Pine Gap

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Warning sign on the road to Pine Gap

Pine Gap is the commonly used name for a satellite tracking station at 23.799^o S, 133.737^o E, south-west of the town of Alice Springs in the heart of Australia that is operated by Australia and the U.S. It consists of a large computer complex with eight radomes protecting antennas, and has over 800 employees. It is officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap. It is believed to be one of the largest ECHELON ground stations and appears to be physically and operationally similar to the signals intelligence facilities at Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado and Menwith Hill, United Kingdom. U.S. government personnel at Pine Gap are believed to be mostly from the National Security Agency and subordinate service-associated agencies, and the Central Intelligence Agency. While much of its operation is secret, Pine Gap is known to be involved in numerous military satellite operations. As a result, it is occasionally targeted for protests, most recently during the war in Afghanistan. In 1999, with the Australian Government refusing to give details to an Australian Senate committee on treaties, Intelligence expert Professor Des Ball from the Australian National University was called to give an outline of Pine Gap. According to Professor Ball, since 9 December 1966 when the Australian and U.S. governments signed the Pine Gap treaty, Pine Gap has grown from the original two antennas to about a dozen and a half in 1999. The number of staff has also increased, from around 400 in the early 1970s, to 600 in the early 1990s, and then to an expected 1,000 early this century. The biggest expansion occurred after the end of the Cold War. He described the CIA-run facility as the ground control and processing station for geosynchronous satellites engaged in signals intelligence collection, outlining four categories of signals collected:

telemetry from advanced weapons development, such as ballistic missiles, used for arms control verification;
signals from anti-missile and anti-aircraft radars;
transmissions intended for communications satellites; and
microwave emissions, such as long distance telephone calls.

He described the operational area as containing three sections: Satellite Station Keeping Section, Signals Processing Station and the Signals Analysis Section, from which Australians were barred until 1980. Australians are now officially barred only from the National Cryptographic Room (similarly, Americans are barred from the Australian Cryptographic Room). Each morning the Joint Reconnaissance Schedule Committee meets to determine what the satellites will monitor over the next 24 hours. With the closing of the Nurrungar base in 1999, an area in Pine Gap was set aside for the U.S. Air Force's control station for infrared satellites that monitor heat emissions from missiles, giving first warning of ballistic missile launches.

Protests

Pine Gap has been the subject of a number of protests over the years. In 1986, over 300 women claiming to be Karen Silkwood were arrested and released without charge after entering Pine Gap. In 2002, about 500 people protested at the gates of Pine Gap, including some politicians. They were objecting to its use in the then-impending Iraq war and missile defence, with a massive police presence. A few were arrested after a scuffle with police. In December 2005, six members of the Christians Against All Terrorism group staged a protest outside Pine Gap. Four of them subsequently broke in to the facility, and were arrested. Their trial began on 3 October 2006, and it was the first time that Australia's Defence (Special Undertakings) Act 1952 was used.^[1]