Introduction

First beginning operations in the 1960s, Menwith Hill is a satellite communications listening station run by the US National Security Agency (NSA). It is situated on the North Yorkshire moors in the UK, approximately seven miles west of Harrogate, on the A59 Harrogate to Skipton road. The NSA base is the largest known spy base in the world, consisting of giant white radomes, which resemble golf balls, covering over 600 acres of countryside (see Figure 4.1). The first two domes were built in 1974; in 2021, at the time of writing, they number 37. These radomes are weatherproof, protective covers for huge satellite dishes beneath, which point this way and that, allegedly internally and externally; listening in to all telecommunications in the northern hemisphere (Campbell and Melvern, 1980). The United States has another corresponding base, although smaller, covering telecommunications in the southern hemisphere, which is located at Pine Gap in Australia (Bartlett, 2013 – and see Chapter 12 by Bartlett in this volume), and both bases also link directly with NSA’s US headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland. The role of the base is the gathering of military, political and economic information advantageous to the interests of the United States; it is also part of the US Ballistic Missile Defence system and is central to US military operations around the world, providing intelligence for warfare, such as real-time information for drone operations (Schofield, 2012). The base is effectively foreign soil, using dollars on site, shipping in all supplies and consumer items; drivers drive on the right-hand side of the roads while inside the base. Despite this, responsibility for securing the area sits with British Ministry of Defence (MoD) police, who patrol regularly around the perimeter fences and work from a police station at the gatehouse of the main entrance.

A women’s peace camp was established outside Menwith Hill from 1993 at weekends, and – following an appeal from prison (for convictions due to non-violent direct action or NVDA) by founding and influential Greenham peacewoman, the late, great, Helen John – ran permanently from 1994 for around five years.