Heads of State: Is Echelon Based on a Real Surveillance System?

‘Heads of State‘ is an action-packed film that finds the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the UK in a buddy-cop-like comedy as a shared enemy hunts them across countries. Will Derringer and Sam Clarke, political allies, are far from friends in their real lives. Still, a PR opportunity all but forces the duo to hop on a flight together as they travel to the upcoming NATO meeting. However, soon enough, Russian arms dealer Viktor Gradov shoots down their aircraft in an attempt to assassinate the two world leaders. Nonetheless, both Sam and Will manage to survive the horrific plane crash.

Thus, as a political seizure for power breaks loose, the pair enter a reluctant alliance, going up against their enemies together. Gradov hopes to achieve a number of things through this targeted assassination attempt. However, stealing control over Echelon, USA’s highly classified Surveillance System Program, remains the first order on his list. Consequently, as this all-knowing, near-omnipresent databank becomes a dangerous tool in the wrong hands, its basis in reality is bound to attract some intrigue.

Echelon, AKA Five Eyes, is a Real Surveillance Program

For the most part, ‘Heads of State’ charts a fictitious narrative about a high-stakes assassination attempt on the lives of a US President and a UK Prime Minister. Therefore, even though elements of real-world politics are used throughout the film’s worldbuilding, little direct inspiration is taken for things like plot development and characterizations. Nonetheless, while there’s plenty of fictionalization around Sam and Will’s characters and their gripping tale, other aspects of reality are directly translated onto the screen. This is because real-life political elements like Air Force One, the distinct codename for the aircraft carrying the American President, automatically fit into the on-screen story’s spy-thriller genre.

Echelon is one such element. In the film, the surveillance program is a highly classified system of data collection and monitoring. It’s used by global Agencies like the CIA and MI6 during international operations. Furthermore, due to its highly sensitive nature, the technology is only accessible to agents in the direst of circumstances under strict observation. That is, until the central antagonist, Viktor Gradov, infiltrates the system and steals it away to turn it into his most powerful weapon. As it turns out, this powerful on-screen tool is an actual surveillance programme that exists in real life. Echelon is a global communications interception system that is shared between the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Better known as Five Eyes, the intelligence-sharing program engages in the massive collection of electronic and satellite information. As such, it monitors and collects worldwide data, including telephone calls, radio communications, faxes, e-mails, and more. The programme was first created during the Cold War in order to run surveillance on the Soviet Union and communist bloc countries. Since then, the project has only expanded in size and power. Furthermore, over the years, this programme has also expanded into other initiatives such as Nine Eyes, which is a group that involves the five countries, as well as Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Norway. Yet, even though Echelon is a real surveillance system, ‘Heads of State’ adopts certain liberties in presenting an on-screen version of it that fits into the tale’s espionage genre. Still, the system remains intricately rooted in the real-life programme.