The Base: Pine Gap's role in US Warfighting - Background Briefing - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The Base: Pine Gap's role in US Warfighting - Background Briefing - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)



The Base: Pine Gap's role in US Warfighting

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show transcriptSunday 20 August 2017 8:05AM (view full episode)
IMAGE: A RARE PHOTOGRAPH OF PINE GAP. (SUPPLIED: KRISTIAN LAEMMLE-RUFF @KRISTIANLAEMMLERUFF)LINK TO LARGER IMAGE.

National Security Agency documents exclusively obtained by Background Briefing reveal the extent to which Australia is assisting the United States military to fight its wars.

These documents, together with the stories of people intimately involved in those wars, uncover the crucial role the US-Australian satellite surveillance base at Pine Gap in Central Australia has in battlefield operations around the world. Peter Cronau reports.
Supporting Information


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NSA Intelligence Relationship with Australia, dated April 2013, a Top Secret information paper distributed to all members of the Five Eye intelligence community: USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand.

Mission 7600 and Mission 8300 Secret NSA program overview, dated 24 May 2005, NSA distributed to USA, UK, and Australia.

National Reconnaissance Office SIGINT guide, marked Secret, dated 24 May 2005, NSA distributed to USA, UK, and Australia.

Site Profile — RAINFALL, dated 23 August 2012, marked Top Secret, NSA distributed to all members of the Five Eye intelligence community.

Classification Guide — NSA/CSS Activities at Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap, marked Secret, dated 3 September 2009, NSA distributed to USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand.

These documents come from the archive leaked by Edward Snowden to journalists Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald. They were submitted to the NSA for comment prior to publication.