Inside Pine Gap: The Spy Who Came in from the Desert

Description

In 1966, Australia and the US signed a treaty that allowed the establishment of a jointly run satellite tracking station, just south of Alice Springs. For more than fifty years it has operated in a shroud of secrecy and been the target of much public and political controversy. David Rosenberg, a US high-tech spy who worked at Pine Gap for 18 years, was the first to speak out to give an insider's account of what happens behind those locked gates in the middle of the Australian desert. Rosenberg detailed his career with an American intelligence agency during a tumultuous period in history that covered the terms of three American Presidents, four Australian Prime Ministers, the end of the Cold War, a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, two wars in Iraq, genocide in Rwanda, as well as the 'War against Terror' and the emergence of North Korea as a nuclear-armed nation. This revised and expanded edition of Rosenberg's account is a fascinating glimpse inside the top-secret world of military surveillance. It includes a new afterword discussing how, in the fallout of controversies such as the Edward Snowden leaks, the ethics of eavesdropping are now more important than ever. www.pinegapbook.com

David Rosenberg worked for the NSA for over 20 years, including 18 years as an American representative at the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap in Alice Springs. As an Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) signals analyst and manager for his team, he was responsible for identifying, evaluating and reporting the military capabilities of countries that posed potential threats to the United States. Since leaving the NSA in 2008, he has become a freelance writer for Australia's On Duty magazine, writing about the world of signals intelligence. He is the technical and creative consultant to the major Screentime production Pine Gap, an original series for Netflix and the ABC, providing authenticity in an operations environment and signals intelligence collection scenarios. He is also a professional speaker at intelligence conferences, corporate events and community organisations, as well as a participant in discussions about Pine Gap on various radio programs. David enjoys community service work, having held vice-chairman and fundraising chairman roles on two charities. David became an Australian citizen in 2009 and currently resides in Sydney with his wife and family.