[IP] more on STUPID .US Defines Plans to Shut Dow n GPS in C
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Subject: Re: [IP] more on STUPID .US Defines Plans to Shut Down GPS in C
Author: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 16th December 2004 2:36:31 pm
At 01:56 PM 12/16/2004, Bob Frankston <Bob2-0406@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Am I going too far in comparing it with an anti-evolutionary view -- a
>static world is zero-sum and either you have it or your enemy does.
>Knowledge increases with participation and those who horde and fear others
>wind up with less for themselves.
>
>Yet another reminder that Roosevelt was right -- fear is our real enemy.
That, I think, is the real story: irrational fear is producing irrational
decisions, and particularly skewing toward incredibly poor balancing of
risks/reward, almost always toward the near term at the expense of the
long, and fixated on a rather amorphous "Terror" as the rationale. And the
current Administration is writing checks that are going to be drawn against
our children's dwindling accounts of both treasure, and international good
will.
In the GPS case, I'd like to challenge the Administration to detail the
circumstances where diddling with GPS makes sense. One can concoct
particular scenarios (a la the "would you torture someone who knows the
recall code for the missiles just launched at 100 US cities?" dreams that
seem to underlie US general policy re "interrogation"), but we've elected
our leaders to maximize the nation's security, our wealth and well being...
this will never do that. In attempting to prevent a hypothetical
"terrorist" who's done just the right sort of things (and is caught at just
the right time) to make flicking the lights on GPS a handy trick (including
speculating on taking down *others'* GPS-equivalent systems), we've sown
fear and distrust of us internationally, perhaps abrogated a memorandum of
understanding with ICAO, caused all sorts of prospective GPS-based apps to
seem a bit less desirable, etc.
And floating out this sort of GPS-disrupting policy isn't the first such
stunt. The news of this week that "unnamed government officials" have
leaked that the Administration is having IAIE chief ElBaradei's phones
tapped (FBI operation? NSA collection?) suggests that they're willing to
burn all sorts of resources in the pursuit of short-term goals. It's no
secret (Richelson, Bamford, many others) that the US collects COMINT, but
to flaunt our extra-legal means to tilt diplomatic playing fields is
inviting trouble. (For starters, the UN might get around to thinking about
mandating secure comms with all of its correspondents, including, in this
case, the Iranians.)
GPS policy, ElBaradei, Gitmo, rules-of-convenience re torture, unilateral
abrogration of useful treaties, Pentagon plans for "perceptions
management," etc., etc., are collectively digging a deep, deep hole in our
global relations that the next Administration, of whatever party, is going
to have a hard, hard time climbing out of.
Ross
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