The construction of a new station on 30 hectares of stony ground was authorised by the Prime Minister
David Lange and Finance Minister
Roger Douglas in 1987.
Gerald Hensley comments that Lange: "was ready to work with the Australians [as] … international communications were shifting to satellites … Lange was regularly briefed by me and despite his later claims knew exactly what was involved and why the station was needed. … The Australians were building
a similar one at Geraldton [Western Australia] and their Defence Minister explained to the PM why the two installations separated by five time zones would enhance the benefit to both countries." It has been operating since 1989, and was expanded with the construction of a second interception dish in 1998. It is described as a satellite
communications monitoring facility in the
Waihopai Valley, near
Blenheim. The facility has been identified by MP
Keith Locke as part of
ECHELON, the worldwide network of
signals interception facilities run by the
UKUSA consortium of intelligence agencies, which shares global electronic and signals intelligence among the intelligence agencies of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In October 2021, the GCSB announced that the two dishes, and their radomes, would be deconstructed and removed from the station as the technology they used was deemed to be obsolete. For example, in 2021 only 0.5% of the data that the GCSB collected was from the two dishes. In April 2022 the satellites and radomes were deconstructed.
Southern Cross Cable interception In August 2014, it was revealed that an engineer from the
United States National Security Agency had visited New Zealand and held a meeting at Waihopai Station. The topic of discussion was interception of all traffic on the
Southern Cross Cable. This followed disclosure in 2013 by the
New Zealand Herald that the owners of the cable had asked the NSA for monetary compensation for mass surveillance on the cable. ==Protests and security breaches==