The Americans are currently spending $31 Million expanding there Menwith Hill base, which although is designated RAF Menwith Hill is owned,maned and controlled by the US Govt to help UK get around UK privacy laws.
The scandal surrounding the Airbus contract a few years ago, the communications involving the bidding process by the various companies vying for the contract were intercepted by the NSA at Menwith Hill. The details were passed directly to the US Government, who then made sure their own US companies were furnished with this “insider knowledge”. Thus, the US companies mysteriously landed the contract!
So who thought GCHQ was tasked with UK National Security.
In a court case involving women peace campaigners a few years ago, a blundering British Telecom official accidentally revealed in open court that those nice BT engineers had connected fibre optic cables into Menwith Hill from their own communications site at nearby Hunters Stones. These cables are said to provide the Menwith Hill base with over 100,000 UK telephone lines.
In an amazing revelation, 19th century maps of the area show that the base is built directly above large disused quarry workings. So it seems that many of Menwith Hill’s activities are buried underground in many levels of secret blast-proof bunkers and tunnel networks.
British Telecom seems very keen to keep its chums in MI5 and GCHQ happy. BT’s massive research laboratory at Martlesham Heath, near Ipswich in Suffolk, routinely takes apart all new communications equipment that is produced so that “spooks” know precisely how to hack into them! At BT’s “switching centre” located in the Shropshire town of Oswestry, GCHQ is handed phone tapping opportunities on a plate.
So add Biometric cards, it`ll help with controlling what is heard in this centre directly onto the ground. The cards will aslo be trackable.
When both the New York and London incidents took place, Menwith Hill intercepted there mobile transmissions, but time scale between decoding, analysing and implementing a solution was too long.
Its not what the govt tells you its doin that should be a concern.
I`d be happier supporting it if Terrorism was at a high incident level, but 2 in a decade I don`t believe justifies these levels of control.