Page "ECHELON" Paragraph 21

According to its website, the US National Security Agency ( NSA ) is " a high technology organization ... on the frontiers of communications and data processing ".

In 1999 the Australian Senate Joint Standing Committee on Treaties was told by Professor Desmond Ball that the Pine Gap facility was used as a ground station for a satellite-based interception network.

The satellites were said to be large radio dishes between 20 and 100 meters in diameter in geostationary orbits.

The original purpose of the network was to monitor the telemetry from 1970s Soviet weapons, air defence radar, communications satellites and ground based microwave communications.