Posts Tagged ‘Bombs’

At a time when Britain is perceived as weak by those hostile to the British way of life thanks to Labour’s mishandling of most things to do with the management of Britain I find it incredulous to see the latest reports that suggest that Britain’s most sensitive sites are listed like this.

Surely even Cash Gordon must know the risk he is putting the United Kingdom under by not ensuring adequate protection of sensitive military sites. !

Jim Ferguson

By Gordon Thomas

LONDON – British security chief Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, has warned the Brown government that the country’s most sensitive military and security bases have been “seriously damaged by Google’s Street View.”

Agents with MI5 are satisfied that thousands of images have been downloaded by U.K.-based Muslims, suspected associates of al-Qaida. The images show close-ups of Britain’s atomic weapons research center and the nation’s doughnut-shaped eavesdropping center at Cheltenham.

MI5 has found its buildings across Britain included in the “Street View” service.

Google has been warned that placing any of the images on its website contravenes the Official Secrets Act. The penalty of any breach can carry lengthy prison sentences under British law.

“This week Google has removed most of the images. But the damage has been done. The images are now in the hands of suspect terrorists,” Evans has told the government.

One site is at Menwith Hill, in the north of England near Harrogate. Its giant “golf balls” are linked to satellites and are clearly visible. The image shows the access roads to the “golf balls.” The U.K. shares the base with America’s National Security Agency.

The golf ball shapes are the very core of the base’s role as a global eavesdropper. Known as radomes, each shape is positioned on a carefully aligned course known as the “Runway,” which allows them to intercept messages from communications from space.

Coated in toughened Teflon to shed the rain that constantly develops across the North Sea, the “golf balls” are each equipped with computers which interdict the networks as they bounce their messages around the world.

Another image that would be of “high value to a terrorist group is the Hanslope Park base near Milton Keynes, where MI6 officers analyze data from GCHQ,” said an intelligence source.

One of the most guarded entrances in London – Thames House, the headquarters of MI5, clearly is pinpointed.

“Until recently the Google Map published information only on major British cities, [giving] no more than a broadspan view of the area. Now it has clear images of almost every street,” said the intelligence source.

Another facility – secret until now – is the SAS Counter-Terrorism training center in Pontrilas in Herefordshire.

The Google site has photographed it to reveal there one of the SAS aircraft used for special forces training exercises.

Another top-secret facility on the website is the exterior of the new ORION Laser Research Facility at Aldermaston, the atomic weapons research center in Berkshire.

Across the Irish Sea, on the edge of a Belfast housing estate, is the Ulster facility of MI5′s Loughside headquarters. It is from there that the Security Service monitors Irish extremists.

“If they didn’t know where we were they most certainly do now,” said an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland.

The Special Boat Service – classified as Highly Secret in Ministry of Defense manuals – has on the website an easily readable sign in red outside. It reads: “Prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act. Loitering, sketching, photography forbidden.”

Faced with the full fury of MI5, a Google spokesman said that, “if mistakes are made we will remove the images. We are unaware of any official concerns about security. But we are happy to discuss any issues as they arise.”

Tweet this!

Labour are at it again. Now they want to put the British people at risk from terrorists and all with the EU’s blessing.

Incredible.

Jim Ferguson

EU rules are fatal for terror watchlist

Thursday, February 25 2010

Shadow Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones has pointed out that EU rules will make the Government’s proposed terror watchlists ineffective.

In response to the failed attack on an airliner heading for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, the Government announced that it would use the existing Home Office Watchlist as the basis for two new lists.

There was to be a no-fly list, and a larger list of those who should be subject to special measures prior to boarding flights bound for the UK (including transit/transfer passengers).

However, the European Commission says the UK cannot compulsorily collect Advance Passenger Information (API) for flights from within the EU under the e-Borders scheme, regardless of the nationality of the passenger.

And as the British Government has decided to also not collect and use Passenger Name Record information (PNR) for intra-EU flights, this means that Britain currently has no way of collecting advance information on all travellers arriving from within the EU.

The Detroit bomber flew from Nigeria to Holland and then on to America. If he’d travelled through Britain he might well not have been picked up by the new watchlist.

Speaking about the issue in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute, Neville-Jones said that Labour are “knowingly and inexcusably misleading the public into thinking that they are creating a system which will be an effective barrier to dangerous people being able to get on to a flight to the UK”.

“The flimsy basis of the new watch list will provide no such protection”, she added.

Read the full speech

Tweet this!