Pine Gap is a joint Australian–United States satellite communications and signals intelligence surveillance base and Australian Earth station approximately 18 km (11 mi) south-west of the town of Alice Springs. It is jointly operated by Australia and the United States, and since 1988 it has been officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG); previously, it was known as Joint Defence Space Research Facility. It plays a crucial role in supporting the intelligence activities and military operations of the US around the world. The station is jointly run by the Australian Defence Force (Australian Signals Directorate), the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), US National Security Agency (NSA), and US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and is a key contributor to the NSA's global interception/surveillance effort, which included the ECHELON program. The classified NRO name for the Pine Gap base is Australian Mission Ground Station (AMGS), while the unclassified cover term for the NSA function of the facility is RAINFALL.
Base
The facilities at the base consist of a massive super computer complex with 38 radomes protecting radio dishes and operates with over 800 employees. Former NSA employee David Rosenberg indicated that the chief of the facility was a senior CIA officer at the time of his service there. Australian personnel stationed at the installation have access to the entire facility (depending on role and clearance). However, all Australian personnel are prohibited from entering the NSA's cryptology room. Similarly, all US Personnel are prohibited from the Australian Signals Directorate's cryptology room. The location is strategically significant because it controls United States spy satellites as they pass over one-third of the globe, including China, North Korea, the Asian parts of Russia, and the Middle East. Central Australia was chosen because it was too remote for spy ships passing in international waters to intercept its signals. The facility has become a key part of the local economy.
Military activities Pine Gap's activities have become more military-focused over time. One of its roles is to detect and geolocate the source of electronic signals, such as those emitted by mobile phones. This information is used by Five Eyes to identify and geolocate targets of interest, which it can then attack using special forces or lethal unmanned drones, for example. Since it was established, Pine Gap has assisted the US in planning for nuclear war. Leaked Department of Defence documents revealed that satellites controlled by the Pine Gap and Joint Defence Facility Nurrungar facilities were used during the Vietnam War to pinpoint targets for bombings in Cambodia. Joint Defence Facility Nurrungar relayed warnings of Scud missile launches to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. By 2003, this function had been fully transferred to Pine Gap. Location data provided by Pine Gap was used by the US drone programme, which has killed between 2500 and 3500 al-Qaeda and Taliban soldiers as well as hundreds of civilians. During the Gaza war, it is alleged Pine Gap provided the IDF with communications and electronic intelligence, which it had collected using two geosynchronous Orion satellites located over the Indian Ocean.
Operational history In late 1966, during the Cold War, a joint US–Australian treaty called for the creation of a US satellite surveillance base in Australia, to be titled the "Joint Defence Space Research Facility". The purpose of the facility was initially referred to in public as "space research". It was officially referred to as a "joint space research facility" until 1988. The Pine Gap treaty was signed on 9 December 1966 and stated that, after an initial nine years, either Australia or the US could cancel the agreement on giving one year's notice. Operations started in 1970 when about 400 American families moved to Central Australia. The function of the base when it first opened was to monitor military activities such as missile tests in Russia, China, Pakistan, Japan, Korea, and India. The base was placed on nuclear alert by the US Government during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when US secretary of state Henry Kissinger issued a DEFCON 3 force-wide alert. Australian personnel at the base, the Australian Government and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam were not informed of the alert. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and the rise of the war on terror in 2001, the base has seen a refocusing from mere nuclear treaty monitoring and missile launch detection, to become a vital warfighting base for US military forces. In 1999, with the Australian Government refusing to give details to an Australian Senate committee about the relevant treaties, intelligence expert Professor Des Ball from the Australian National University was called to give an outline of Pine Gap. According to Ball, since 9 December 1966 when the Australian and United States governments signed the Pine Gap treaty, Pine Gap had grown from the original two antennas to about 18 in 1999, and 38 by 2017. The number of staff had increased from around 400 in the early 1980s to 600 in the early 1990s and then to 800 in 2017, the biggest expansion since the end of the Cold War. Ball described the facility as the ground control and processing station for geosynchronous satellites engaged in signals intelligence collection, outlining four categories of signals collected:
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