Graham wrote: "I'm going by what i've read on the web as this article says itself: What these people fail to realize is that there are bad guys out there," said one senior intelligence official who wants to see some of the ****satellite trackers prosecuted. ***" For anyone wishing to follow the discussion, Graham has quoted an article by Anthony C. LoBaido, dated 2000 Jun 15, published here: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19083 That sentence was immediately familiar to me, because I remembered it from an article by Massimo Calabresi, "Quick, Hide the Tanks!", published one month earlier, in the 2000 May 15 issue of Time Magazine, in which I and several other hobbyists are quoted or named. Here is the portion of Calabresi's article, from which LoBaido obtained the sentence that Graham quoted: <<<This amateur network has run down most of the satellites--spy or commercial--that have ever been launched and are still in orbit, including what appeared to be a stealth satellite the U.S. deployed in 1990. All this info has been channeled to a website playfully called http://Heavens-Above.com that shows where the orbital snoops are every hour of the day or night--something that has some in U.S. intelligence circles understandably livid. "The fact that you can know readily where U.S. satellites are at any time means that if you're India or North Korea, it's that much easier to hide what you're doing," says an outraged senior intelligence official. If he had his way, some of the satellite trackers would be prosecuted.>>> Now here is LoBaido's version" <<<As one might expect, the publication of this information, which can be accessed by dictators like Iraq's Saddam Hussein or North Korea's Kim Jong-il, has many in the U.S. intelligence community in an uproar. "The fact that you can know readily where U.S. satellites are at any time means that if you're India or North Korea, it's that much easier to hide what you're doing. What these people fail to realize is that there are bad guys out there," said one senior intelligence official who wants to see some of the satellite trackers prosecuted.>>> Note the almost identical wording of most of both authors' second paragraphs. Also, the one sentence in LoBaido's paragraph that differs, is itself taken from another paragraph of Calabresi's article" <<<"What these people fail to realize is that there are bad guys out there," says the concerned senior intelligence official. But the trackers counter that if they can do it with binoculars and brainpower, so can any enemy. So why so much secrecy around not-so-secret satellites?...>>> So, LoBaido used portions of Calabresi's article - apparently without attribution; therefore, implying to have used a source (i.e. Calabresi's) that clearly he could not have. Also, he did not include our counter argument. As for Calabresi's un-named "senior intelligence official", who, "if he had his way", "some of the satellite trackers would be prosecuted", he did not state which laws any of us who track "spy" satellites are violating. Russia, and more recently, France, have far greater tracking capability than I, and to my knowledge, have not been accused of violating any laws in so doing. Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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