GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is the centre of the British government's electronic surveillance operations, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. It monitors broadcasts of various kinds from all over the world. It was established during the Great War, and was successful in breaking the German Enigma code in 1940. Controversy arose in the 1980s when the Thatcher government banned employees at GCHQ from being members of a Trade Union, thereby implying that Union members were a threat to national security. Research GCHQ
Zircon was a codename for a British spy satellite originally intended to be launched 1988. The revelation of the existence of the Zircon project (which had been concealed by the government) by the journalist Duncan Campbell, and the government's subsequent efforts to suppress a programme about it on BBC television, caused much controversy in 1987, not least for the bumbling way the security forces raided Campbell's office but failed to find his notes about the project which were concealed in computer files with anonymous names. Its intended function was to intercept radio and other signals from the USSR, Europe, and the Middle East and transmit them to the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, England. Research Zircon
Abbreviations
Research GCHQ
