At Le Monde diplomatique, Nicky Hager reports:
Israel’s most important intelligence-gathering installation is only a 30km drive into the Negev desert from Beersheba prison – where those taking part in the Gaza aid flotilla were briefly detained this June. The base, hidden until now, has rows of satellite dishes that covertly intercept phone calls, emails and other communications from the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia. Its antennas monitor shipping and would have spied on the aid ships in the days before they were seized.
Israel’s powerful position in the Middle East is often associated with its armed forces, nuclear weapons arsenal or covert (Mossad) operatives. But just as important is its intelligence gathering – monitoring governments, international organisations, foreign companies, political organisations and individuals. Most of this happens at the installation in the Negev a couple of kilometres to the north of the kibbutz of Urim. Our sources, close to Israeli intelligence, know the base first-hand. They describe lines of satellite dishes of different sizes, and barracks and operations buildings on both sides of the road (the 2333) that leads to the base. High security gates, fences and dogs protect the facility. As you can see on the internet, the satellite images of the base are quite clear. A practised eye easily discerns the signs of an electronic surveillance base. A large circle in the farmland shows the site of a direction-finding antenna (HF/DF) for monitoring shipping.
The Urim base was established decades ago to monitor Intelsat satellites that relay phone calls between countries. It expanded to cover maritime communications (Inmarsat), then rapidly targeted ever more numerous regional satellites. As such, says intelligence specialist Duncan Campbell, it is “akin to the UK-USA pact’s Echelon satellite interception ground stations”. The Echelon system is a network of interception stations around the world, set up in 1996 by the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Satellite phones used by the Gaza-bound aid ships were easy targets for this hi-tech equipment.
It’s a case of your $150 billion tax dollars at work. We’ve been “supporting” Israel’s crazy notion that as “chosen people” it can rule all Jews and master all non-Jews as the leader of the world prying into everyone’s privacy, blackmailing and threatening. So who is crazier, alQaeda or Zionism?
For a good analysis of this since way back to 9/11 read the following good piece of research:
http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Enigma-11-Israeli-Connection/dp/0595296823/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284924997&sr=1-3
Controlling communications has been vital since WWI, when the inability of the Wehrmacht to repair the phone lines fast enough contributed greatly to the ‘Miracle of the Marne’ that saved Paris. (Perhaps even before with the telegraph line cutting in the US Civil War.) The breaking of the Enigma code in WWII was vital in penetrating German and Japanese secrecy. The total dominance of US electronic warfare was the major factor in the success of the US forces invasions of Iraq — as the sudden crash into a wall that happened when the action became man to man testifies.
In the future, the communication spectrum will be the Achilles Heel for any power that cannot safeguard it — why else would the Chinese development of ASATs so stir up the Pentagon? Israel is following the trend by eavesdropping on its corner of the world, but its opponents would be fools not to have their sights on Urim. Wireless communication seems so convenient and easy, but whatever becomes vital also becomes vulnerable.
Me? I’m keeping my land line.
“Me? I’m keeping my land line.”
It worked for Hezbollah during the 2006 war.