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more on STUPID .US Defines Plans to Shut Dow n GPS in C
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 14:57:22 -1000
_______________ Forward Header _______________ Subject: Re: [IP] more on STUPID .US Defines Plans to Shut Down GPS in C Author: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross () stapleton-gray com> Date: 16th December 2004 2:36:31 pm At 01:56 PM 12/16/2004, Bob Frankston <Bob2-0406 () bobf frankston com> 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 ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on STUPID .US Defines Plans to Shut Dow n GPS in C David Farber (Dec 16)