Australia's Top Secret 'Plan Mercator'

Governments love top-secret facilities, and Australia, it seems, is no exception. Australian media is reporting that the government there has built a classified facility designed to house top leaders in the event of a terrorist attack. "Protected by heavy gates, a high-security fence and an array of CCTV cameras, the Symonston facility is discreetly located at 24 Wormald Street next to the Canberra office of the Aristocrat gaming machine company," The Canberra Times reports. "The precise purpose of the new installation is classified."

Every top-secret plan needs a cool name (my favorite is Project Greek Island, for the Greenbrier congressional war bunker), and Australia has adopted "Plan Mercator" for its plan to whisk "the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, senior ministers and key advisers in the event of a major terrorist attack on, or threat against, Parliament House or central Canberra."

The main purpose of Symonston facility, the media reports, is to provide an alternate communications system for the Australian government (similar to what Site R provides for the Pentagon).

While government always claim security as the excuse for secrecy, the age of the Internet (not to mention satellites), as we discovered with our visit to Site R, often makes these efforts comical. In the case of Mercator, the Australian press learned of the plan through websites and job postings.

[Photo of Greenbrier bunker courtesy Nathan Hodge]