Speaking of ECHELON, I saw a recent map of US intelligence assets around the world (Can't find it now, but will keep trying) which had a few sites in Australia,

Speaking of ECHELON, I saw a recent map of US intelligence assets around the world (Can't find it now, but will keep trying) which had a few sites in Australia, but was glaringly missing Pine Gap. [1] Apparently the current foreign minister Bob Carr, when recently asked about this "...did not respond directly to a question about whether the Pine Gap facility is being used as part of the PRISM program."[2] Considering that one of the primary concerns of Pine Gap is monitoring "transmissions intended for communications satellites; and microwave emissions, such as long-distance telephone calls." I'd find it hard to believe it isn't a fairly major part of the PRISM system for the southern hemisphere. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap [2]: http://www.zdnet.com/au/australian-government-to-assess-prism-impact-7000016637/ http://www.zdnet.com/au/australian-government-to-assess-pris...