|
Royal Air Force Menwith Hill or more simply RAF Menwith Hill is a Royal Air Force station near Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England which provides communications and intelligence support services to the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The site contains an extensive satellite ground station and is a communications intercept and missile warning site〔(RAF Menwith Hill )〕 and has been described as the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. RAF Menwith Hill is commanded by a Royal Air Force Officer, supported by an RAF element, whilst the majority of support services were provided by the United States Air Force, 421st Air Base Group until 2014.〔("Technology led to decision to cut Menwith Hill personnel" )〕 The site acts as a ground station for a number of satellites operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office,〔(NRO-FOIA request )〕 on behalf of the US National Security Agency, with antennae contained in a large number of highly distinctive white radomes, and is alleged to be an element of the ECHELON system.〔Bamford, James; Body of Secrets, Anchor, ISBN 0-385-49908-6; 2002〕 ==History== Menwith Hill Station was opened on of land acquired by the British War Office in 1954 and leased to the United States. The United States Army Security Agency established a high frequency radio monitoring capability, monitoring communications emanating from the Soviet Union, operating from 1958. In 1966 the National Security Agency (NSA) took on responsibility for the US operation of the site, expanding the capabilities to monitor international leased line communications transiting through Britain. The site was then one of the earliest to receive sophisticated early IBM computers, with which NSA automated the labour-intensive watch-list scrutiny of intercepted but unenciphered telex messages. During a 1997 court case, British Telecom revealed that in 1975, its predecessor, the Post Office, installed two cables between Menwith Hill and a coaxial cable that connected to the microwave radio station at Hunters Stones, which was part of the long-distance telephone network. This connection was replaced in 1992 by a new high capacity fibre-optic cable. Later, two additional cables were added over which telephone and other communications could go to and from the base. These cables were capable of transmitting over 100,000 phone calls simultaneously.〔(BT condemned for listing cables to US sigint station ), September 4, 1997〕 In March 2012 researcher Dr. Steve Schofield produced a 65-page report called "Lifting the Lid on Menwith Hill", funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and commissioned and published by the Yorkshire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Menwith Hill's primary mission is to provide "intelligence support for UK, US and allied interests". The base's multimillion-pound expansion, Project Phoenix, is "one of the largest and most sophisticated high technology programs carried out anywhere in the UK over the last 10 years". Of the 1,800 employees in 2012, 400 were British and 1,200 were American employees of the NSA. During an interview with Russia Today in April 2012, Schofield alleged that Menwith Hill was "involved in drone attacks". He said: "The UK’s providing a facility here that’s involved in drone attacks that we know, from independent assessments, are killing and injuring thousands of civilians, and because of the covert nature of that warfare, it’s very difficult to provide information and accountability through the UK parliament. And yet these are acts of war. And normally when we have war, parliament should normally inform people that we’re involved in those. And we’re not being informed. We’re kept entirely in the dark about them." During the 2009 G-20 London Summit NSA intercept specialists based at Menwith Hill attempted to target and decode the encrypted telephone calls of the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「RAF Menwith Hill」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|