Re: Posting observations and elements of spysats

From: Steven Rogers (srogers1@austin.rr.com)
Date: Wed Sep 19 2001 - 23:38:04 EDT


>The tragic events of 2001 Sep 11 have led some SeeSat-L subscribers 
>to question
>the propriety of posting observations and orbital elements of U.S. spysats.
>This activity is entirely legal; however, it is quite proper to question the
>ethics. In the world of science and technology, we must consider the ethics of
>our actions.
>
>The following are my beliefs; I do not pretend to speak for any of my fellow
>observers and analysts.
>
>I strongly doubt that orbital elements from any source are of any value to
>terrorists.

I agree. This problem has nothing to do with an intelligence failure
and everything to do with an analysis failure. Of course we didn't
have any warning that this specific event was coming, but we've
been warned literally thousands of times since the hostages were
taken in '79. I am very much in favor of doing everything to support
an American war effort, but I think satellite elements are a complete
non-issue in this case - perhaps even a distraction from more
important issues. It merely perpetuates our own mistakes to imagine
that if we only had a *picture* of this event in the making that
everything would be OK - we've already been given an ideological
picture, we just don't want to look at it.

Steve
-- 

Steve Rogers
Austin TX -- AIM: StevRocket

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