NSA listening post Sugar Grove, West Virginia ECHELON Station

[Jara sang]

http://eyeball.sabotage.org/sugar-eyeball.htm

Sugar Grove, West Virginia - COMSAT interception at ECHELON site

73. US government documents confirm that the satellite receiving station at Sugar Grove, West Virginia is an ECHELON site, and that collects intelligence from COMSATs. The station is about 250 miles south-west of Washington, in a remote area of the Shenandoah Mountains. It is operated by the US Naval Security Group and the US Air Force Intelligence Agency.




74. An upgraded system called TIMBERLINE II, was installed at Sugar Grove in the summer of 1990. At the same time, according to official US documents, an "ECHELON training department" was established.(47) With training complete, the task of the station in 1991 became "to maintain and operate an ECHELON site".(48)



75. The US Air Force has publicly identified the intelligence activity at Sugar Grove: its "mission is to direct satellite communications equipment consumers of COMSAT information ... This is achieved by providing a trained cadre of collection system operators, analysts and managers".(49) In 1990, satellite photographs showed that there were 4 satellite antennae at Sugar Grove. By November 1998, ground inspection revealed that this had expanded to a group of 9.

[davidinalameda]

1. that's Virginia, not West Virginia

[Jara sang]

3. Sugar Grove is actually in West Virginia.

Map quest is not very precise. The site might actually be on a high ridge that straddles the WV, VA line.

[davidinalameda]

6. according to Google, it's in WV

I don't like Map Quest

[Jara sang]

8. Topozone is mo bettah.

http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=17&n=4264596.00007919&e=650014.000007042&datum=nad83

[bigtree]

2. Controversy from 1999

"News articles on Echelon have captured the zeitgeist of the moment, spurred along by PR stunts like "Jam Echelon" day (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,32039,00.html). Newsweek reported this week that the NSA is going to "help the FBI track terrorists and criminals in the United States." (The agency denied it.) A 6 December New Yorker article also wondered about the future of Fort George Meade."

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,33026,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2

[MountainLaurel]

4. Is that near the Green Bank Observatory?

Thanks for posting!

[Jara sang]

5. Yeah, I thought they may have been a part of the same complex.

But Green Bank is down the road in the Greenbriar? valley.

[MountainLaurel]

7. I checked, out of curiosity

And the two are about 60 miles apart. This place is way the fuck up in the boonies: Makes Green Bank look urban.