Pine Gap

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Pine Gap

Coordinates: 23 ° 47 ′ 52 ″  S , 133 ° 44 ′ 12 ″  E

Map: Australia
marker
Pine Gap​
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Australia
Warning notice on a road to Pine Gap

Pine Gap (code name: Merino ) is a joint military base of the USA and Australia about 19 kilometers southwest of the city of Alice Springs , in the middle of the Australian outback .

In 1967, during the Cold War , the US secret service CIA built a surveillance and wiretapping system at the site, which was operated by the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA; now DARPA) . The base with over 800 employees is completely financed by the USA and is now known as the Joint Defense Space Research Facility . It consists of several antenna systems u. a. under eight large radomes as well as a location and evaluation center. This communication and eavesdropping device also works or worked as part of the ECHELON spy network .

The facility played a role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

According to Desmond Ball, quoted in the Australian Parliament report , the Pine Gap facility is the mission control center and processing center for a number of geostationary satellites over the equator whose job it is to collect information as part of the signal intelligence .

The Sydney Morning Herald named Pine Gap as one of four monitoring agencies in Australia alongside HMAS Harman , Shoal Bay and Geraldton / Kojarena that use XKeyscore software to collect data for the NSA .

literature

  • Ball, Desmond: Pine Gap: Australia and the US geostationary signals intelligence satellite program, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988, ISBN 0-04-303002-5

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joint Australian-US intelligence facility - Pine Gap: Shoal Bay Receiving Station ( Memento of January 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) ( Webcitation Archive of July 25, 2013 ( Memento of January 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  2. ↑ Bibliography - Joint Defense Facility, Pine Gap ( Memento of March 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) ( Webcitation Archive of July 25, 2013 ( Memento of March 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ))
  3. ^ The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia: Report 26: An Agreement to extend the period of operation of the Joint Defense Facility at Pine Gap: Joint Standing Committee on Treaties of October 1999 ( Memento of August 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF ; 155 kB) ( Webcitation Archive from July 25, 2013 ( Memento from August 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ))
  4. ↑ Philip Dorling: Edward Snowden reveals Australia's Links To Secret US Spy Program ( English ) In: The Sunday Morning Herald . July 8, 2013. Archived from the original on August 2, 2013. Retrieved on August 2, 2013.

Web links