Why LightSquared is more than cronyism … It’s about safety

Island Turtle ^ | September 20, 2011 | Corky Boyd

[Corky Boyd]

The recent revelations by Eli Lake at The Daily Beast that a four-star Air Force general was pressured to alter his testimony to favor Light Squared revealed a new case of cronyism in the White House. Now a second individual has now come forward to say he too was urged to parrot OMB suggested text in his testimony - that the OMB wants expedited testing for frequency interference. He refused to do so. From The Daily Beast:

"The four-star Air Force general who oversees Air Force Space Command walked into a highly secured room on Capitol Hill a week ago to give a classified briefing to lawmakers and staff, and dropped a surprise. Pressed by members, Gen. William Shelton said the White House tried to pressure him to change his testimony to make it more favorable to a company tied to a large Democratic donor...."

But this meddling is far more than crony capitalism it’s about threatening the integrity and safety of the GPS system. GPS has grown from its infancy as navigation system to pilot sailboats or to guide you to Aunt Katie’s house in rural Vermont. With accuracy improvements, it can now position anyone consistently within 3 feet, anywhere in the world. Because of that accuracy it is now being used by aircraft to conduct precision approaches to weathered in airports without ILS. Down the road air traffic control will become GPS based,

[humblegunner]

(Excerpt)

Why?

[bigbob]

And despite the number of times the thread has been deleted, so what if Congressman Issa is launching an investigation? What has come of ANY of Issa’s probes and investigations?

[randog]

“Google is currently testing a fleet of autonomously driven Priuses in the Bay area (using backup drivers) and soon will be testing them in Nevada, driverless.”

One step closer to the “flying car”....;^)

[GraceG]

I'm your GPS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZXM_g3mqew

I'm your GPS

Turn Right up Ahead

Obama messed up the signals with lightwave so I just have to Wing it!

I mean Turn Left , recalculating TURN RIGHT NOW!!!!

[CRASH]

[traderrob6]

For hits, why else.

[DManA]

So much irony. These statists should be hailing the system as a triumph of state sponsored research, design, and investment.

It has spawned $billions in private business.

And yet look how blithely, how thoughtlessly these greedy fools are willing to cripple it for stupid, venal, short sighted reasons.

Capitalists fight to protect their property and wealth endures to the benefit of all. Everything statists touch eventually turns to dung.

[InterceptPoint]

I'm really struggling to get excited about this story.

There is no way that LightSquared is going to deploy systems that impact GPS no matter what kind of waivers the FCC might be handing them out right now. Just not going to happen. Either LightSquared will figure out how to filter their signals either digitally or with external filters or with waveform changes then they are just, as Harry Reid loves to say, Dead on Arrival.