Pine Gap

- 23.797777777778133.73666666667Koordinaten: 23 ° 47 ' 52 " S, 133 ° 44' 12" E

Pine Gap (code name: Merino ) is a joint military base of the USA and Australia about 19 kilometers southwest of the town of Alice Springs, in the middle of the Australian outback.

In 1967, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold War here a surveillance and monitoring system, by the U.S. Agency Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now DARPA ) was operated by the U.S. Department of Defense. The base with more than 800 employees is fully funded by the U.S. and now called Joint Defense Space Research Facility. It consists of multiple antennas and eight large radomes and a great location and evaluation center. This communication and listening device operates under the espionage network ECHELON.

The system played a role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

According to Professor Ball, who is quoted in the report of the Australian Parliament, the Pine Gap facility is the mission control center and processing center for a number of geostationary satellites over the equator, whose task is to collect information as part of the Signals Intelligence.

The Sydney Morning Herald named Pine Gap as one of four monitoring devices in Australia alongside HMAS Harman, Shoal Bay and Geraldton / Kojarena that use the software XKeyscore to collect data for the NSA.

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