Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center

Coordinates: 21°28′32.99″N 158°3′4.16″W / 21.4758306°N 158.0511556°W / 21.4758306; -158.0511556

U.S. Department of Defense Central Security Service

The Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center (KRSOC, also pronounced "KR-Sock"), also known as the Kunia Tunnel[1] or the Regional Signals Intelligence Operations Center Kunia, was a United States National Security Agency facility[2][3] that was located on Kunia Road between Kunia Camp and Wheeler Army Airfield in central Oahu, Hawaii. In 2012, the facility was replaced by the Hawaii Cryptologic Center.

History

In response to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the installation was designed and built as a bomb-proof, underground open bay with a 250,000-square-foot (23,000 m2) floorspace to facilitate aircraft assembly in proximity to Wheeler Army Airfield. During the later part of World War II and in the decades that followed it was used primarily for cryptologic and intelligence activities.[4]

Military units that occupied the structure include the U.S. Navy's Naval Security Group Activity Hawaii (a combination of the former NSGA Kunia and NSGA Pearl Harbor) and the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Corps 500th Military Intelligence Brigade.[3]

In May 2013, a worker at this facility, Edward Snowden, took a large number of classified documents and provided them to the press, revealing the existence of a number of top secret NSA mass surveillance programs.[5][6]

References

  1. ↑ SFC Lawry, Sheryl; Aftergood, Steven (2008-10-20). "CW5 retires after 36 years of dedicated service". United States Army. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  2. ↑ Wu, Nina (2009-08-18). "Blind businessman sues SBA for Web site access". Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
  3. 1 2 Pike, John; Aftergood, Steven (2000-09-13). "Regional SIGINT Operations Center Kunia". Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  4. ↑ "1. Kunia Tunnel". Wheeler Army Airfield Historic Guide. 2000-04-07. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  5. ↑ Gertz, Bill (June 13, 2013). "Officials Worried Snowden Will Pass Secrets to Chinese". Washington Free Beacon. Archived from the original on June 14, 2013.
  6. ↑ Sanger, David E.; Perlroth, Nicole (June 15, 2013). "After Profits, Defense Contractor Faces the Pitfalls of Cybersecurity". New York Times. Archived from the original on June 16, 2013.

External links

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