Another post on John's Naval, Marine and other Service news
.
.
![Revealed – Australia’s own PRISM facility]()
The Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) will be one of the main tenants in a new data centre being buil at HMAS Harman. A number of contracts have been signed, including $11 million with John Holland for the building construction, which still stands empty. The government said in its initial tender documents that the works would be completed by March 2013, and that the total cost of the project would be ‘in the order of’ $135 million’.
The DSD (motto – ‘Reveal their secrets – Protect our own’) is Australia’s equivalent of the US National Security Agency (NSA). That shadowy US body has made headline news this week since whistleblower Ed Snowden disclosed the extent of its spying operations on US citizens – the PRISM electronic surveillance program.
Such domestic and non-military snooping would normally be way beyond its brief, excepting that the all-encompassing powers handed to the US Government under the post-9/11 Patriot Act allow it to do just about anything it wants to do. And when governments are given power, they usually exercise it.
Revealed – Australia’s own PRISM facility
The Defence Department is building a new secret communications facility designed to handle the ‘data deluge’ of electronic intelligence the US shares with Australia. PRISM is in town.
In the quiet Canberra suburb of Harman, abutting the NSW border near Queanbeyan, is the Royal Australian Navy’s communications complex. In the quaint Navy way of naming shore facilities as if they are ships (the phrase is ‘stone frigates’) it is called HMAS Harman.The Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) will be one of the main tenants in a new data centre being buil at HMAS Harman. A number of contracts have been signed, including $11 million with John Holland for the building construction, which still stands empty. The government said in its initial tender documents that the works would be completed by March 2013, and that the total cost of the project would be ‘in the order of’ $135 million’.
The DSD (motto – ‘Reveal their secrets – Protect our own’) is Australia’s equivalent of the US National Security Agency (NSA). That shadowy US body has made headline news this week since whistleblower Ed Snowden disclosed the extent of its spying operations on US citizens – the PRISM electronic surveillance program.
Such domestic and non-military snooping would normally be way beyond its brief, excepting that the all-encompassing powers handed to the US Government under the post-9/11 Patriot Act allow it to do just about anything it wants to do. And when governments are given power, they usually exercise it.
.
.
