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Mark Thomas Comedy Product: Menwith Hill (UK RAF/NSA base)

submitted by benjee

1 decade 7 years 6 months 2 weeks ago

Describing himself as a "libertarian anarchist", Mark Thomas is a hilarious comedian and sharp political activist in one - as shown by him holding the Guiness World Record for Most Number of Political Demonstrations in 24 Hours! This Mark Thomas Comedy Product is about the 'RAF base' Menwith Hill near Harrogate in Yorkshire - which is part of NSA operations and US missile defence systems. When I saw his live show a couple of years ago - he mentioned protesting at the base and seeing one of the older ladies amongst the group being arrested for holding a banner. In the most tenuous arrest I've heard of, she was held on charges of inciting racial hatred by holding 'fuck off Bush' - thereby insinuating that Bush was a head of a race, not a country...bizarre.

Some information on the base from Wikipedia:

Menwith Hill Station was opened by U.S. Army in 1960 on 545 acres of land acquired by the British War Office in 1954 and leased to the United States. Under the U.S. Army, the station monitored High Frequency radio communications, it is now operated by the United States Air Force and has grown to become the world's largest intelligence-gathering ground station outside the US. Nominally a British Royal Air Force facility, only physical security and UK liaison functions are carried out by MoD personnel, the vast majority of the staff being British GCHQ, American civil service employees, government contractors, as well as U.S. military personnel. The base was also known as Field station F83. Two similar facilities appear to exist at Pine Gap, Australia and Buckley Air Force Base, near Denver, Colorado.

Up until 2003 the base had a Royal Navy equivalent nearby, HMS Forest Moor. This has since been decommissioned as a Naval base and is now run by civilian contractors with MoD assistance.

The base is highly recognisable by its several dozen radomes ('golf balls'), each containing a satellite dish. Many of these are used for signals interception from communications satellites and are commonly thought to be part of the ECHELON system. Other parts of the site are thought to be used by the Space Based Infrared System employed by the US National Missile Defence program. The latter use of the base, alongside the joint US/UK radar station at RAF Fylingdales was particularly controversial.
The base has attracted significant levels of protest from anti-nuclear and pacifist groups.[citation needed] Some groups have, in an effort to disrupt and focus attention on the activities of the base, staged frequent infiltrations and vandalism to the various radomes.