Swiss "Echelon" Catches Sniff of CIA Secret Prisons

Who knew that Switzerland - home of chocolate, clocks and singing nuns - had it's own version of the Echelon eavesdropping system? Well, it seems they do, it is called Onyx and it has caught up some very interesting stuff from the aether.

For instance about two months ago, according to the Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick, it intercepted a fax transmission from Cairo to the Egyptian embassy in London concerning the much-denied CIA secret prisons in Europe:

The message was picked up by the secret service's Onyx satellite listening system on November 10, just three days after the Council of Europe launched its investigation into allegations that the CIA was running secret interrogation centres in Europe.

...The Egyptian fax stated that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens had been transferred to a Romanian military base near the port of Constanza for interrogation purposes. It added that similar detention centres had been set up in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

Ain't that eavesdropping a bitch when the shoe is on the other foot?