Euro Parliament Links Aussie Geraldton Base To Echelon
[Original headline: WA Spy Base named in Euro probe]
A Geraldton spy base has a major role in a global surveillance network under investigation by the European Parliament.
Codenamed Echelon, the super-secret eavesdropping system consists of five key bases around the world.
The Geraldton base is 30km from the city, at Kojarena.
When it was opened in 1993, the base was described as a "defence satellite communications station".
But a report to the European Parliament says the Geraldton base is part of Echelon.
"It is a targeting system on all of the world's Intel satellites used to convey most of the world's satellite phone calls, Internet, email, faxes and telexes," says the report.
"These sites are based at Sugar Grove and Yakima in the USA, at Waihopi in New Zealand, at Geraldton in Western Australia and at Morenstow in the United Kingdom."
Key words can be fed into a series of powerful computers known as "the dictionaries" and when those words are spoken or written and then transmitted by anyone via satellite, Echelon knows about it.
"Five nations share the results with the US as the senior partner," said the report.
The base near Geraldton is run by Australia's military spying arm, the Defence Signals Directorate and covers 35ha in a 415ha buffer zone. It is staffed by more than 100 people and operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Transmissions going via satellite from Russia and China are among the base's primary targets, according to a book by defence studies expert Professor Desmond Ball.
He said the Geraldton base gave the intelligence alliance between America, Britain and Australia complete coverage of the world's satellites. According to the first "insider" to go public about Echelon, the system was given the name by America's National Security Agency. It was originally referred to as project P415.
Margaret Newsham told a US committee of Congress in 1988 that she lost faith in the system when she found it was being used to spy on ordinary citizens, politicians, interest groups and private companies.
• Story originally published by •
The WA Sunday Times / October 22 2000
