Misplaced Pages

#676323

58-681: To pursue these objectives, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly employs a variety of means: a Final Declaration and a number of resolutions and recommendations are adopted each year at the Annual Session; committee work addresses important contemporary international issues; different programmes, including an extensive Election Observation Programme, and various seminars, have been designed to develop and strengthen democracy; and delegations are sent on special missions to areas of latent or active crisis. The Parliamentary Assembly

116-469: A Ford administration." His blunder in the debate with Carter when he denied Kremlin control of Poland proved disastrous. The document was seen both as a significant step toward reducing Cold War tensions and as a major diplomatic boost for the Soviet Union at the time, due to its clauses on the inviolability of national frontiers and respect for territorial integrity, which were seen to consolidate

174-526: A directional loop aerial that would enable them to hear the stations through the jamming. In the Netherlands such aerials were nicknamed "moffenzeef" (English: "kraut sieve"). During the Continuation War , after discovering the fact that the mines that the retreating Soviet forces had scattered throughout the city of Viipuri were radio-triggered rather than timer- or pressure-triggered,

232-549: A former subsidiary of the French state-owned company Thales Group . Debates have been raised in Iran regarding the possible health hazards of satellite jamming. Iranian officials including the health minister have claimed that jamming has no health risk for humans. However, the minister of communication has recently admitted that satellite jamming has 'serious effects' and has called for identification of jamming stations so they can put

290-407: A loop of traditional Chinese music while it is jamming channels (cf. Attempted jamming of numbers stations ). The purpose of this type of jamming is to block reception of transmitted signals and to cause a nuisance to the receiving operator. One early Soviet attempt at jamming Western broadcasters used the noise from the diesel generator that was powering the jamming transmitter. Subtle jamming

348-541: A provision that would prohibit radio jamming but it failed to find consensus due to Soviet opposition. Despite this, the West believed jamming was illegal under the agreed upon language for "expansion of the dissemination of information broadcast by radio". The Soviet Union believed that jamming was a legally justified response to broadcasts they argued were a violation of the Helsinki Accords' broad purpose to "meet

406-468: A signal, such as a cable television plant that accidentally emits on an aircraft emergency frequency. Originally the terms were used interchangeably but nowadays most radio users use the term "jamming" to describe the deliberate use of radio noise or signals in an attempt to disrupt communications (or prevent listening to broadcasts) whereas the term "interference" is used to describe unintentional forms of disruption (which are far more common). However,

464-608: A stop to this practice. The government has generally denied any involvement in jamming and claimed they are sent from unknown sources. According to some sources, IRGC is the organization behind satellite jamming in Iran. The Russian Armed Forces have, since the summer of 2015, begun using a multi-functional EW weapon system in Ukraine , known as Borisoglebsk 2 . It is postulated that this system has defeated communications in parts of that country, including mobile telephony and GPS systems. Radio jamming (or "comm jamming")

522-683: Is a common plot element in the Star Wars franchise. In Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi , when the Rebel fleet approaches the Galactic Empire's force, believing themselves to be launching a surprise attack, General Lando Calrissian realizes the Empire is jamming their signals, and therefore know they are approaching. In the film Star Trek II , after receiving a distress call from

580-455: Is jamming during which no sound is heard on the receiving equipment. The radio does not receive incoming signals; yet everything seems superficially normal to the operator. These are often technical attacks on modern equipment, such as "squelch capture". Thanks to the FM capture effect , frequency modulated broadcasts may be jammed, unnoticed, by a simple unmodulated carrier. The receiver locks on to

638-878: Is possible with very low power. The most common types of this form of signal jamming are random noise , random pulse, stepped tones, warbler, random keyed modulated CW , tone, rotary, pulse, spark, recorded sounds, gulls, and sweep-through. These can be divided into two groups: obvious and subtle. Obvious jamming is easy to detect because it can be heard on the receiving equipment. It is usually some type of noise, such as stepped tones (bagpipes), random-keyed code, pulses, music (often distorted), erratically warbling tones, highly distorted speech, random noise (hiss), and recorded sounds. Various combinations of these methods may be used, often accompanied by regular Morse identification signals to enable individual transmitters to be identified in order to assess their effectiveness. For example, China, which did and does use jamming extensively, plays

SECTION 10

#1732764903677

696-670: Is usually of limited effectiveness because the affected stations usually change frequencies, put on additional frequencies and/or increase transmission power. Jamming has also occasionally been used by the governments of Germany (during World War II ), Israel , Cuba, Iraq, Iran (during the Iran-Iraq War ), China, North and South Korea and several Latin American countries, as well as by Ireland against pirate radio stations such as Radio Nova . The United Kingdom government used two coordinated, separately located transmitters to jam

754-558: The 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries . During the general election , the Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter attacked the Accords as a legitimation of the "Soviet domination of Eastern Europe." A debate about the Accords in this vein during the 1976 United States presidential debates led to an infamous presidential gaffe in which Ford claimed that there was "no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under

812-789: The Battle of the Beams Britain jammed navigation signals used by German aircraft while the Soviets attempted to do likewise to American aircraft during the Berlin Airlift Since the Soviet Union started jamming Western radio broadcasts to the Soviet Union in 1948 the primary targets have been the BBC External Broadcasting Services , Voice of America (VOA) and especially RFE/RL . Western nations had allowed jamming prior to World War II, but in

870-614: The Suez Crisis ), Greek (prior to Cyprus gaining independence) and Rhodesian stations. During the early years of the Northern Ireland troubles the British army regularly jammed broadcasts from both Republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups. In 2002, China acquired standard short-wave radio-broadcasting equipment designed for general public radio-broadcasting and technical support from Thales Broadcast Multimedia,

928-569: The United Nations Charter and Declaration of Human Rights . ... If it all fails, Europe will be no worse off than it is now. If even a part of it succeeds, the lot the people in Eastern Europe will be that much better, and the cause of freedom will advance at least that far. His reassurances had little effect. The volume of negative mail continued to grow. The American public was still unconvinced that American policy on

986-499: The offshore radio ship, Radio North Sea International off the coast of Britain in 1970. In occupied Europe the Nazis attempted to jam broadcasts to the continent from the BBC and other allied stations. Along with increasing transmitter power and adding extra frequencies, attempts were made to counteract the jamming by dropping leaflets over cities instructing listeners to construct

1044-715: The Accords, its leader Enver Hoxha arguing, "All the satellites of the Soviets with the possible exception of the Bulgarians want to break the shackles of the Warsaw Treaty , but they cannot. Then their only hope is that which the Helsinki document allows them, that is, to strengthen their friendship with the United States of America and the West, to seek investments from them in the form of credits and imports of their technology without any restrictions, to allow

1102-568: The Communist authorities. Human rights activists in the Soviet Union were regularly subjected to harassment, repressions and arrests. According to the Cold War scholar John Lewis Gaddis in his book The Cold War: A New History (2005), " Leonid Brezhnev had looked forward, Anatoly Dobrynin recalls, to the 'publicity he would gain... when the Soviet public learned of the final settlement of

1160-703: The Final Act in an attempt to improve the détente between the East and the West . The Helsinki Accords, however, were not binding as they did not have treaty status that would have to be ratified by parliaments. Sometimes the term "Helsinki pact(s)" was also used unofficially. In the CSCE terminology, there were four groupings or baskets. In the first basket, the "Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States" (also known as "The Decalogue") enumerated

1218-536: The Finnish forces played Vesterinen 's recording of Säkkijärven Polkka without any pauses from September 4, 1941 to February 2, 1942, as they, to demine the city, needed to block the Soviets from activating the mines through the correct radio wave. The Soviets tried to trigger the mines by changing frequency; the mines had been set up to be able to be triggered by three different frequencies. The Finns countered this by playing Säkkijärven Polkka on all frequencies. During

SECTION 20

#1732764903677

1276-679: The Helsinki Final Act, the American public, in particular Americans of Eastern European descent voiced their concerns that the agreement would mean the acceptance of Soviet domination over Eastern Europe and forced incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR . President Ford was concerned about this as well and sought clarification on this issue from the US National Security Council . The US Senate

1334-718: The OSCE Chairman-in-Office leaders of OSCE election observation missions, and presides over meetings of the Assembly. The president is elected for one year and can be re-elected for an additional one-year term. There have been 19 presidents of the Parliamentary Assembly, including the current president, Pia Kauma of Finland. Presidents Current Vice-Presidents Secretaries General Helsinki Final Act The Helsinki Final Act , also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration ,

1392-608: The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the Members of the Bureau. The Standing Committee and the Bureau prepare the work of the Assembly between sessions and ensure the efficient operation of the Assembly. Several other committees and groups address specific issues or areas that can benefit from parliamentary attention. The Standing Committee has approved the creation of bodies to work on problems in Belarus and Moldova as well as to address

1450-466: The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has developed a particularly active programme for observing elections in the OSCE area. Since 1993, thousands of parliamentarians have observed elections in more than 30 countries. At each Annual Session the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly elects a president who acts as the highest representative of the Assembly, appoints Special Representatives on topics of concern, recommends to

1508-549: The Parliamentary Assembly. The three General Committees correspond to the three main sections of the Helsinki Final Act : the General Committee on Political Affairs and Security; the General Committee on Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and Environment; and the General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions. The Standing Committee consists of Heads of National Delegations to

1566-650: The Soviet Union had not changed. Leaders of other NATO member states made similar statements. However, the civil rights portion of the agreement provided the basis for the work of the Helsinki Watch , an independent non-governmental organization created to monitor compliance to the Helsinki Accords (which evolved into several regional committees, eventually forming the International Helsinki Federation and Human Rights Watch ). While these provisions applied to all signatories,

1624-456: The Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc devised ingenious methods (such as homemade directional loop antennas ) to hear the Western stations through the noise. Because radio propagation on shortwave can be difficult to predict reliably, listeners sometimes found that there were days/times when the jamming was particularly ineffective because radio fading (due to atmospheric conditions ) was affecting

1682-476: The Soviet Union itself Bulgaria was one of the most prolific operators of jamming transmitters in the Eastern bloc with East Germany and Yugoslavia the least. While western governments may have occasionally considered jamming broadcasts from Eastern Bloc stations, it was generally accepted that doing so would be a pointless exercise. Ownership of shortwave radios was less common in western countries than in

1740-641: The Soviet Union where, due to the vast physical size of the country, many domestic stations were relayed on shortwave as it was the only practical way to cover remote areas. Additionally, western governments were generally less afraid of intellectual competition from the Eastern Bloc. In Francoist Spain the dictatorship jammed for decades Radio España Independiente , the radio station of the Communist Party of Spain which broadcast from Moscow (1941–1955), Bucharest (1955–1977) and East Berlin. It

1798-610: The USSR's territorial gains in Central Europe following World War II . Considering objections from Canada , Spain , Ireland and other states, the Final Act simply stated that "frontiers" in Europe should be stable but could change by peaceful internal means. US president Gerald Ford also reaffirmed that US non-recognition policy of the Baltic States ' ( Lithuania , Latvia and Estonia ) forced incorporation into

Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe - Misplaced Pages Continue

1856-502: The act itself. Radio jamming Radio jamming is the deliberate blocking of or interference with wireless communications . In some cases, jammers work by the transmission of radio signals that disrupt telecommunications by decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio . The concept can be used in wireless data networks to disrupt information flow. It is a common form of censorship in totalitarian countries, in order to prevent foreign radio stations in border areas from reaching

1914-493: The already heavily overcrowded shortwave bands to such an extent that many broadcasters not directly targeted by the jammers (including pro-Soviet stations) suffered from the rising levels of noise and interference. There were also periods when China and the Soviet Union jammed each other's programmes. The Soviet Union also jammed Albanian programmes at times. Some parts of the world were more impacted by these broadcasting practices than others Meanwhile, some listeners in

1972-509: The channel is free. Simple continuous transmission on a given channel will continuously stop a transmitter transmitting, hence jamming the receiver from ever hearing from its intended transmitter. Other jammers work by analysing the packet headers and, depending on the source or destination, selectively transmitting over the end of the message, corrupting the packet. During World War II , ground radio operators would attempt to mislead pilots by false instructions in their own language , in what

2030-557: The church to occupy its former place, to deepen the moral degeneration, to increase the anti-Sovietism , and the Warsaw Treaty will remain an empty egg-shell." The Helsinki Accords served as the groundwork for the later Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), established in 1995 under the Paris Charter of 1990. The "undersigned High Representatives of the participating States" as well as seating at

2088-470: The conference were ordered alphabetically by the countries' short names in French (thus starting with the two Allemagne s followed by Amérique , and Tchécoslovaquie separated from Union soviétique by Turquie etc.). This also influenced the act's headers consecutively in German, English, Spanish, French, Italian and Russian, which were also the conference's working languages and languages of

2146-466: The conference. Shortly before President Ford departed for Helsinki, he held a meeting with a group of Americans of Eastern European background, and stated definitively that US policy on the Baltic States would not change, but would be strengthened since the agreement denies the annexation of territory in violation of international law and allows for the peaceful change of borders. Ford in July 1975 told

2204-477: The country. Jamming is usually distinguished from interference that can occur due to device malfunctions or other accidental circumstances. Devices that simply cause interference are regulated differently. Unintentional "jamming" occurs when an operator transmits on a busy frequency without first checking whether it is in use, or without being able to hear stations using the frequency. Another form of unintentional jamming occurs when equipment accidentally radiates

2262-408: The delegation of Americans from East European backgrounds that: The Helsinki documents involve political and moral commitments aimed at lessening tensions and opening further the lines of communication between peoples of East and West. ... We are not committing ourselves to anything beyond what we are already committed to by our own moral and legal standards and by more formal treaty agreements such as

2320-471: The distinction is still not universally applied. For inadvertent disruptions, see electromagnetic compatibility . Intentional communications jamming is usually aimed at radio signals to disrupt control of a battle. A transmitter , tuned to the same frequency as the opponents' receiving equipment and with the same type of modulation , can, with enough power, override any signal at the receiver . Digital wireless jamming for signals such as Bluetooth and WiFi

2378-859: The focus of attention was on their application to the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, including Bulgaria , Czechoslovakia , the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary , Poland , and Romania . Soviet propaganda presented the Final Act as a great triumph for Soviet diplomacy and for Brezhnev personally. In practice, the Soviet government significantly curbed the rule of law , civil liberties , protection of law and guarantees of property , which were considered examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet legal theorists such as Andrey Vyshinsky . The Soviet Union signed legally-binding human rights documents, but they were neither widely known or accessible to people living under Communist rule, nor were they taken seriously by

Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe - Misplaced Pages Continue

2436-571: The following 10 points: The second basket promised economic, scientific, and technological cooperation; facilitating business contacts and industrial cooperation; linking together transportation networks; and increasing the flow of information. The third basket involved commitments to improve the human context of family reunions, marriages and travel. It also sought to improve the conditions of journalists and expand cultural exchanges. The fourth basket dealt with procedures to monitor implementation, and to plan future meetings. The United States had sought

2494-413: The incorporation of the Baltic States would not be changed by the Helsinki Final Act. Despite protests from all around, Ford decided to move forward and sign the agreement. As domestic criticism mounted, Ford hedged on his support for the Helsinki Accords, which had the impact of overall weakening his foreign-policy stature. Ronald Reagan made the Accords a centerpiece of his campaign against Ford for

2552-605: The interest of mutual understanding among people and the aims set forth by the Conference". When President Gerald Ford came into office in August 1974, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) negotiations had been underway for nearly two years. Although the USSR was looking for a rapid resolution, none of the parties were quick to make concessions, particularly on human rights points. Throughout much of

2610-420: The jamming signals but favouring the broadcasts (a phenomenon sometimes dubbed "twilight immunity"). On other days of course the reverse was the case. There were also times when jamming transmitters were (temporarily) off air due to breakdowns or maintenance. The Soviets (and most of their Eastern bloc allies) used two types of jamming transmitter. Skywave jamming covered a large area but for the reasons described

2668-537: The jamming station in order that Soviet monitoring posts could assess the effectiveness of each station. In 1987 after decades of generally refusing to acknowledge that such jamming was even taking place the Soviets finally stopped jamming western broadcasts with the exception of RFE/RL which continued to be jammed for several months into 1988. Previously there had been periods when some individual Eastern bloc countries refrained from jamming Western broadcasts but this varied widely by time and country. In general outside of

2726-443: The larger carrier signal, and hence will ignore the FM signal that carries the information. Digital signals use complex modulation techniques, such as QPSK . These signals are very robust in the presence of interfering signals. But the signal relies on hand shaking between the transmitter and receiver to identify and determine security settings and method of high-level transmission. If the jamming device sends initiation data packets,

2784-608: The need for greater transparency and accountability in the OSCE. Currently, there are two ad hoc committees of the Assembly: the Ad Hoc Committee on Countering Terrorism and the Ad Hoc Committee on Migration. At the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's Annual Session in Helsinki (1993) the then Chairperson-in-Office, Swedish Foreign Minister Baroness Margaretha af Ugglas , urged parliamentarians to actively participate in election observation and monitoring. In response to this call,

2842-463: The negotiations, US leaders were disengaged and uninterested with the process. In August 1974, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said to Ford "we never wanted it but we went along with the Europeans [...] It is meaningless — it is just a grandstand play to the left. We are going along with it." In the months leading up to the conclusion of negotiations and signing of

2900-650: The post-War era the Western view has been that jamming violates the freedom of information while the Soviet view has been that under the international law principle of national sovereignty jamming is an acceptable response to foreign radio broadcasts. During much of the Cold War , Soviet (and Eastern Bloc ) jamming of some Western broadcasters led to a "power race" in which broadcasters and jammers alike repeatedly increased their transmission power, utilised highly directional antennas and added extra frequencies (known as "barrage" or "frequency diversity" broadcasting) to

2958-486: The postwar boundaries for which they had sacrificed so much'... '[Instead, the Helsinki Accords] gradually became a manifesto of the dissident and liberal movement'... What this meant was that the people who lived under these [communist] systems — at least the more courageous — could claim official permission to say what they thought." The then- People's Republic of Albania refused to participate in

SECTION 50

#1732764903677

3016-453: The receiver will begin its state machine to establish two-way data transmission. A jammer will loop back to the beginning instead of completing the handshake. This method jams the receiver in an infinite loop where it keeps trying to initiate a connection but never completes it, which effectively blocks all legitimate communication. Bluetooth and other consumer radio protocols such as WiFi have built-in detectors, so that they transmit only when

3074-450: Was also worried about the fate of the Baltic States and the CSCE in general. Several senators wrote to President Ford requesting that the final summit stage be delayed until all matters had been settled, and in a way favorable to the West. Ford also attracted criticism from a wide range of political spectrum when he refused to meet with Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to avoid damaging Soviet Union–United States relations before

3132-532: Was more precisely a spoofing attack than jamming. Radar jamming is also important to disrupt use of radar used to guide an enemy's missiles or aircraft . Modern secure communication techniques use such methods as spread spectrum modulation to resist the deleterious effects of jamming. Jamming of foreign radio broadcast stations has often been used in wartime (and during periods of tense international relations) to prevent or deter citizens from listening to broadcasts from enemy countries. However, such jamming

3190-470: Was of limited effectiveness. Groundwave jamming was more effective but only over a small area and was thus used only in/near major cities throughout the Eastern Bloc. Both types of jamming were less effective on higher shortwave frequencies (above 15 MHz); however, many radios sold on the domestic market in the Soviet Union didn't tune these higher bands. Skywave jamming was usually accompanied by morse signals in order to enable (coded) identification of

3248-541: Was originally established by the 1990 Paris Summit to promote greater involvement in the OSCE by national parliaments of the participating States. By passing resolutions and issuing formal recommendations to the OSCE's governmental side and to parliaments, it aims to pursue the implementation of OSCE objectives by participating States, including through legislative action. In July 2024, the Russian State Duma and Federation Council voted to suspend participation in

3306-621: Was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki , Finland , between 30 July and 1 August 1975, following two years of negotiations known as the Helsinki Process. All then-existing European countries except Andorra and Hoxhaist Albania , as well as the United States and Canada (altogether 35 participating states), signed

3364-601: Was the most important clandestine broadcaster in Spain and the regime considered it a threat, since it allowed its citizens to skip the censorship of the local media. Broadcasts from East Germany to South Africa were also jammed. In Latin America there were instances of communist radio stations such as Radio Venceremos being jammed, allegedly by the CIA , while there were short lived instances where Britain jammed some Egyptian (during

#676323