     22 April 1997, Electronic Engineering Times:

     Space/intelligence technology's embattled frontier 

     Darmstadt, Germany - Technology's tentacles are reaching farther 
     into our private lives as the electronics industry pushes deeper 
     into submicron design. Telecom and networking advances allow
     us to reach one another via phone, fax, pager, e-mail or
     videoconference at any time, from almost anywhere. With
     that expanded access, of course, comes an expanded
     potential for civil-liberties abuse. 

     The power of the new technology has not been lost on the
     intelligence community. With the United States in the lead,
     governments around the globe are extending technology's
     tentacles into space, the better to monitor their enemies, allies
     and citizens. In such an atmosphere, privacy evaporates. 

     I spent some time here last month mulling those issues at a
     conference on "The Ambivalence of Space Technology." I
     talked to people intimate with the issues of intelligence
     operations and satellite systems and got a glimpse of an
     end-use market that appears to be catching us unawares. 

     European citizens and governments alike have expressed
     concern over the recent expansion of U.S. intelligence bases
     in Europe. The National Security Agency (NSA) and National
     Reconnaissance Office (NRO) are combining efforts at large
     sites known as regional SIGINT (signals intelligence)
     operation centers, or RSOCs. 

     The agencies say the combined operations will lower
     intelligence costs. But the emphasis on RSOCs transfers most
     ground-based snooping operations-the exclusive domain of
     the NSA-to space, putting the NRO at the helm. 

     At a recent Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.,
     NRO director Keith Hall said that the merging of the NSA and
     NRO bases is the first step in creating "collaborative systems
     of systems in signals intelligence." In the future, Hall said,
     those joint efforts could also include the U.S. Space
     Command, the service intelligence agencies and even
     commercial resources "borrowed" by the intelligence
     community. 

     Europe is a key proving ground for those concepts. Its two
     largest RSOCs - Menwith Hill Station, in British Yorkshire,
     and Bad Aibling, southeast of Munich, Germany - have
     expanded significantly since 1990, adding almost quarterly to
     their arsenals of radomes-large, Kevlar-covered geodesic
     domes used to protect radar and satellite-downlink dishes
     from weather and prying eyes-and high-frequency antennas.
     There are also RSOCs in the continental United States, but
     those lack the unusual antenna arrays and smaller radomes of
     the European sites. Critics claim the European equipment is
     being used to intercept communications among private
     citizens and companies. 

     What's more, high-ranking British and German officials have
     found it virtually impossible to challenge the bases or even to
     inquire about their operations. Much of the outcry has instead
     come from private citizens. 

     The most visible sources of critics' ire are the proliferating
     radomes. Menwith Hill has been an Army Security Agency
     base since 1954 and an NSA base since 1966, and it began
     installing radomes in 1974. Anne Lee, an Otley applied-
     physics teacher who has devoted four years to opposing
     Menwith Hill, said the base now constructs radomes before
     dish construction begins, so that critics will not know at what
     targets the dishes are aimed. British journalist Duncan
     Campbell spent the1980s trying to show that the Moonpenny
     series of radomes at Menwith were aimed at commercial
     communication satellites. 

     The Runway 

     Running east and west across the south edge of Menwith is a
     series of identical radomes, dubbed the Runway, that's
     believed to be involved in downloading information from the
     second-generation family of geosynchronous SIGINT
     satellites known as Vortex or Magnum. The Runway was
     constructed early this decade-after Campbell did most of his
     major investigative work. 

     Steeplebush II, a subterranean, radiation-hardened facility
     surrounded by berms, was installed to process information
     from the Runway satellites. At the end of 1996, a gigantic
     radome on the southeast end of the base was constructed.
     Dubbed GT-6, it appears to be dedicated to receiving
     information from the third-generation geosynchronous
     satellites informally known as Advanced Orion or Advanced
     Vortex. 

     Those satellites, along with polar-orbit satellites called
     Advanced Jumpseat, all rolled out in the past three years with
     virtually no publicity. They are launched into space using the
     Titan 4, a special high-performance rocket that has no
     purpose other than to lift classified payloads to high orbit.
     While Lockheed Martin Corp. publicizes every successful
     Titan 4 launch, the cargo is never revealed. 

     Lee said the construction of new radome families at Menwith
     Hill implies that radomes are being used in two ways to
     violate the civil liberties of British citizens: The
     geosynchronous satellites downloaded at Steeplebush II are
     tasked with intercepting commercial as well as military
     communications from orbit, and the Moonpenny radomes
     listen in from the ground on commercial traffic transmitted
     from space via commercial relay satellites. 

     Less overt, but perhaps as significant for intercepting
     commercial traffic, is a new suite of vertical HF antennas
     constructed in a portion of the base accessible only to the
     NSA. 

     In the past, the security agency has used concentric rings of
     so-called circularly disposed antenna arrays-commonly
     known as elephant cages-to track military radio traffic. Tracy
     Hart, an RF researcher and critic of the Menwith Hill
     operation whose Leeds home was raided in March by
     Ministry of Defence civil police, said new, sparse arrays of
     omni-gain antennas and associated rhombic antennas appear
     to target commercial communications. 

     Also clearly visible is a series of very tall antennas known as
     Knobsticks and Knobsticks II. The defense ministry, Hart
     said, appeared particularly interested in her Knobsticks
     research material. 

     Hart added that "there's something coming in behind the
     Knobsticks array. It's hard to tell what it is, but it seems to be
     significant." 

     While much less is known about the RSOC at Bad Aibling,
     the similarities between the U.K. and German bases' overall
     layouts are striking. British Government Communication
     Headquarters personnel and German BND intelligence staffers
     occupy the southwest corners of their respective bases and
     maintain their own radomes. In the south-central portion of
     Bad Aibling, in an area equivalent to Menwith Hill's Runway
     site, the German BND and the NSA maintain an unusual,
     W-shaped antenna array that, intelligence analyst Erich
     Schmidt-Eenboom said, is officially claimed to be used in
     monitoring Russian strategic forces. 

     More similarities 

     Both bases locate their Pusher omni-gain antenna arrays in
     their northeast sectors-the sites farthest from the national
     intelligence services' operations. And Schmidt-Eenboom said
     tall antennas being erected among the NSA radomes in
     Germany appear similar to Menwith Hill's Knobsticks. 

     The German government has taken a harder line against
     protesters than have the British authorities, though the latter
     have adopted a sterner stance in recent weeks. A case in
     point was the March 12 raid on Hart's home. Ministry police
     confiscated virtually all her research material on Menwith Hill,
     and she was told that before the material could be returned, it
     would have to pass muster under the guidelines of both the
     British Official Secrets Act and U.S. Freedom of Information
     Act. 

     Britain's government has also given local police broader
     authority to arrest protesters. 

     Hart acknowledged that many of her photos and maps of the
     base could be considered sensitive. But "they even nicked
     some material printed off the Web and some product catalogs
     from companies like Raytheon and Antennas for
     Communications. I guess they don't see a need for private
     citizens to have marketing literature about radomes," she
     quipped. 

     Germany always has maintained a tough stance against critics
     of the Bad Aibling RSOC, warning, for example, that anyone
     who photographs the base without authorization could face a
     long prison sentence. In its March 17 issue, news magazine
     Der Spiegel published a color photo spread of Bad Aibling and
     asserted that the base was involved in the interception of
     civilian phone and fax communications in member countries
     of the European Union. 

     A number of those attending the space-intelligence
     conference here last month attempted to take pictures at the
     base on March 19 but were turned away by U.S. troops. 

     Is an Orwellian future being shaped on the EDA workstations
     of the world's electronics-design centers? Perhaps that
     smacks of paranoia. But these cautionary anecdotes illustrate
     how technology cleverly designed and implemented on the IC
     level can turn on us at the system level in ways we haven't
     yet fully fathomed. 

     U.S. military officials have been surprisingly candid about
     their intent to take maximum strategic advantage of their
     information trump cards. "We see all dialogue as healthy," Air
     Force Secretary Sheila Widnall said when asked about
     European opposition to the RSOCs. "But our allies must
     understand that we bring tremendous capabilities to the table,
     and it would be to their advantage to find ways we both can
     use [them]." 

     In a Space Symposium address Widnall called an experiment
     to send real-time video intelligence from an unmanned drone
     over Bosnia to intelligence bases in England "an example of
     information dominance in action. Our space-based forces are
     the glue that holds that dominance together." 

     In a more blatant revelation of U.S. sentiment, Gen. Howell
     Estes, commander of the U.S. Space Command, said the
     United States "is the only nation intellectually prepared for and
     morally capable" of controlling space-based intelligence. 

     Menwith Hill opponent Lee is nonetheless optimistic. The
     Menwith radomes, she observed, are positioned on top of an
     ancient Roman road. She hopes to see "the Menwith balls
     take their place with the Roman roads as remnants of a
     former occupier." 

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