Pine Gap drives US drone kills

Pine Gap drives US drone kills

Central Australia's Pine Gap spy base has played a key role in the United States' controversial drone strikes involving the ''targeted killing'' of al-Qaeda and Taliban chiefs, Fairfax Media can reveal. Former personnel at the Australian-American base have described the facility's success in locating and tracking al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders - and other insurgent activity in Afghanistan and Pakistan - as ''outstanding''.

A Fairfax Media investigation has confirmed that a primary function of the top-secret signals intelligence base near Alice Springs is to track the precise ''geolocation'' of radio signals, including hand-held radios and mobile phones, in the eastern hemisphere, from the Middle East across Asia to China, North Korea and the Russian far east.
Full story www.theage.com.au...

Background/Extension on Pine Gap: www.theage.com.au...
First thread, please take it easy!

As an Australian citizen, finding out that my country plays a vital part in assisting foreign nations kill those far abroad and often unethically in a war we don't believe in, I feel disgusted beyond words.

Many Australians including myself are kept in the dark about our military and their presence in other country's, Pine Gap is a name many of us have never heard about let alone know its purpose.
Further, most Australians are opposed of US military presence in Australia which was demonstrated with Obama visiting Australia to discuss the opening of Navy bases up north.

I'm not a Anti-war preacher and do accept that some people have to removed, however this to me is a clear violation of our rights as Australian to be left in the dark over such a large issue.

Originally posted by phantom150

Many Australians including myself are kept in the dark about our military and their presence in other country's, Pine Gap is a name many of us have never heard about let alone know its purpose.

Yep,
Ole Pine Gap is not well known but to those who have heard about it, it's more infamous than area 51.
The upshot of it is that people disappear there and don't come back.
Not just UFO rumors.
Wet work and hands on projects.
Not a nice place.

reply to post by phantom150


I've never heard about this base but I did a little reading and it sounds like a spooky place.

Definitely interesting and I'm going to do some more digging. Even the buildings are creepy....

Those giant golf ball buildings you see are Radomes.
I've seen fields of these in England a few years back.

Inside them are sensitive equipment and antennas for purposes such as Satellite Communications, Missile Early warnings and search radar. I guess this would make sense seeing as Pine Gap has a Electronic surveillance part to it.

More Information
en.wikipedia.org...
www.tods.co.uk...

Oh please, nobody disappears at Pine Gap.

News flash: not everything is on the internet . Pine Gap is covered in either the first or second book James Bamford did on the NSA. If you haven't read any of his NSA books, I'd suggest "Body of Secrets", "Shadow Factor", and "Puzzle Palace" in that order.

Back in the day, there was both ELINT and comms over moon bounce. [Bouncing radio signals off the moon.] This predates the use of spy satellites. Pine Gap was a handy location for some sort of ELINT. I would need to dig up the books for specifics.

Pine Gap is just once of may listening posts. The NSA, before it decided that spying on every person on earth was its mission, did SIGINT and to some degree ELINT. For VHF and higher, you really need line of sight, so they NSA has listening posts in friendly countries (or countries that will be your friend for money) that border our enemies (before it was determined that the entire world should be the NSA target). Iran back in the day. Turkey today, etc. Maybe Snowden will leak all the facility locations.

Communication satellites have a footprint. They only cover a specific part of the earth. A geostationary satellite such as used for TVRO or VSAT, has a static footprint. But the distance involved requires a powerful signal. Communcation systems used by civilians are networks of satellites that are not geostationary, so the footprint is moving. But to hear a specific satellite, you need to be in the footprint. I suppose Pine Gap has some ability to hear the Middle East birds, but I haven't investigated this.

The CIA used a large dish by Stanford University for Soviet era radar ELINT.
37°24'30.68"N 122°10'46.47"W

But back to the Middle East, it isn't much of a secret that the Thuraya network is sniffed by the NSA to locate terrorists or what passes for a terrorist these days.

Thuraya satellte phone

If you look at the coverage map, they serve Africa, the Middle East, and Australia. Also not a secret is the individual phones have a GPS inside them, so you can read the location of the user. This may help in satellite handoff, but it is also handy for Hellfire targeting. I'm guessing that even if you are not in the footprint of the satellite the alleged bad guy is using, the locations of all users are broadcast on the network. This is probably to aid the ground stations. If that guess is correct, then as long as Alice Springs can sniff one Thuraya, then know where all the users are located.

If you do a search that includes wikileaks and Thuraya, you can learn a bit more about the NSA capabilities in this regard. This was cutting edge news in 2008, so I don't have all the details in my head 5 years later. Bamford's "Shadow Factory" goes into satellite phone intercepts.

Originally posted by gariac
Oh please, nobody disappears at Pine Gap.

Oh well,
It was fun while it lasted.
Conspiracy site and all of that.
Good to know that none of the rumors are true and that the US military is all on the up and up there.
Nothing interesting at all.
Totally mundane.
Boring

Pine gap-Harold Holt
pine gap
Pine gap-UFO's
pine gap -secret tunnels
Pine gap -brainwashing
Tesla experiments -Pine Gap

Of course, none of this stuff is "reliable" but it is a lot of fun to read and talk about.

Not with anyone here apparently....
but maybe... somewhere...out...there.....

What I don't get is the UFO connection to it, people just think oh look there's a military base there must be ufos..

Also as for people referring to Pine Gap as Australia's Area 51, we'll that's not even close to the truth, Pine Gap doesn't even have a runway.

Now if you want to know about Australia's Area 51, check out the womera test range. It's the largest weapons test facility in the world. Currently BAE are testing their drone the Taranis down there.
Taranis at Womera

reply to post by phantom150


imho,

Far too many of your leaders have been as complicit in furthering globalist tyrannical conquests and !CONTROL! schemes, strategies and methods as the ruthless traitorous scum in Wash D.C.

Thankfully, one of your politicos at least had the courage to stand up in Parliament and rant against such goings on. I've wondered . . . is she still alive?

reply to post by BO XIAN


Which girl would that be?

reply to post by phantom150


Speaking as a fellow Australian, I do support the involvement of our agency in supervising the drone deployment. Although they are killing the terrorist leaders, the idea of the drone usage has been under consideration since the 1990's suicide bomber attack of the US embassy in Africa.