New Snowden Docs reveal the NSA spy hub Pine Gap in Australia

A news batch of documents leaked by Snowden has revealed a US facility in Australia for covertly monitoring communications and supporting drone missions

The secret documentation was obtained by The Intercept, it contains references to a secretive facility, codenamed “Rainfall,” that is officially known as the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap.

According to the Intercept, the documents belong to the huge amount of data stolen by Snowden from the US National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013.

“Together with the NSA’s Menwith Hill base in England, Pine Gap has in recent years been used as a command post for two missions. The first, named M7600, involved at least two spy satellites and was said in a secret 2005 document to provide “continuous coverage of the majority of the Eurasian landmass and Africa.” This initiative was later upgraded as part of a second mission, named M8300, which involved “a four satellite constellation” and covered the former Soviet Union, China, South Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and territories in the Atlantic Ocean.” continues The Intercept.

The documents report an intense activity in the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap with hundreds of Australian and American employees come and go every day from the base.

The official “cover story,” as outlined in a secret U.S. intelligence document, is to “support the national security of both the U.S. and Australia. The [facility] contributes to verifying arms control and disarmament agreements and monitoring military developments.” 

“Those documents provide authoritative confirmation that Pine Gap is involved, for example, in the geolocation of cell phones used by people throughout the world, from the Pacific to the edge of Africa,” Richard Tanter, a professor at the University of Melbourne’s school of political and social studies said.

“It shows us that Pine Gap knows the geolocations, it derives the phone numbers, it often derives the content of any communications, it provides the ability for the American military to identify and place in real time the location of targets of interest.”

Another NSA document (“site profile” of Pine Gap) confirmed that the systems inside the base are used to analyzed signals.

“RAINFALL detects, collects, records, processes, analyses and reports on PROFORMA signals collected from tasked target entities,” the profile says.

Concerns about the military use of drones for surgical attacks are amplified under the President Donald Trump’s administration. President Trump has increased drone strikes and special operations raids.

“According to analysis from the group Airwars, which monitors U.S. airstrikes, civilian casualties in the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State are on track to double under Trump’s administration.” concludes The Intercept.