Waihopai Satellite station

[Bruce]

I noticed last week the greenie, conspiricy theorist and anti American brigade were making a big fuss over "The domes" at Waihopai near Blenheim. They claim it is a secret US Spy base, and that they want it shut down. A couple of questions here, Largely for comment.

1. Who says it is a spy base? Officially it is a communications station

2. Is there anything in NZs anti nuclear policy or the NZ Constitution that says that the US military cannot have a base here ? (it is not nuclear capable)

3. What exactly is wrong with spying (if in fact it is a "spy base") anyway, especially as we live a a world where the main threats are not obviously visible?

A common call from the same group of people is that the US intelligence got it wrong with regards to Iraq - therefore in the interests of more accurate intel, shouldnt they be supporting any spy activities?

[Dave Homewood]

Waihopai isn't the only one, what about Warkorth's telecommunications dish? Both facilities alledgedly listen in to private phone calls and when certain words are said, they record the message and subsequent ones. That's what I've heard and read many a time. Whether it's true I don't know, probably is.

The protests are nothing new, they were protesting there in 1988 for the same reasons, but the Yanks are not going away in a hurry. NZ feels they need to be in the loop in case any info regarding us crops up.

Sadly though, I guess it's this sort of "intelligence" that overheard Al Quada's second in command being invited to dinner a few weeks back. Result, Pakistan illegally bombed by USA, and 18 innocents dead.

I think very little info gathered would be actually useful. I'm not sure it's worth the trouble myself when you see the myriad of bungles the US so-called-intelligence creates.

[corsair67]

From what I'm lead to understand, Waihopai is used to intercept various types of electronic communications e.g. telephone, fax, e-mails, etc.

As you may be able to imagine, the sheer volume of these types of communications transmitted on a daily basis must make it extremely difficult to monitor this very effectively; so how much use is obtained from much of what is recorded is probably academic. Of course, if you were discussing ploting a terrorist attack, I dare say that would be picked up fairly swiftly!

There is no such thing as a personal communication anymore, and I'd be much more concerned about private companies and/or individuals who monitor work e-mails, web usage, telephone calls or security camera footage, rather than worrying about what the US and NZ Governments are up to at Waihopai.