Rosman's NSA role

[Phillip H. Zakas]

American federation of scientists maintain a list of facilities at the link
below.  The analysis looks pretty good to me.  Interesting point: there is a
limit to which satellites could be monitored from the area...for example I
believe european satellites and asian satellites are outside of 'view'
because of the curvature of the earth.  Could perhaps be pointed south and
at intra USA birds?
http://www.fas.org/irp/nsa/nsafacil.html

pz
  -----Original Message-----
  From: owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM
[mailto:owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM]On Behalf Of Robert Windrem
  Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 8:36 AM
  To: cypherpunks at cyberpass.net
  Subject: Rosman's NSA role


  I am a producer for NBC Nightly News in New York.  In 1986, I spent
several days in Rosman and nearby Asheville researching Rosman and shooting
it from the ground and the air.  The ground level shooting was mostly
fruitless, but I still have video I shot from a helicopter.

  At the time, Rosman had 14 dishes in a bowl like area in Pisgah.  It was
quite secret as the Sun notes.  However, the FAA never instituted any
restrictions over the site, as it did with other sites.

  We included it in a two part series we did in 1986 called "The
Eavesdropping War"--NBC having refused to kill the story, as requested by
then-NSA director William Odom.   Odom threatened legal action if we ran the
piece.  They are particularly concerned about Rosman.

  We determined that Rosman had several missions.

   One was intercepting communications from Soviet geosynchronous
satellites, the Gorizont and Raduga.  We were told interception had two
values: 1. the satellites were used to communicate with Russian forces in
Cuba and 2. they were also used to communicate with Soviet SS-20 sites in
Europe...several of which were in East Germany. The farthest Raduga, as I
recall, was at 14 degrees west, putting it in range of both Rosman and East
Germany.  It should be noted that Rosman is almost due north of the old
Soviet headquarters in Lourdes, Cuba, southwest of Havana. Lourdes, of
course, is also the largest satellite sigint base in the Russian equivalent
of Echeon, which I just wrote about for msnbc.com.  I was told that Rosman
was used in part to capture signals being sent between Lourdes and the
Soviet sigint downlink at Vatutinki outside Moscow.

  The other mission was intercepting signals from the agent satellite
network the Soviet Union maintained to communicate with its agents
worldwide.  A crude version of Iridium, it contained eight satellites in low
earth orbit.

  The property was ceded to the DoD from the General Services Administration
in December 1980, at the close of the Carter administration, on the same day
another smaller NASA site outside of London was turned over to DoD.

  At the end of the Cold War, with the signing of the INF Treaty and
lessened tensions, it was shut down and some of its equipment sent to the
NSA base in Sebana Seca, P.R.

  I hope this was helpful to you.  If you need to call, give me a ring at
1-800-NBC-NEWS, ext. 7390.


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