This article was in this mornings NZ Herald. Accompanying this picture was a
larger one of "Green MP, Rod Donald, taking part in the annual protest
outside the Waihopai eavesdropping base".Behind two sets of barbed wire
fences with spiked gates is a casual gathering of police. A small American
flag is draped over the bars of the outer gate. A telling picture.... pity
it wasn't in colour.
Peter
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=114842
ALIEN INTRUDERS: The science-fiction domes of Waihopai cover the "ears" of
the electronic spying operation. HERALD FILE PICTURE
Electronic ears that never sleep
31.01.2000 - By SIMON HENDERY
In the blend-into-the-background realm of international spying, it is an
ironically distinctive structure.
The Waihopai satellite tapping station sticks out like a sore thumb - or,
rather, the world's largest ping-pong balls - on sun-soaked farmland in a
remote Marlborough valley.
Since it opened in 1989, Waihopai has been a magnet for peace activists who
condemn New Zealand's involvement in a covert international
intelligence-gathering network.
Every January, as they have done for more than a decade, the New Zealand
Anti-Bases Campaign rallied outside the electric perimeter fence to denounce
Government-sanctioned eavesdropping and demand the base's closure.
Among this year's protesters were Rod Donald and Keith Locke. The two Green
MPs called for an inquiry into the base they say invades the privacy of
average New Zealanders.
Do they have a point? Is Waihopai the spherical incarnation of George
Orwell's Big Brother, or a legitimate tool in the Free World's fight for
survival?
What happens at Waihopai?
A team of about three dozen technical, security and administrative staff
work round-the-clock shifts monitoring telephone, fax and e-mail
transmissions that are bounced across the globe via communication satellites
above the Pacific.
The vast amount of intercepted data is decoded and trawled for titbits of
security and diplomatic information.
Anything of interest is reported to the highest levels of the New Zealand
Government, and passed to our allies overseas.
Why the ping-pong ball look?
The eye-catching 30m-high spherical "radomes" beside the base's more drab
single-level operations building cover 18m-diameter satellite receiving
dishes - the "ears" of the operation.
Hiding the dishes under the radomes means curious onlookers are unable to
tell which of the 70-odd Pacific satellites is being targeted for
eavesdropping.
How is information collected?
Peace activist and author Nicky Hager has spent 15 years researching
espionage networks.
In his 1996 tell-all book Secret Power he says Waihopai "is to eavesdropping
what a huge pulp and paper mill is to papermaking ... It is industrial-scale
spying, using high-tech equipment and automation to handle the immense
throughput of intercepted communications."
Hager says the Waihopai computers dredge the satellite feeds looking for
messages containing key words and numbers selected by spy chiefs as most
likely to appear in sensitive communications.
Who, outside the Government, has access to Waihopai information?
Waihopai and the Tangimoana radio interception base southwest of Sanson are
run by New Zealand's largest intelligence agency, the Government
Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).
The bases are part of the global Echelon spy network established under the
1948 UKUSA security pact to which Britain, the United States, Australia,
Canada and New Zealand were signatories.
Under Echelon, New Zealand passes on information intercepted at its spy
bases to the other countries.
The GCSB also uses information gleaned from Waihopai to prepare intelligence
reports for the UKUSA alliance on a number of Pacific Island nations.
What does New Zealand gain by passing
this information on?
In return for its involvement in the spy network, New Zealand is given
access to information gathered at other Echelon bases.
But Hager believes New Zealand is not aware of exactly what information is
being extracted from Waihopai by our allies. He says what they receive could
be used in ways contrary to our best interests.
Is electronic eavesdropping an effective intelligence-gathering tool?
Hager points out two major incidents that went undetected by the UKUSA
network: the French bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and the 1987 Fiji coup.
His book suggests that our allies either failed to pass on information about
the 1985 plan to sink the Greenpeace boat, or missed the information
altogether because of the network's tight focus on other targets, such as
Russia.
He also quotes a senior public servant as saying Echelon provided no useful
information before, during or after the Fiji coup.
As a taxpayer, how much is the satellite
spy game costing me?
The GCSB has an annual budget of about $20 million.
About the same amount was spent building Waihopai in the late 1980s.
As a phone, fax and e-mail user (with no
interest in bringing down the Free
World), is my right to privacy threatened?
No, according to our chief spy-watcher, the Inspector-General of
Intelligence and Security, Laurie Greig, a retired High Court judge.
Justice Greig said last year that he was satisfied New Zealanders' privacy
interests were protected in the exchange of GCSB information with other
Echelon powers.
Asked by the then Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley, to investigate whether
Waihopai and Tangimoana were working in New Zealand's interests, he said the
GCSB's cardinal rule was to focus on foreign communications, and not
deliberately intercept those made by New Zealand citizens.
In Secret Power, Hager says it is unclear whether Waihopai spies on New
Zealanders. Although UKUSA policy is that the network not be used to gather
information about member countries or their citizens, "such interception
would be almost impossible to prove."
All right, I do want to bring down the Free World. How should I go about it
without attracting Waihopai's attention?
Make sure your international communications are routed through undersea
cables, rather than via satellite. Do not use words likely to be in the
Waihopai dictionary of suspicious terms: "comrades," "conspiracy" and "world
domination" are probably on the list.
Avoid any reference to phone or telex numbers associated with New
Zealand-based foreign embassies. These numbers are also probably programmed
into the dictionary.
Do our politicians know what's
going on at Waihopai?
The GCSB has a responsibility to report to the Prime Minister. But our
spooks are often accused of keeping too much under their hats.
David Lange, who was Prime Minister when Waihopai was being built, later
said he was not given the full facts about how information gathered at the
base was used.
He was incorrectly assured that all Waihopai data sent to Australia was
screened by the GCSB first.
Mr Lange said in 1996: "It is an outrage that I and other ministers were
told so little, and this raises the question of to whom those concerned saw
themselves ultimately answerable."
We are about to go on a Journey. All Aboard
http://sites.netscape.net/gsussnzl/poleshift
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