Tuesday, September 06,
2016
The NSA
Abroad: The UK Base That Makes US Targeted Killing Possible
Newly revealed documents leaked by Edward Snowden and reported
by The Intercept detail the inner workings of the NSA's
largest overseas base
In a damning exposé published Monday, The Intercept reporter Ryan Gallagher
dives into the inner workings of National Security Agency's (NSA) largest
overseas spying base, the U.K.'s Menwith Hill Station, and reveals concrete
evidence that the British government is complicit in the United States'
targeted killing program.
Citing top-secret documents obtained from NSA whistleblower Edward
Snowden, Gallagher reports, "The files reveal for the first time how the
NSA has used the British base to aid 'a significant number of capture-kill
operations' across the Middle East and North Africa, fueled by powerful
eavesdropping technology."
And given the British government's repeated assertion that
activities at Menwith Hill "have always been, and continue to be"
carried out with its "knowledge and consent," the findings are all
the more damning.
"For years, Reprieve and others have sought clarification
from the British government about the role of U.K. bases in the U.S. covert
drone program, which has killed large numbers of civilians in countries where
we are not at war," Kat Craig, legal director of London-based human rights
group Reprieve, told The Intercept. "We were palmed off
with platitudes and reassured that any U.S. activities on or involving British
bases were fully compliant with domestic and international legal provisions. It
now appears that this was far from the truth."
Built in North Yorkshire in the 1950s to spy on Soviet
communications, the base experienced a rebirth after the 9/11 attacks and is
now used "extensively to tap into communications in otherwise
hard-to-reach areas," which includes countries outside of declared war zones,
such as Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia.
Menwith Hill is unique, as far as spy outposts go, because it
pioneered programs specifically focused on "eavesdropping on
communications as they are being transmitted through the air," which makes
it a vital asset in targeting individuals in remote regions, such as northern
Africa or the Middle East, who are more reliant on satellite
communications.
The documents reveal two major surveillance capabilities at the
site: one, called FORNSAT, "uses powerful antennae...to eavesdrop on
communications as they are being beamed between foreign satellites"; the
second, OVERHEAD, employs "U.S. government satellites orbiting above
targeted countries to locate and monitor wireless communications on the ground
below—such as cellphone calls and even WiFi traffic."
What's more, Menwith Hill "can harvest data from more than
300 million emails and phone calls a day," Gallagher reports, and—more
worrisome—"pinpoint" the exact location of groups or individuals so
that they can be captured or killed.
"The programs—with names such as GHOSTHUNTER and
GHOSTWOLF—have provided support for conventional British and American military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan," Gallagher reports. "But they
have also aided covert missions in countries where the U.S. has not declared
war."
Gallagher continues:
The NSA’s
documents describe GHOSTHUNTER as a means "to locate targets when they log
onto the internet." It was first developed in 2006 as "the only
capability of its kind" and it enabled "a
significant number of capture-kill operations" against alleged terrorists.
Only a few specific examples are given, but those cases give a remarkable
insight into the extraordinary power of the technology.
Another document detailing
the GHOSTWOLF project, according to Gallagher, provides the first concrete
evidence directly implicating the U.K. in covert, lethal actions in Yemen.
British human rights lawyer Jemima Stratford QC told Gallagher
that these documents show that the operations at Menwith Hill could have
violated the European Convention on Human Rights, which specifically states
that "no one shall be deprived of his life intentionally" except when
found guilty in a court of law.
And Leeds-based Parliament member Fabian Hamilton said,
"Any nation-state that uses military means to attack any target, whether
it is a terrorist, whether it is legitimate or not, has to be accountable to
its electorate for what it does."
"That's the basis of our Parliament, it's the basis of our
whole democratic system," Hamilton continued. "How can we say that
Menwith can carry out operations of which there is absolutely no accountability
to the public? I don't buy this idea that you say the word 'security' and
nobody can know anything. We need to know what is being done in our name."
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to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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