An inquiry by the European Parliament has not come up with proof that
the UnitedStates is using its Echelon satellite spy network to giveUS exporters an edge over their European rivals, according to thevice president of the EuropeanParliamentMr Gerhard Schmid.
Mr Schmid said that while it was "feasible" for Echelon to tap intoEuropean satellite communications, "we found no proven cases ofinformation acquired by US secret services on the competitors of UScompanies."
Nor has any European company come forward to declare that it has beenthe victim of industrial espionage carried out by the USintelligence for the benefit of US rivals, he added.
"If companies are victims, they're not keen to talk about it,"MrSchmid said. "That makes our work difficult."
Working largely unnoticed for the past six months, the Echeloncommittee got sudden attention last week after a European Commissionofficial said the US National Security Agency (NSA) hadtested theencryption system that Brussels uses to communicationwith itsforeign missions.
The EU's executive branch said afterwards that the 10-year-oldsystem's supplier - the German engineering group Siemens - hadclaimed in its sales pitch that the NSA had tried but failed tocrack its codes. But it insisted that the commission's security hadnever been compromised.