McKenzie Wark on Wed, 26 Sep 2001 08:20:25 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Information War |
Some interesting information here about signals intelligence and the internet... Outback spy stations key to Australian role By Marian Wilkinson Sydney Morning Herald 26th September http://www.smh.com.au The Prime Minister might be gearing up for a "khaki election" but defence experts say Australia's most critical contribution to the United States-led war on terrorism will be intelligence gathering. "It is overwhelmingly more important than anything else we can do," said the former head of the Strategy Division of the Defence Department, Mr Allan Behm. "And it is directly supporting the US right now." As the US attempts to pinpoint Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan, the Pine Gap ground station in central Australia, operated jointly by US and Australian intelligence, is working overtime receiving huge quantities of radio communications. This gathering of so-called "signals intelligence" or "sigint" sucks in everything from microwave links to some military radio and walkie-talkie transmissions from a spy satellite usually stationed over the mid-Indian Ocean. "It's just a matter of where they point the antenna," said Dr Des Ball, a defence analyst. The processed material is being fed to the US National Security Agency and could be used in the hunt for bin Laden and any military operations in Afghanistan. The intelligence could be used to identify targets for bombing raids and play a role in preventing bin Laden from activating other operations. The Defence Minister, Mr Reith, alluded to these operations shortly after the terrorist attacks. But using signals intelligence to track bin Laden personally will be extremely difficult, according to Dr Ball, who has been examining the exiled Saudi's communications network. "As far as we know he hasn't used a satellite phone since February 1999," said Dr Ball. "Up until then he was using them quite regularly." The satellite calls stopped three months after the first US cruise missile attack on bin Laden's bases in retaliation for the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But there is evidence that, until recently, bin Laden's network was using email, Web sites and bulletin boards. According to Dr Ball, this means a second base, the Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station near Geraldton in Western Australia, will also be vital because it can monitor email transmissions as well as telephone communications. The close working relationship between Australian and US intelligence means that this co-operation can be "seamless", said Mr Behm. "It will far outweigh any other material support." But Australia's contribution to the US campaign remains open-ended. Both the Prime Minster and Defence Minister are still refusing to rule out sending Australian ground troops to fight alongside US forces if Washington makes the request. As a former defence planner, Mr Behm believes it is unlikely the US would commit a large number of ground forces to fight a war in Afghanistan this winter. But speculation is growing that small units of US Special Forces will be sent into Afghanistan in the hunt for bin Laden and his network. Mr Howard has speculated on Australian Special Air Service squadrons assisting the US. One SAS squadron, the counter-terrorism team, would not go as they are expected to play a key role in providing security for world leaders attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Brisbane next month. But defence analyst Mr David Horner believes two SAS teams could be sent to assist the US. Their most likely role would be to provide "search and rescue" operations for US pilots shot down in Afghanistan and they could be based in neighbouring Pakistan or the Central Asian Republics. Australian SAS teams were sent to Kuwait in 1998 in this capacity when the US and Britain planned a second attack on Iraq. The attack was aborted and the SAS forces were brought home without seeing action. ________________________________________________________________ http://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/ mckenziewark@hotmail.com is a temporary address. Please reply to mw35@nyu.edu ... we no longer have roots, we have aerials ... ________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net