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| Spies in the Never-Never: An aerial view of Pine Gap, the joint US-Australian listening and tracking base at the foot of the MacDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs. |
Pine Gap remains an enduring symbol of the unshakeable bond between Australian and US intelligence services.
It's a piece of America. At least that's the vibe in the large cafeteria at the top secret Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap near Alice Springs.Half of the intelligence base's personnel are Australians; but American tastes dominate the menu according to those who have dined there - burgers, hot dogs, doughnuts, pork ribs, french fries and milkshakes. ''You'd really have to watch your cholesterol levels,'' one Australian parliamentarian observed after spending a day at the facility.
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| Illustration: michaelmucci.com |
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Australia and the United States are certainly united at
Pine Gap. It's the crux of an electronic espionage alliance that's
nearly five decades old. It's also the most secret place in Australia.In a rare statement about Pine Gap to Parliament last month, Defence Minister Stephen Smith declared the Joint Defence Facility to be ''a central element of Australia's security and intelligence relationship with the United States''.
Pine Gap is certainly impressive. The high security facility is one of the largest satellite ground stations in the world. It controls and receives data from geostationary satellites that eavesdrop on a wide range of radio, radar and microwave signals. It also supports early warning satellites which detect ballistic missile launches.
There are no fewer than 33 satellite antennas at Pine Gap, 18 covered by distinctive white domes. The number of domes and dishes has grown over the past decade and there has been a major program under way over the past three years to refurbish and expand what is referred to as the ''antenna farm''.
Some 800 people work at this intelligence factory. Thanks to technological change and automation, this number is down from the more than 870 personnel a decade ago, but it's still twice the number of personnel employed at Pine Gap two decades before that.
While details of the US presence at Pine Gap remain classified, it is a matter of public record that the highly secretive National Reconnaissance Office (responsible for the design, construction and operation of US spy satellites) is present. Also represented at Pine Gap are the National Security Agency (the US signals intelligence organisation recently made notorious by the leaks of whistleblower Edward Snowden), the Central Intelligence Agency, and the US Geospatial-Intelligence Agency which provides imagery and geospatial intelligence to the US government. All arms of the US Armed Services also have personnel working at Pine Gap and uniforms are common at the facility's annual ball.
The chief of the facility is an American officer and the posting is a step towards promotion into the most senior ranks of the US intelligence community. One recent chief of facility, Frank Calvelli, is now serving as the principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, responsible for the procurement and operation of satellite systems worth billions of dollars.
The most senior Australian officer serves as deputy chief of facility. One recent Australian deputy chief Cameron Ashe went on to become a deputy director of Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation. At present the senior Australian Defence Department officer, Nicholas Post, is serving as the acting chief.
The primary contractor companies engaged at Pine Gap are the US aerospace systems and defence suppliers Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, and the computer systems supplier Hewlett-Packard. Seventy per cent of the total workforce are contractor personnel.
Northrop Grumman is responsible for operating satellites controlled from Pine Gap.
Data from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (which regulates radio frequency use) and the International Telecommunications Union shows that Pine Gap communicates with at least six geostationary satellites - four designated DEF-R-SAT (apparently an abbreviation for defence research satellite) and two designated USCSID.
The four DEF-R-SATs, positioned along the line of the equator above the Indian Ocean and Indonesia, appear to be signals intelligence satellites.
The other two satellites are likely to be missile launch warning systems controlled remotely through the Space Based Infrared System Relay Ground Station which is collocated at Pine Gap.
Australian governments have long emphasised Pine Gap's role in providing intelligence relevant to monitoring arms control and non-proliferation agreements. A decade ago, Howard government defence minister Robert Hill said: ''The work done at the Joint Facility indicates how countries are complying with agreements not to proliferate weapons systems and capabilities, or showing when they are working against such agreements.''
Similarly, Smith last month emphasised that ''intelligence collected at Pine Gap contributes to the verification of arms control and disarmament agreements''.
''As a nation that prides itself on playing an active role in the counter-proliferation of nuclear weapons, the value of the data obtained from Pine Gap cannot be underestimated. Australia's hosting of this capability supports the government's long-standing and comprehensive policy supporting counter-proliferation.''
While this is true, such activity is only part of Pine Gap's role. A candid assessment would put much greater emphasis on what former minister Hill coyly referred to as ''collection of intelligence on military developments of interest to Australia and the US''.
Forty years ago, Soviet missile telemetry was the priority target for the first generation of signals intelligence satellites controlled by Pine Gap. The facility certainly contributed to an environment of transparency in which nuclear arms control agreements could be negotiated. From the outset, however, Pine Gap was also involved in the general interception of radio and radar signals, especially ''spillage'' from ''long haul'' Soviet microwave communication systems. The signal collection programs supported by the facility provided an intelligence bonanza on Soviet and Chinese military activity including critical information for the targeting of US nuclear weapons.
The end of the Cold War did not diminish Pine Gap's importance. On the contrary the facility's military role has grown with every decade.
During the 1991 Gulf War, satellites controlled by Pine Gap intercepted Iraqi communications and radar signals. According to Professor Des Ball of the Australian National University, these satellites monitored some of the most critical communications channels within Iraq, radio and microwave communication links, including those used by the Iraqi military high command.
Pine Gap's ability to acquire tactical military information was also expanding. In a rare disclosure, former Coalition opposition leader John Hewson recalled in a 2005 newspaper column that he visited Pine Gap during the first Gulf War. ''By manipulating the satellite, I could listen to the conversations of individual Iraqi tank commanders. I was told that virtually every conversation could be monitored by satellite, and that was 15 years ago. Who knows how good the technology is today?''
In 2011 former Pine Gap employee David Rosenberg was permitted to publish a memoir that in guarded terms described Pine Gap's role in intercepting Iraqi communications and how by monitoring the emissions of ''End Tray'' radars, collocated with mobile Scud ballistic missiles, the facility's capabilities enabled Scuds to be targeted by US and allied fighter bombers.
Subsequent US military doctrine has placed great importance on space-based intelligence collection, signals intelligence and imagery, as a key force-multiplier for military operations.
This was clearly spelled out in congressional testimony in 1998 by the then director of the National Reconnaissance Office, Keith Hall: ''In the future, US forces will rely upon space systems for global awareness of threats, swift orchestration of military operations, and precision use of smart weapons. … Our goal is to detect, track and target anything of significance worldwide and to get the right information to the right people at the right time.'' The declared aim was to enable US military forces to deliver ''precise military firepower anywhere in the world, day or night, in all weather''.
An accumulation of disclosures, some unauthorised and others through further US congressional testimony from the National Reconnaissance Office, reveal that this objective has to a very considerable degree now been achieved.
Former Pine Gap personnel say that the geolocation accuracies provided by signal intelligence satellites - achieved by measuring the differing times signals are received by different satellites - are ''more than 10 times better'' than the 450 metres claimed by commercial providers of radio interference geolocation services and are ''in the order of the accuracies provided by GPS [Global Positioning System].''
Pine Gap is indeed a vital element in a US military intelligence collection and targeting complex that can locate the origin of radio signals to within as little as 10 metres, immediately integrate that information with other data including satellite imagery, and relay targeting information to US and allied military units within minutes.
Pine Gap's role in minute-by-minute tactical intelligence collection is confirmed by numerous references to ''real-time tracking and geolocation'' and provision of ''extremely valuable intelligence'' to support operations to ''capture or kill high value targets.''
In interviews and congressional testimony by former National Reconnaissance Office director Bruce Carlson particularly highlighted a system called ''Red Dot'' that ''tells people in Humvees or MRAPs [mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles] where there's a possible [Improvised Explosive Device] ahead. And that takes an incredible amount of integration of signals and imaging and all-source inputs in order to put - literally - a red dot on a computer display in a vehicle that says, 'look around the next corner,' or 'avoid this area'.''
Former signals intelligence analysts at Pine Gap confirm that the facility supports the ''Red Dot'' system through the satellite detection and location detection of radio signals linked to improvised explosive devices. Other capabilities supported by Pine Gap include signals collection for search-and-rescue missions and special clandestine satellite radio links for special forces and remote intelligence collection devices.
Personnel sitting in airconditioned offices in central Australia are directly linked, on a minute-by-minute basis, to US and allied military operations in Afghanistan and indeed anywhere else across the eastern hemisphere.
Australian defence intelligence sources also say the massive expansion of mobile phone networks across Asia presented huge opportunities for Pine Gap's intelligence collection.
''The development of North Korea's mobile network has provided a window into a political system and society that otherwise would remain closed to us,'' another intelligence officer says. ''Even when governments such as China, North Korea and Iran are highly security conscious, the intelligence take is still enormous.''
Last week secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden indicated that Pine Gap contributes to a broad US National Security Agency collection program codenamed ''X-Keyscore.''
One would not get much of a sense of this from any public statement from the Australian government.
Like his defence minister predecessors, Smith says Pine Gap operates with the ''full knowledge and concurrence'' of the Australian government. There is little reason to doubt this, especially given the full integration of Australian personnel in operations. However it is of note that his definition of concurrence ''does not mean that Australia approves every activity or tasking undertaken''.
It is also true that, as Smith argued, Pine Gap delivers intelligence that would be ''unavailable from any other means and is unique in our region.'' And by providing ''a suitable piece of real estate'' Australia gets this data cheap - the Defence Department says Australia's contribution to Pine Gap's running costs in 2011-12 was a mere $14 million.
Perhaps the bigger question, however, is whether Pine Gap's growing engagement with the US is foreclosing Australia's diplomatic and military options in relation to future crises and conflicts.
The practical reality is that Pine Gap's capabilities are now deeply and inextricably entwined with US military operations, down to the tactical level, across half the world. Arguably technological change has now given full expression to the desire of Harold Holt, the Australian prime minister who originally approved the Pine Gap project, to go ''all the way'' with the USA.
Australian personnel have helped target drone strikes in Pakistan. In the future we may be providing targeting information on the Korean Peninsula or in the Taiwan Strait.
Pine Gap's role should be subject to much greater scrutiny.
http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/security-it/australian-outback-station-at-forefront-of-us-spying-arsenal-20130726-hv10h.html
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