Edward Snowden’s revelation about secret NSA surveillance programs was a reminder that intelligence-gathering and intrigue related to it go way back in Hawaii and are alive and well today.
Snowden, a civilian contractor who reportedly worked at Camp Smith, is the second Hawaii contractor in three months to be in hot water for allegedly spilling national security secrets.
Snowden was the source who revealed the existence of two top-secret NSA surveillance programs, the Guardian newspaper reported.
Federal investigators said in March that Benjamin Bishop, 59, also a Camp Smith employee, gave his 27-year-old Chinese girlfriend classified information about war plans and nuclear weapons.
U.S. military and civilian intelligence capabilities in Hawaii are vast and changing, albeit flying under the radar for the most part.
All have a connection to the U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith, from which U.S. military actions across half the globe are orchestrated.
They continue an American interest in Hawaii that included a visit back in 1873 by Maj. Gen. J.M. Schofield and Brevet Brig. Gen. B.S. Alexander, who were under orders from the secretary of war to secretly examine isle ports for defensive capability.
In January 2012 the National Security Agency and its military component, the Central Security Service, marked the completion of a 250,000-square-foot, $358 million center in Wahiawa to aid in cryptologic support — interpreting and translating information.
The regional operations center was named the Capt. Joseph J. Rochefort Building after the World War II Navy captain who was in charge of Station Hypo at Pearl Harbor.
Rochefort’s cryptologic and intelligence experts predicted Japanese plans for an attack on Midway Atoll — knowledge that led the U.S. to a decisive victory in 1942.
The new NSA facility, augmenting an underground World War II structure nicknamed the "Tunnels" next to Schofield Barracks, is part of an expanding intelligence campus at the Wahiawa Annex of Pearl Harbor near Whitmore Village.
In 2011 the Army opened a 28,244-square-foot, $25.3 million wideband satellite communications center on the campus, which has a series of 60-foot satellite dishes.
A $65 million operations center also was built for the Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Pacific there and fitted with $92 million in electronics.
A Navy official at one time called the Wahiawa Annex the most strategic piece of land west of the Mississippi.
The Navy previously said there were about 700 military members and civilians working at the facility in 2006-07, with the expectation of 3,500 by this year.
Just several years after the start of the Iraq War in 2003, U.S. government demand for satellite bandwidth had jumped from 7 gigabits per second to 12 gigabits, adding to Hawaii’s role as a major communications crossroads for secret information.
Visible near the Makalapa headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, meanwhile, is the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Operations Center — notable because the multistory concrete building is windowless.
Hawaii’s intelligence community "is a pretty important part of the larger defense establishment," said Carlos Juarez, a political science professor who teaches national security and international relations at Hawaii Pacific University.
"This is the headquarters for the Defense Department in the Pacific, and it’s a huge area that it’s looking to monitor and provide an oversight," Juarez said. "In terms of the Asia-Pacific region, there are just a lot of hot spots, whether it’s the Philippines or Thailand, North Korea, China — we’re looking at all these from here (Hawaii)."
Aiding that effort is "a large critical mass" of retired military, diplomats and intelligence professionals who live here, he said.
Patrick Bratton, director of the diplomacy and military studies program at HPU, said the character and size of the theater demand a lot of intelligence transmissions.
"Compared to other theaters in which the U.S. operates, this is a high-technology theater, and this is a big geographic theater," so communication and electronic intelligence are "really, really important here."
The U.S. Pacific forces commander not only wields military influence, but diplomatic influence. One former military official said no one in the State Department has anywhere near the authority or status in the region.
All that secrecy also attracts those who wish to capitalize on it for their own reasons.
Hawaii is known to be third behind Washington, D.C., and New York for efforts by other countries, allies and otherwise, to gather their own intelligence.
