Text Fwd: [Hawai'i] Center boosts military communications

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Lt. Gen. Richard Formica, right front, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, was on hand yesterday for the dedication of the new Army Wideband Satellite Communications Operations Center at the Wahiawa Annex of Pearl Harbor. The center is one of three big communications projects the Pentagon has undertaken at the Wahiawa Annex in recent years.
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM
The large antenna dishes measure 60 feet in diameter.
The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command dedicated its new Army Wideband Satellite Communications Operations Center during a ceremony yesterday at the Wahiawa Annex of Pearl Harbor. A tour was held during the ceremony, with one of the stops being inside a giant dome that houses one of the satellite dish receivers.
_______________________________________

* Text fwd from Kyle Kajihiro on Feb. 24, 2011

Star Advertizer
The Army facility is one of three big projects undertaken at the Pearl Harbor site recently
By William Cole
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Feb 24, 2011

Estimates are that four years after the start of the Iraq War in 2003, U.S. government demand for satellite bandwidth jumped from 7 gigabits per second to 12 gigabits.

Military satellite use is increasing, from troops on the ground and unmanned aerial vehicles in the air, to ships at sea.

The Wahiawa Annex of Pearl Harbor near Whitmore Village -- where 60-foot-diameter antenna dishes have sprouted in recent years -- has become a major communications crossroads.

A new 28,244-square-foot, $25.3 million Army Wideband Satellite Communications Operations Center was dedicated yesterday at the annex, bringing a greater capability to manage the river of satellite information that passes through the facility.

The 55 soldiers with Company D of the 53rd Signal Battalion, five Australian service members who augment them, and 10 contractors oversee the communications payload.

The information is transmitted through the Defense Satellite Communications System and Wideband Global Satellite Communication network.

The new center replaces and improves on 1980s-era satellite control capability that before the Wahiawa Annex facility was completed was controlled from Camp Roberts in California.

"Now we're able to provide the combatant commander the capability to have real-time images to make those tough decisions on the battlefield," said Capt. Daniel Zisa, the Company D commander.

The Army's communications center is one of three big projects the Pentagon has undertaken at the annex in recent years.

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service has a new $318 million Hawaii Regional Operations Security Center on 70 acres.

A new $65 million operations center also was built for the Naval and Telecommunications Area Master Station Pacific at the annex, and filled with $92 million in electronics, officials said.

The facility was named the Dan Healy Building after a Pearl Harbor SEAL killed in Afghanistan in 2005.

A Navy official previously called the Wahiawa Annex the most strategic piece of land west of the Mississippi.

"I think what's happening is it's really solidifying its place in the overall communications structure within the United States," said Navy Capt. Patricia Cole, commander of NCTAMS.

Officials say there were about 700 military members and other workers at the Wahiawa facility around 2006-07, and there are expected to be 3,500 by 2013.

Gone from the annex is an old high-frequency antenna known as the "elephant cage" because of its circular shape and high latticework walls, officials said. The design allowed for signal direction-finding.

By 2008, General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies had completed installation of three 60-foot antennas on 53-foot-tall pedestals at the Wahiawa Annex as part of the Mobile User Objective System, a narrow-band satellite communications system. The MUOS antennas joined five already there that are between 40 and 60 feet in diameter, officials said.

The Army's new Wideband Satellite Communications Operations Center has a 38-foot antenna enclosed in a fiberglass geodesic dome.

Officials said Hawaii is a better site for the center than its former location at Camp Roberts in California because of Hawaii's closer location to one of the military's Wideband Global Satellites.

The high-capacity military communications satellite is in geosynchronous orbit at 22,300 miles altitude.

"We call it a look angle," said Master Sgt. Dean McClain, operations officer for the 53rd Signal Battalion.

The angle was low from Camp Roberts and had to look through a lot of space.

"To be physically underneath the satellite is the most advantageous as far as transmission power," he said.

The satellite covers the Pacific Rim and is one of three WGS satellites. Three others are expected to be sent into space in 2011 and 2012.

The military also uses nine older Defense Satellite Communications System satellites. Each WGS satellite has more than 10 times the capacity of the DSCS satellites, according to WGS maker Boeing.

The operations floor of the new Army facility has a very large flat-screen monitor on the wall and 10 individual stations with six computer monitors at each station.

Sgt. Joshua Quenga, 25, who's originally from Maui, takes requests for satellite access. He said he sometimes gets 15 requests at once, and often about 50 requests a day.

"It's busy," he said.

Lt. Gen. Richard Formica, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said yesterday that the center dedication "represents an important milestone in our command's core task to provide trained and ready space and missile defense forces and capability to our combatant commanders and warfighters."

The Wahiawa Annex facility is being used as a model for similar improvements that will be made at satellite centers at Forts Detrick and Meade in Maryland and in Germany.
__________________________________
See also
DMZ Hawai'i
Please don’t build your telescope on Mauna Kea, Mr. Moore
February 24, 2011

DMZ Hawai'i
Protect Mauna Kea
February 24, 2011

Text Fwd:[Bruce Gagnon blog] SOME SPICY BITS FROM "TOP SECRET AMERICA"

* Bruce Gagnon blog
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
_________________________________________________________
* Update on July 22, 2010. Please see here.
_________________________________________________________

SOME SPICY BITS FROM "TOP SECRET AMERICA"

Knowing that many of you won't have time to read the long Washington Post expose on privatizing intelligence and war I thought I'd post a few interesting bits from the series.

In the end the story is not a surprise but the rich details give some insight into how the corporations have taken near total control of foreign policy and are becoming fat rich bastards to boot.

• In the Department of Defense, where more than two-thirds of the intelligence programs reside, only a handful of senior officials - called Super Users - have the ability to even know about all the department's activities. But as two of the Super Users indicated in interviews, there is simply no way they can keep up with the nation's most sensitive work.

• The result, he added, is that it's impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. "Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste," retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines said. "We consequently can't effectively assess whether it is making us more safe."

• With so many more employees, units and organizations, the lines of responsibility began to blur. To remedy this, at the recommendation of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, the George W. Bush administration and Congress decided to create an agency in 2004 with overarching responsibilities called the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to bring the colossal effort under control.

• "You can't find a four-star general without a security detail," said one three-star general now posted in Washington after years abroad. "Fear has caused everyone to have stuff. Then comes, 'If he has one, then I have to have one.' It's become a status symbol."

• When hired, a typical analyst knows very little about the priority countries - Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan - and is not fluent in their languages. Still, the number of intelligence reports they produce on these key countries is overwhelming, say current and former intelligence officials who try to cull them every day.

• Within the Defense Department alone, 18 commands and agencies conduct information operations, which aspire to manage foreign audiences’ perceptions of U.S. policy and military activities overseas...... And all the major intelligence agencies and at least two major military commands claim a major role in cyber-warfare, the newest and least-defined frontier.

• So great is the government's appetite for private contractors with top-secret clearances that there are now more than 300 companies, often nicknamed "body shops," that specialize in finding candidates, often for a fee that approaches $50,000 a person, according to those in the business.

• "This is a terrible confession," Robert Gates said. "I can't get a number on how many contractors work for the Office of the Secretary of Defense," referring to the department's civilian leadership.

• The privatization of national security work has been made possible by a nine-year "gusher" of money, as Gates recently described national security spending since the 9/11 attacks....
  With so much money to spend, managers do not always worry about whether they are spending it effectively....."Someone says, 'Let's do another study,' and because no one shares information, everyone does their own study," said Elena Mastors, who headed a team studying the al-Qaeda leadership for the Defense Department. "It's about how many studies you can orchestrate, how many people you can fly all over the place. Everybody's just on a spending spree. We don't need all these people doing all this stuff."

• The National Security Agency, which conducts worldwide electronic surveillance, hires private firms to come up with most of its technological innovations. The NSA used to work with a small stable of firms; now it works with at least 484 and is actively recruiting more.

• Contractors can offer more money - often twice as much - to experienced federal employees than the government is allowed to pay them. And because competition among firms for people with security clearances is so great, corporations offer such perks as BMWs and $15,000 signing bonuses, as Raytheon did in June for software developers with top-level clearances.

• Hiring contractors was supposed to save the government money. But that has not turned out to be the case. A 2008 study published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence found that contractors made up 29 percent of the workforce in the intelligence agencies but cost the equivalent of 49 percent of their personnel budgets. Gates said that federal workers cost the government 25 percent less than contractors.

• [General Dynamics] embraced the emerging intelligence-driven style of warfare. It developed small-target identification systems and equipment that could intercept an insurgent's cellphone and laptop communications. It found ways to sort the billions of data points collected by intelligence agencies into piles of information that a single person could analyze.....It also began gobbling up smaller companies that could help it dominate the new intelligence landscape, just as its competitors were doing.....The company reported $31.9 billion in revenue in 2009, up from $10.4 billion in 2000. Its workforce has more than doubled in that time, from 43,300 to 91,700 employees, according to the company.

• Another official, a longtime conservative staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee, described it as "a living, breathing organism" impossible to control or curtail. "How much money has been involved is just mind-boggling," he said. "We've built such a vast instrument. What are you going to do with this thing? . . . It's turned into a jobs program."

• From the road, it's impossible to tell how large the NSA has become, even though its buildings occupy 6.3 million square feet - about the size of the Pentagon - and are surrounded by 112 acres of parking spaces. As massive as that might seem, documents indicate that the NSA is only going to get bigger: 10,000 more workers over the next 15 years; $2 billion to pay for just the first phase of expansion; an overall increase in size that will bring its building space throughout the Fort Meade cluster to nearly 14 million square feet.

• Loudoun County, ranked as the wealthiest county in the country, helps supply the workforce of the nearby National Reconnaissance Office headquarters, which manages spy satellites. Fairfax County, the second-wealthiest, is home to the NRO, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Arlington County, ranked ninth, hosts the Pentagon and major intelligence agencies. Montgomery County, ranked 10th, is home to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. And Howard County, ranked third, is home to 8,000 NSA employees.

• The schools, indeed, are among the best, and some are adopting a curriculum this fall that will teach students as young as 10 what kind of lifestyle it takes to get a security clearance and what kind of behavior would disqualify them.

My Comments:

All this reenforces for me the whole notion that America's role under corporate globalization of the world economy will be "security export".

I am reminded of the Crown family from Chicago that have been significant owners of General Dynamics. They were early supporters of Obama's campaign for president and early on did national fundraising for him. They also opened the door to national Jewish community support for him. You could say they have an investment in Obama.

As one line above says, this is becoming a jobs program. And good paying jobs, with huge perks, for those hired. All you have to do to be hired is bury your judgement and your conscience. You have to be willing to advocate and lobby for a continuation of this massive gravy train. This puts you in league with fascist elements who are then using people's greed to help construct a global military machine whose principal purpose is to advance the interests of corporate capital.

I'd love to see the "fiscal conservatives" and Tea Baggers take a crack at this one. Instead of complaining about immigrants getting treatment at the hospital emergency room they ought to be publicly taking on the corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse that is now at unheard of levels.

More than that the conservatives and Tea Baggers should be first in line to question our "liberty and freedom" being lost as we lose our democracy to the forces of denial, secrecy, greed, and imperialism.

All being funded by working class people who won't get anything out of all this except the tax bill and fewer rights.

_____________________________________________________

* Related blogs from Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes

http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2010/07/top-secret-air-and-space-ops.html
Monday, July 19, 2010
TOP SECRET AIR AND SPACE OPS

'434 results for Air and satellite operations

27 government organizations/50 companies

Government Organization/HQ Location/Number of Locations/Number of Contracting Companies'

To see the Frontline trailer click below:




http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2010/07/outsourcing-intelligence-and-war.html
Monday, July 19, 2010
OUTSOURCING INTELLIGENCE AND WAR

Text fwd: India Buys Israeli Spy Satellite

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3998935&c=ASI&s=AIR
India Buys Israeli Spy Satellite
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 20 Mar 07:54 EDT (11:54 GMT)

NEW DELHI - India has bought a spy satellite from Israel with day-and-night viewing capability to boost surveillance capabilities in the aftermath of the Mumbai militant attacks, a report said March 20.

The satellite, which can see through clouds and carry out day-and-night all-weather imaging, has been one of the long-standing demands of the Indian military, the NDTV news channel said.

The 650-pound RISAT 2 will be launched by India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket in the next few weeks, the report said.

Indian scientists were in the process of integrating the satellite and the rocket at the Sriharikota space port in southern India, it said.

The acquisition was fast-tracked after the Nov. 26-29 Mumbai siege in which 10 gunmen went on a shooting spree.

India says the attackers came by boat from the Pakistani port city of Karachi to Mumbai, based on its investigations and the confession of the lone gunman captured alive after the 60-hour siege, in which 165 people were killed.

India's existing satellites get blinded at night and in the monsoon season.

NDTV said the new acquisition would also provide New Delhi with the capability to track incoming hostile ballistic missiles.

India treated Israel like a pariah for decades, but has forged close military links with Tel Aviv in recent years with the Jewish state replacing France in 2007 as its second-largest arms supplier after Russia.

The Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is ready to test a few components that soldiers may have in their hands by 2010.


All content © 2009, Army Times Publishing Company