Pine Gap

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Pine Gap is just west of Alice Springs, near the geographic center of Australia.

Warning sign on the road to Pine Gap

Pine Gap is the commonly used name for a satellite tracking station at 23.799 S, 133.737 E, near the city 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. US 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 US 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 1000 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); however, this bar is not strictly adhered to.

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 US Air Force's control station for infrared satellites that monitor heat emissions from missiles, giving first warning of ballistic missile launches.

[edit] Protests

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]