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Wireless start-up LightSquared plans to fight the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) move to reject its proposed nationwide 4G network, a company official told The Hill. Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared's vice president for regulatory affairs, said the company will file a formal comment with the FCC urging the agency not to follow through on its proposal to "indefinitely suspend" LightSquared's authority to operate cell towers. The FCC announced the decision Tuesday night after the president's top adviser on telecom issues concluded there is "no practical way" to prevent LightSquared's network from disrupting GPS devices, including those used in flight safety. When...

National Journal calls it "a colossal fall from grace", but it comes only as a political surprise that the FCC acted yesterday to kill off the LightSquared proposal. After an extraordinary one-year grace period to resolve the interference issues of its network with existing GPS systems, the FCC reluctantly admitted that “no practical way� to fix the basic problem of high-powered terrestrial broadcasts on a spectrum slice intended for low-power satellite communications (via Instapundit): The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved to reject LightSquared’s planned wireless network on Tuesday after the president’s top adviser on telecom issues said there is “no...

In a major victory for the National Legal and Policy Center, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) yesterday reversed itself and revoked a controversial waiver it had granted LightSquared, which would have allowed the company to deploy a national wireless network. The reversal is not only a major setback for LightSquared's billionaire owner Phil Falcone, but puts a harsh spotlight on the role of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. According to Cecelia Kang of the Washington Post Tech blog : The FCC's decision is expected to all but end LightSquared's aspirations to provide mobile broadband services via satellite airwaves -- a...

…and there was much (UNANIMOUS!) rejoicing: Justices say GPS tracker violated privacy rights: The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days. But the justices divided 5-to-4 on the rationale for the decision, with the majority saying that the problem was the placement of the device on private property. That ruling avoided many difficult questions, including how to treat information gathered from devices installed by the manufacturer and how to treat information held by third parties...

The Supreme Court yesterday unanimously sided with Gun Owners of America in finding that the placement of a Global Positioning Device on an automobile constitutes a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The majority opinion in U.S. v. Jones was written by Justice Antonin Scalia and follows GOA’s reasoning to throw out the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test which has been thought to be the dominant Fourth Amendment standard in recent years. The Obama Administration argued that because the police could theoretically follow Antoine Jones’ car, he had no “reasonable expectation of privacy,” and thus, placing a GPS device...

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police violated the Constitution when they attached a Global Positioning System tracker to a suspect's vehicle without a valid search warrant, voting unanimously in one of the first major cases to test privacy rights in the digital era. The decision offered a glimpse of how the court may address the flood of privacy cases expected in coming years over issues such as cellphones, email and online documents. But the justices split 5-4 over the reasoning, suggesting that differences remain over how to apply age-old principles prohibiting "unreasonable searches." The minority pushed for a more...

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that police cannot put a GPS device on a suspect's car to track his movements without a warrant. The high court ruling was a defeat for the Obama administration. The high court ruled that placement of a device on a vehicle and using it to monitor the vehicle's movements was covered by U.S. constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures of evidence. A majority of the court acknowledged that advancing technology, like cell phone tracking, gives the government unprecedented ability to collect, store, and analyze an enormous amount of information about our private lives....

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects. The decision was a defeat for the government and police agencies, and it raises the possibility of serious complications for law enforcement nationwide, which increasingly relies on high tech surveillance of suspects, including the use of various types of GPS technology. --snip-- "The use of longer term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses impinges on expectations of privacy," Alito wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor in her concurring...

In a case that stemmed from an investigation by D.C. police and the FBI of a local drug dealer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that police across the country need a warrant if they want to track suspects using GPS monitors. In the ruling, which was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court found that even though the case involved a GPS unit that was attached to a car that was out in the open, it still constituted a "search" under the language of the Fourth Amendment: It is important to be clear about what occurred in this...

Top government officials said Friday that there are "no practical solutions" to GPS interference problems caused by LightSquared's planned mobile broadband network, signaling that the venture-backed company may have to abandon its plans to deploy LTE service in spectrum near to GPS bands. "There appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few months or year without significantly interfering with GPS," Defense Department Deputy Secretary Ashton Carter and Transportation Department Deputy Secretary John Porcari said in a letter to NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling. "As a result,...

Philip Falcone’s proposed LightSquared Inc. wireless service caused interference to 75 percent of global-positioning system receivers examined in a U.S. government test, according to a draft summary of results. The results from testing conducted Oct. 31 to Nov. 4 show that “millions of fielded GPS units are not compatible” with the planned nationwide wholesale service, according to the draft seen by Bloomberg News. “LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to majority of GPS receivers tested,” according to the draft prepared for a meeting next week of U.S. officials reviewing the LightSquared proposal. “No additional testing is required to confirm harmful interference...

Billionaire Phil Falcone, whose cozy relationship with the Obama Administration was first exposed by NLPC, may face civil fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to a filing yesterday by Harbinger Group Inc., Falcone and two other directors have received "Wells Notices," meaning that they are under investigation. Falcone is the Chairman, CEO and primary investor in Harbinger Group Inc., a hedge fund. Reportedly, other Harbinger investors include Soros Fund Management. Harbinger owns LightSquared, which has received an unusual waiver from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deploy a national 4G wireless network. Media reports have...

If you are like us, every day you pick up a smartphone and you send email, visit with friends on Facebook, send a text message or even log into your bank's website and pay a bill. These modern day conveniences have become routine. We all believe that our passwords are secure, our data is protected, and life is easier if we don't have to write a check to pay a bill or dig around and find a stamp to send a friend a quick note. But this morning we are no longer sure. The tech world is in a fury,...

The Justices of the Supreme Court will meet soon to offer preliminary votes in United States v. Jones, the GPS case. We don’t know what the voting alignment will look like: The votes are hard to predict. But it seems to me that there’s a substantial chance that the Court’s opinions might face a puzzling problem of figuring out which voting rule applies. I wanted to explain a bit about why I think that, and why it might matter. Here’s the problem, at least as I see it right now. There are two issues in the Jones case, and they...

Survey Scene, October 2011 LightSquared’s been in the news quite a bit since my last Survey Scene newsletter a month ago, but very little of it has actual consequence. A lot of the “news” is just noise. LightSquared pumped up its propaganda campaign nationwide to try to build a consensus in their favor and put pressure on the FCC, and is threatening a lawsuit if the FCC doesn’t do what LightSquared wants. No surprises there. However, other things have happened that I think you might be interested in hearing about.

Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared's vice president of regulatory affairs and public policy, accused the Global Positioning System (GPS) industry of trying to manufacture a political scandal to discredit his wireless company on Wednesday. "[GPS companies] have completely mischaracterized the political donations [LightSquared investor] Phil Falcone and our CEO [Sanjiv Ahuja] have made," Carlisle said after a House Small Business Committee hearing. When asked whether he believes the GPS industry has pushed negative political stories about LightSquared, Carlisle said, "There's no doubt in my mind. Of course they have. It's not like this stuff just shows up for no reason whatsoever." Republican...

<p>The Obama administration says that it has the right to attach a GPS unit to your vehicle and watch where you go, with whom you meet, where your children visit friends, whether you go to church or a bar or a bank – all in the hope that investigators could develop the "probable cause" they would need to get a formal court order to search you and your possessions.</p>

MOSCOW, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Russia successfully launched a navigation satellite on Monday that will complete a global system to rival the U.S. GPS (Global Positioning System) and give a much-needed boost to the beleaguered Russian space programme. The early morning launch from Russia's northern Plesetsk Cosmodrome was the first Soyuz rocket launch since a Russian unmanned cargo flight to the International Space Station (ISS) fell back to Earth in burning pieces in a failed August launch. Russia is struggling to return confidence in its commercial launch capacity as a partner in the orbital space station after a series of...

Since this spring’s blink-and-you-missed-it debate over reauthorization of several controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) have been complaining to anyone who’d listen about a “Secret Patriot Act“—an interpretation of one of the law’s provisions by the classified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granting surveillance powers exceeding those an ordinary person would understand to be conferred from the text of the statute itself. As I argued at the time, there is an enormous amount of strong circumstantial evidence suggesting that this referred to a “sensitive collection program” involving cell phone location tracking—potentially on a...

Wireless startup LightSquared claimed Wednesday to have found a solution that will prevent its network from interfering with Global Positioning System (GPS) devices, even especially sensitive precision devices. The company said it worked with Javad, a GPS manufacturer, to develop a system that will adapt precision GPS devices so they can operate in the presence of LightSquared's network. Martin Harriman, LightSquared's executive vice president of ecosystem development and satellite business, said the fix is affordable and "relatively simple. The company plans to test a batch of prototypes alongside additional tests required by the Federal Communications Commission. LightSquared intends to...

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...

Scandal: The Air Force's Space Command chief was pressured to alter testimony about the danger of a wireless project developed by a Democratic donor's company. Are lives as well as money being put at risk? Crony capitalism, which has been rampant in President Obama's push for green energy, is one thing. Rewarding donors with stimulus dollars is merely the "Chicago Way" brought to Washington, D.C. But when ideology combines with cronyism to place American lives and the nation's security at risk, it's quite another thing. At issue is a plan by Reston, Va.-based satellite broadcast communications company LightSquared to build...

A United States Air Force general is blowing the whistle on another alleged White House scandal, but few in the news media seem to be listening.

Watch this Lightsquared video accusing commercial GPS manufacturers of infrining on their frequency allocations

A Daily Caller review of the George Kaiser Family Foundation’s income tax returns found that during the same year billionaire investor George Kaiser successfully secured $535 million in government loan guarantees for the now-failed solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, his private philanthropy donated to a political cause close to the hearts of several high-ranking Obama administration officials. Kaiser, a major Obama donor, was a frequent White House visitor during the week before the Obama administration approved that taxpayer-underwritten financial deal. A $10,000 donation to the Urban Health Initiative at the University of Chicago Medical Center appears on the group’s 2009 tax forms....

Earlier this week there was the case of Solyndra, the hi-tech solar panel manufacturer that went bust last month, despite receiving more than $500m in federal loan guarantees. Yesterday it was the turn of LightSquared, mired controversy over its use of satellite frequencies for a national 4G mobile network, which critics say could disrupt the Global Positioning System (GPS) that operates millions of navigation devices, including those used by the US military and for hurricane and tornado tracking. LightSquared's plans have been opposed by GPS users, including an industry group named Coalition to Save Our GPS, whose members include consumer...

Presidents put their investments into blind trusts when they take office in order to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. Well, most modern Presidents do, anyway. It seems that Obama considers himself an exception to this rule, or at the very least he did until April 2010. The Washington Post’s Michael Shear reported at that time that Obama had refused to establish a blind trust . . . snip . . . The records are not on line, but the White House website does have a request page, which promises to send a PDF of the financial disclosure forms...

“GPS receivers were quite purposefully designed to operate in a portion of the radio frequency spectrum deliberately maintained as a “quiet neighborhood,” with neighboring frequencies primarily occupied by signals of comparable power levels, all based on widely accepted understanding of previous FCC rules and intent. The proposed LightSquared transmitters will produce received signal strengths five billion times stronger than the GPS received signal.” "Some have suggested GPS equipment can be redesigned for greater filtering to mitigate the interference, but even if this is possible, we believe it would involve substantial financial cost and likely degrade the accuracy of high performance...

This did not just come up out of nowhere - This from last January: In his State of the Union address on January 25, President Obama held up the Global Positioning System as a prime example of government providing “cutting-edge scientists and inventors with the support that they need” to create world-leading, job-creating innovation. The following day, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) International Bureau approved a conditional waiver allowing LightSquared Subsidiary LLC to build tens of thousands of terrestrial transmitters for wireless communications in frequencies on either side of the GPS L1 band. Reportedly, the transmitters are authorized to operate...

When it rains, it pours. And there ain’t a big enough umbrella for all President Obama’s cronies and fixers to crowd under these days. While the Solyndra BGB (big green boondoggle) continues to blow up on Capitol Hill, the White House faces another pay-for-play backlash — this time from his own left flank. The liberal Daily Beast reports on a broadband project backed by a frequent Obama White House visitor and donor that has Pentagon officials concerned over potential military GPS interference. The Obama FCC took the lead in intervening on the donor, billionaire hedge fund manster Philip Falcone’s, behalf...

N.Korea Jammed U.S. Reconnaissance Plane GPS A U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft made an emergency landing during annual South Korea-U.S. military exercises in March when North Korea jammed its GPS device, it emerged Thursday. According to a report the Defense Ministry submitted to Democratic Party lawmaker Ahn Kyu-baek of the National Assembly's Defense Committee, the RC-7B took off from its base at 8:30 p.m. on March 4 but had to make an emergency landing about 45 minutes later due to disruption of its GPS functions by jamming signals transmitted from Haeju and Kaesong in North Korea at intervals of five to...

With the White House already reeling over the Solyndra collapse, a new scandal may have erupted today that could make the disappearance of $535 million in taxpayer funds look like a paperwork glitch. Eli Lake starts off his new gig at The Daily Beast with a huge bombshell — an accusation made to members of Congress from a four-star Air Force general that claimed the White House pressured him to change his testimony to boost a big donor to the Democratic Party: ... Rep. Mike Turner told Eli that this was definitely an attempt to influence Shelton, bias his testimony,...

To Protect Obama Donor, White House Pressures General to Alter Testimony Diane Ellis, Ed. In January, the Federal Communications Commission granted a license to a satellite broadband company in Virginia called LightSquared to build tens of thousands of ground stations for a wireless network. However, the Pentagon has since raised concerns that the proposed wireless service could interfere with the military's GPS capabilities, which have not only replaced maps for millions of drivers, but also serve a crucial role in missile targeting and other defense-related tasks. Gen. William Shelton, a four-star Air Force general who oversees U.S. Space Command was...

The Pentagon has worried for months that a project backed by a prominent Democratic donor might interfere with military GPS. Now Congress wants to know if the White House pressured a general to change his testimony. The four-star Air Force general who oversees U.S. 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...

Court Case Asks if ‘Big Brother’ Is Spelled GPSBy ADAM LIPTAK Published: September 10, 2011 WASHINGTON — The precedent is novel. More precisely, the precedent is a novel. In a series of rulings on the use of satellites and cellphones to track criminal suspects, judges around the country have been citing George Orwell’s “1984” to sound an alarm. They say the Fourth Amendment’s promise of protection from government invasion of privacy is in danger of being replaced by the futuristic surveillance state Orwell described. **SNIP** Last month, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn turned down...

When the Federal Communications Commission granted LightSquared Inc. expedited approval to launch a new wireless Internet service, some powerful voices in Washington expressed alarm, including the Pentagon and one-third of the U.S. Senate. LightSquared’s bold $14 billion plan, its detractors said, could cripple GPS systems and threaten aviation safety, disrupt military and rescue operations and interfere with high-tech farming equipment and the everyday navigation devices used by millions.

TruePosition, announced Release 4.0 the TruePosition Location Intelligence Management System (LIMS). TruePosition LIMS is a multi-dimensional database that uses probes within mobile networks to capture and store all mobile phone network events — including the time and the location of events. Mobile phone events are items like calls made and received, text messages sent and received, a phone powered on and off, and other rich mobile phone intelligence.TruePosition LIMS provides a user interface for data mining and analysis of mobile phone intelligence, real-time tracking and surveillance, and geo-fencing capabilities.TruePosition LIMS enables government agencies to leverage mobile phone intelligence in order...

GLOUCESTER COUNTY — Beware, all you cheating husbands and wives. The use of a GPS device to track your whereabouts is not an invasion of privacy in New Jersey, a state appellate court panel ruled today. Based on the battle of a divorcing Gloucester County couple, the decision helps clarify the rules governing a technology increasingly employed by suspicious spouses — many of whom hire private investigators. “For the appellate division to say that it’s not an invasion of privacy is a wonderful thing for the private investigation business,” said Lisa Reed, owner of LSR Investigations in Flemington. “It’s been...

Excellent political ad.

Wireless broadband firm LightSquared has admitted that its original plan would have knocked out most GPS sat-nav kit, but argues that its new plan will only leave 200,000 users lost. Reporting on the results of several months of testing, involving 130 different GPS receivers, LightSquared admits that operating in the neighbouring band to GPS satellites will knock out a significant proportion of location-finding kit. But the company reckons its revised plan, announced last week, avoids interfering in all but the most-sensitive GPS kit: which LightSquared pegs at 200,000 devices around the USA. Those are important devices, installed in aircraft to...

BELLEVUE, Wash. - A trio of Washington state women said they were lucky to escape injury when their GPS device directed them to drive into the water. The women said they were driving in Bellevue when the GPS instructed them to make a U-turn that took them down a boat ramp and into Mercer Slough, KIRO-TV, Seattle, reported Wednesday. The women, who were visiting from out of town, received a ride back to the hotel from firefighters.

On the 6th of this month I sent my 7 or 8 year old GPS72 to the Garmin service center in Kansas. It had been a reliable tool but was showing signs of failure and died on a recent trip to Fort Benning, Georgia.I got it back today, looks and works like new again and it only cost me about 70 bucks including UPS to Garmin.I know I could have bought a new one but I like the old beast just fine.

A warning for night drivers: If your GPS navigator gives out on you this week, don’t despair. What you’re experiencing is only a test of the emerging broadband system. Starting Monday, broadband developer LightSquared will start testing its planned 4G speed wireless network in the Las Vegas area. The test will run after midnight for several hours for 10 days, and if it works, Las Vegas could become one of the first U.S. cities to get on a super-high speed Internet grid that’s independent of any particular service provider. But if it fails, government agencies warn that it could compromise...

Travelers in the western U.S. should not rely solely on technology such as GPS for navigation, authorities said, after a Canadian couple were lost in the Nevada wilderness for 48 days. Albert Chretien, 59, and his wife Rita Chretien, 56, sought a shorter route between Boise, Idaho and Jackpot, Nevada during a road trip from British Columbia to Las Vegas. Rita Chretien drank water from a stream and rationed meager supplies until hunters found her on Friday. Albert Chretien has been missing since March 22, when he went to seek help. The Chretians mapped the route on their hand-held GPS,...

Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the life sentence of a Washington area man named Antoine Jones, saying the government violated Jones’ privacy rights in clandestinely tracking his movement for a month in a drug trafficking investigation.

Days after two city inspectors were arrested by the FBI on suspicion of taking bribes, officials at the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety called Tuesday for the agency to electronically track the whereabouts of its employees. Building and Safety spokesman David Lara said his department sent a series of recommendations to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, including a move to activate the GPS tracking devices contained within each inspector’s cellphone and laptop computer. “For us, it’s mostly about making sure our inspectors are where they’re supposed to be,” Lara said. “With the latest turn of events, it’s too bad that...

A new, ultra-fast wireless Internet network is threatening to overpower GPS signals across the U.S. and interfere with everything from airplanes to police cars to consumer navigation devices. The problem stems from a recent government decision to let a Virginia company called LightSquared build a nationwide broadband network using airwaves next to those used for GPS. Manufacturers of GPS equipment warn that strong signals from the planned network could jam existing navigation systems. A technical fix could be expensive — billions of dollars by one estimate — and there's no agreement on who should pay. Government officials pledge to block...

State police captured a “sexually violent predator” from Milford who was freed despite being convicted last year of aggravated rape, rape and abuse of a child, and indecent assault and battery among other offenses, according to state records and state police. Brian M. Addeo, 32, cut off his GPS tracking bracelet Friday in a Tewksbury parking lot and tossed it in the back of a pickup truck, state police said. Addeo remained on the run until last night, when the State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension team captured him in Augusta, Maine, state police said. “We’re thrilled we got him,” said...

The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis. "At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude...

N.Korea Still Jamming GPS Signals North Korea has been jamming Global Positioning System signals in South Korea since last Friday, it emerged. "The North kept jamming GPS devices as of Tuesday," a senior government official said Wednesday. "The attack isn't common knowledge because there's been no tangible damage, but it continues." There was one report that the GPS equipment of civilian aircraft near Incheon International Airport was faulty last Sunday. The official added the government identified Kaesong and Mt. Kumgang as the sources of the jamming attack. Interfering signals are sent out constantly, "so we can't say exactly when and...