A review has been ordered into Wednesday's breaching of security at the Waihopai spy base to find out how such a supposedly secure facility was breached so easily.
A protest which saw one of the dome's inflatable covers suddenly
deflated has left security bosses red-faced.
The Government Communications Security Bureau director, Bruce
Ferguson, says early morning fog played a factor in not detecting
the three men who had to break through three high-wire
fences.
"I think it's very embarrassing. I'd rather wished it didn't
happen, but it has happened. Security has been breached there's no
doubt about that. I need to know why it's breached and I need to
take as immediate measures as I can to stop it happening again,"
says Ferguson.
Police are reportedly looking at charging the men with sabotage.
They have so far been charged with intentional damage and entering a building with intention to commit a crime and will re-appear in the Blenheim court on Monday.
The attack in the early hours of Wednesday morning has exposed flaws in the Government Communications Security Bureau which has a budget of nearly $40 million and employs more than 300 staff.
Waihopai's two satellite interception dishes tap into telephone, fax and e-mail transmissions beaming around the world from communications satellites in Asia and the Pacific.
"The Government Communications Security Bureau is not allowed to listen to, or intercept New Zealanders or New Zealand residents," says Freguson.
The base is part of a network which includes the US, Britain, Canada and Australia and some say it is part of the secretive Echelon network.
"If we in New Zealand want to belong to the so called free world we have to play our part in keeping it secure," says Peter Cozens, director of the Centre of Strategic Studies at Victoria University.
Waihopai has been a focus and rallying point for peace protesters since it was established in the late 1980's.
The Green Party says they do not condone the illegal attack, but they do sympathise.
"We fully understand the motive behind the break in and the frustration that they, and every one that's been concerned feels...about the walls of secrecy the governments put around Waihopai it all these years," says Green Party MP Keith Locke.
The three Christian activists arrested after the breach on Wednesday are members of the Ploughshares Movement, an international disarmament group who claim to follow the biblical philosophy of beating weapons into tools of peace.
The Ploughshares are behind a raft of actions against military installations around the world, one of them involved is New Zealander Moana Cole, who is now the lawyer for the accused.
In 1991, she was sentenced to 12 months jail for her part in an attack on a B-52 Bomber at a US air base.
