Marlborough ‘spy’ base: listening to what?

Press, 5 March 1988, Page 21

Marlborough ‘spy’ base: listening to what?

By

KEN COATES

Unrestricted telephone tapping into satellite calls in and ojut of New Zealand, and throughout the Pacific, is how an outspoken critic of the proposed listening base in’ Waihopai Valley, | near Blenheim, sees its main function.

Owen Wilkes, who worlds for the Peace Movement Aotearoa in Wellington, rejects the idea that an arm of New Zealand's security service will eavesdrop on Soviet, Chinese, Indonesian.' Australian, or even United Stages or French satellites.

He speculates that Waihopai, to be staffed and operated by the Government Communications Security Bureau; will eavesdrop on the international “Intelsat” system — used for the; world’s telephone, telex and fax j communications. ■ ’ I ; ■

Wilkes talks about security men being able to listen to conversations. say, between people sympathetic to the Kanak causein New Caledonia and New Zealand's Belau anti-nuclear activists talking to United Nations in New York, andj even finding out when Ken Douglas is due back in Wellington. [ Intelligence will be fpd by microwave from Waihopjai to Wellington for analysis l in the Ministry of Defence’s Freyberg building, dubbed “Spyberg,” in which the communications security bureau occupies the top three floors. ' | Blenheim people were aSspred by 1 the retiring heaS of |the bureau’, Colin Hanson, that :the

“satellite intercept station” would not be used to intercept communications of New Zealand or its people.

He said independent sources of intelligence are important to Government defence, security and now economic ; policy-mak-ing. The bureau would "exploit certain targets.” which could not be publicised. The notion that the main aim of the Waihopai “spy base” is to listen in to the huge daily international trafficin the Pacific and to and from New; Zealand is dismissed as “laughable” by a senior Telecom executive. "Anything is possible by way of eavesdropping if you spend enough on equipment, but it would require an incredibly large number of (people,” he .says. i The man does not want his name used, but works with Intelsat receiving technology in New Zealand, which includes ground dishes at Warkworth, Mount Crawford and Rangiora. Because of the hundreds of channels used all over the Pacific (five satellites and a possible 12,000 simultaneous calls are mentioned by Wilkes) and the unscheduled times involved, eavesdropping to pick up a useful and interesting ; conversation would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. More likely, says 'the Telecom engineer, is eavesdropping on other countries' military communications. The Tangimoaha listening station in Manawatu' operates on high whereas Waihopai would pick up super

high frequency transmission via satellites. The Waihopai station it has been stated, will track, “faint, distant signals." It is seen by the Telecom official as part of a global communications system for military purposes. For every commercial satellite, there is a military one, used for high technology military) navigation. Another i official says that in future a great deal of international traffic in the Pacific would be carried by fibre optic cable, which is cheap and competitive. ; In the \ future, much more confidential telephoned information would be transmitted by this means, and it is inconceivable this could have been overlooked by the planners of Waihopai, he says. 'Where does this leave Owen Wilkes?

He sees the problem of tracking calls ’as no more difficult than using the same equipment Telecom uses in ensuring that from the scramble of incoming calls each gets to the right number. '

Telephone calls can also be monitored by tape recording, he says. The British security service tapes all traffic across the Irish Sea. he says, and after an inci-

dent i such as a bombing, it monitors the tapes; in a bid to locate informative calls. As’ for fibre optic cable, he says I this is being used over

routes carrying heavy traffic, such |as across the Tasman. But in the Pacific, an increasing voluriie of communication between islands is by; satellite. He discounts the, value of listening to satellites’ belonging to foreign countries. 'New Zealand would not understand the really interesting military, or diplomatic information because it would be in unbreakable code.

Wilkes’s theory* is that, for example, by tapping into a channel containing airline passenger lists, telexed ahead of aircraft, "the spooks will be able to keep track of everyone moving around the Pacific.”

As he sees it, the planned "spy base” does not even have the justification of spying on other nations’ aggressive military activities. He could go along with eavesdropping on the Soviets’ messages to their 'Wellington embassy.

“Waihopai will’ be spying on ordinary people, some of >whom are trying to bring independence to their countries, or campaigning for a nuclear-free Pacific,” he says. J

He envisages jit listening to micro-States trying to negotiate with super-Powers. and grassroots businesses, trying to fend off multi-national takeovers. Owen Wilkes is critical of what he says will be the ability of the communications security bureau to listen to thousands of telephone calls in and out of New Zealand every day. He says there is evidence that Waihopai will supply data to the United States, and that it will be operated as part of a .joint Australia-New Zealand venture.

The National Security Agency of the United States would have the advantage of local expertise and knowledge through a link with the Waihopai station. New Zealanders could interpret the significance of Pacific Island conversations,’ for example, and send daily summaries.

Wilkes says it is still an open question whether; the estimated $25 million cost will be paid;for by New Zealand or the American taxpayer.

Computer equipment from the United States will be used, and Wilkes observes that Waihopai is an indication; that intelligence cooperation with the United States is thriving better than ever before.

The New Zealander who asks sensitive questions and annoys officialdom and Governments will continue his investigations into Waihopai, and just what its purpose is. ’ ■

He has been busy identifying covert action in the Pacific, and reports that; it has stepped; up enormously in the last two years. The votes of some island nations are of some value internationally and have been seen as cheap to buy, he says. I These days, the man who fell foul of the ’security services of both Norway and; Sweden lives in a house he has bought in the Aro Valley, Wellington. In Norway, ini 1981, he was

found guilty of! making public information that was considered should have been kept secret out of concern for the, security of Norway. Fines and , court costs amounted to $4OOO. '

Later the same year, he was arrested in Sweden, initially as a Russian spy. When the first charge of espionage was dropped and changed to; gross unauthorised access to secret (information, Swedish newspapers! were critical of the security police.

Wilkes was followed while on a 10-day holiday (cycling tour of the Baltic islands of Gotland and Oland. He made , notes and sketches, and ; took snapshot photographs, of air defence radar installations that could be seen from tourist; paths and roads. ' '

He was arrested six weeks later, some say on a; mistaken tip that he was a Soviet bloc spy, or because of a desire; to discredit the Stockholm | Peace Research Institute for which he worked.

’ I i He received a six-month conditional sentence and; was banned from returning to Sweden for 10 years. He still dresses casually in open-necked shirt and shorts, and is highly suspicious of official statements. But the world would be the poorer without (him and his kind, who continually probe where they are not (welcome, seeking V answers to questions on behalf of everyone. |

When Dougla is due back

‘Spooks able to keep track’

Some island

votes cheap

Swedish ban in 1981 i