Edward Snowden leaked new NSA documents that expose a secret United States unit located near a remote town in Northern Australia. This particular unit covertly monitors wireless communications and assists US military missions.
The documents come from the massive volume of classified documents that Snowden stole from the United States National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013.
The newly declassified documents, published by The Intercept, contained references to a secret facility, codenamed “Rainfall,” but officially known as Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap.
The NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, which is located outside Alice Springs, has developed advanced satellite technology for detailed geographic understanding that helps American soldiers accurately locate their targets.
The use of unmanned aircraft (also known as drones) by the American army is responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths in countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Somalia.
As stated in a secret document, the purpose of Pine Gap is to “support the national security of the United States and Australia, contributing to the verification of arms control and disarmament agreements, as well as monitoring military developments”.
However, in reality, Pine Gap has a much broader mission with much more powerful capabilities than the Australian or American governments publicly acknowledge.
Edward Snowden: The Pine Gap base identifies targets for drone strikes.
The satellites used by Pine Gap are described as “geosynchronized” and are likely placed in a very high orbit, over 20,000 miles above the Earth's surface. They have powerful surveillance technology for monitoring wireless communications on the ground, such as those sent and received from mobile phones, radios and satellite uplink connections.
According to documents released by Snowden, these satellites collect “strategic and tactical military, scientific, political and economic communications messages” and monitor any missile or weapons tests in the targeted countries, steal information from foreign military systems and provide support to United States military forces.
One of the secret NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden and analyzed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) suggests that the unit's role is not only to collect signals and analyze them, but also to “detect, collect, record, process, analyze and report” everything – from missiles circulating on the surface, the atmosphere to anti-missile systems and fighter aircraft.
A mission destroyed communications of the former Soviet Union, China, East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and in territories in the Atlantic Ocean.
In 2013, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Pine Gap played a significant role in the disputed strikes of US aircraft, which resulted in the death of hundreds of innocent civilians.
The Trump administration doubled the strikes with drones
Richard Tanter, professor at the University of Melbourne, who has previously studied the Pine Gap base, states that “Pine Gap contributes significantly and in real time to these operations as well as to their preparation.”
“The Australian government believes that an attack on North Korea is either justified or a wise and logical move, and we will be part of it. We will be guilty regarding the consequences”, said Tanter.
Under Trump's administration, the strikes and special operations raids have doubled, while at the same time they relaxed the rules of engagement to prevent civilian deaths in such aerial attacks.
However, David Rosenberg, who worked at Pine Gap as the head of the team for weapons signal analysis for at least 18 years until 2008, confirms the facility's capability for “geochronization”, stating that preventing accidents involving civilians is a high priority.
“One thing I can certainly tell the Australian government is that the United States wants, of course, to minimize all casualties among civilians”, says Rosenberg. “Pine Gap helps to limit accidents by providing accurate information”.
Australia naturally works closely with the Americans in conducting global surveillance, given that it is a core member of the “Five Eyes” alliance together with the US, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada.
