The Bush administration has ordered that plans be drawn up that allow for the disabling of GPS during an emergency:
Any shutdown of the network inside the United States would come under only the most remarkable circumstances, said a Bush administration official who spoke to a small group of reporters at the White House on condition of anonymity.
The LAST thing anyone needs is the likes of Dubyah being at the killswitch of something that has become an integral part of our daily lives, whether the military likes it or not. A GPS receiver used to be a toy for the exotic geek with a lot of money to spend, but now GPS functionality is built into everything from passenger jets to cell phones (in fact most cell phone networks require a stable time reference to function, and that stable reference is almost always GPS).
So, picture it. Another terrorist act is afoot. The powers that be have failed to detect it, again, and this time the terrorists are using GPS. BAM! The act is completed, lives are lost, monuments and other structures are aflame and panic spreads throughout the land. Presumably, the terrorists and their GPS receivers are burnt to a crisp by now, after the act has been completed.
Once the deed is done and we’ve come to realize that this was in fact a terrorist act, does Dubyah NOW decide that this is a good time to kill the signal, long after disabling GPS could possibly be of any benefit? Probably. So now search efforts are disrupted, cell phone networks begin their cascade failures hampering communication, legitimate air, land and marine craft can’t navigate reliably, and we’re in even worse of a mess than we were before.
Real smart, Dubyah. What’s the next secret weapon in your mighty arsenal, shut down Thuh Intarweb whenever al Qaeda sends an e-mail?