody's listening", Duncan Campbell revealed the existence of ECHELON, an extension of the UKUSA Agreement on global signals intelligence. The story detailed how eavesdropping operations were not only being employed in the interests of 'national security,' but were regularly abused for corporate espionage in the service of US business interests. The piece passed largely unnoticed outside of journalism circles.
In 1996, New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager provided a detailed description of ECHELON in a book titled Secret Power – New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network. The European Parliament cited the book in a 1998 report titled "An Appraisal of the Technology of Political Control" (PE 168.184). On 16 March 2000, the Parliament called for a resolution on the Five Eyes and its ECHELON surveillance network which would have called for the "complete dismantling of ECHELON".
Three months later, the European Parliament established the Temporary Committee on ECHELON to investigate the ECHELON surveillance network. However, according to a number of European politicians such as Esko Seppänen of Finland, the European Commission hindered these investigations .
In the United States, congressional legislators warned that the ECHELON system could be used to monitor US citizens. On 14 May 2001, the US government cancelled all meetings with the Temporary Committee on ECHELON. According to a BBC report from May 2001, "The US Government still refuses to admit that Echelon even exists."
War on terror (since 2001)
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Five Eyes members greatly increased their surveillance capabilities as part of the global war on terror.
During the run-up to the Iraq War, the communications of UN weapons inspector Hans Blix were monitored by the Five Eyes. Around the same time, British agents bugged the office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. An NSA memo detailed Five Eyes plans to increase surveillance on the UN delegations of six countries as part of a "dirty tricks" campaign to pressure these six countries to vote in favour of using force against Iraq.
SIS and the CIA formed a surveillance partnership with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi to spy on Libyan dissidents in the West in exchange for permission to use Libya as a base for extraordinary renditions.
, Five Eyes-affiliated agencies also have access to SIPRNet, the US government's classified version of the Internet.
In 2013, documents leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the existence of numerous surveillance programs jointly operated by the Five Eyes. The following list includes several notable examples reported in the media: PRISM – Operated by the NSA together with GCHQ and the ASD XKeyscore – Operated by the NSA with contributions from the ASD and the GCSB Tempora – Operated by GCHQ with contributions from the NSA MUSCULAR – Operated by GCHQ and the NSA STATEROOM – Operated by the ASD, CIA, CSE, GCHQ, and NSA