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U.S. Withholding Satellite Data
plover writes "Because of Congressional legislation passed quietly in 2003, the Air Force Space Command will no longer distribute space surveillance data via NASA. There was supposed a three year transitional period where the data was to be made available via a NASA web site, but earlier this month their transitional server went down hard, and NASA has decided to not rebuild it. (It was scheduled to be shut down on 31 March 2005 anyway.) The only way to obtain satellite data now is by signing up with the official Space-Track website. Part of the agreement to obtaining data from their site is that you agree to not redistribute their data. Of course, amateurs are still free to redistribute their observations, including those of classified satellites."
Government, by and for corporations, of the people.
Before you flame me with narrowminded visions of brownshirts blotting out your vision, realize that this was Mussolini's definition, and it's what we've got in the USA. Then consider that the brownshirts aren't too far off, either in the future or in actual conditions today.
Fascism is the human face on the corporate body politic. And these days, the mask is off.
--
make install -not war
Now I can't seek out sensitive targets, so kindly provided by the enemy. What horrible irony that the Aggressor no longer provides me with my targets!!!
Waaaaa!
The government never does anything wrong, or stupid, or um... God I can't stop laughing. This is worth a karma burn.
I really have nothing else to say, this is just plain crap.
Let's all wait for the chorus of "Now I'm moving to canada"
The congressmen passing these bills barely skim the 1000+ page documents. You expect a non-paid volunteer to skim through each one? Count me out.
Unfortunately until enough people throw away the atitude of "well, politics are supposed to be corrupt" I do not see much change.
Vaterland security, please.
Once again knowledge resources are shut down for no reason at all. It seems the world in general is getting more and more shut out from Information.. how can ANY government claim this is healthy?
The dumber the people get the more they need help, the more help they need the more the 'powers that be' control them. The more they control them.. the closer to get to 1984.
I'm not into Space, but right now every day I hear more things are being hidden or shut down, yet we're still happy to waste money left right and centre on a war which was ment to be over 12 months ago, when we still have more armed forces there then any where.
Maybe we should stop thinking about how we're going to deal with the "next terrorists" and start thinking "how are we going to make life worth while so we have a reason to fight these terrorists?"
I like muppets.
Nasa has tons of servers...so, the "oh gee, the server went down, so lets throw our hands in the air and give up" thing doesn't compute. There are always backups of servers. I expect organized agencies to have backups. The 'Server went down so give up' thing only applies to AOL users.
and i'm a us citizen
aren't i paying for this?
so what is the rationale to deny me what i have paid for?
the purpose of my government is to serve me, is it not?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is information about the precise orbits of satellites. This is what you would need if you want to shoot down a satellite.
They are not talking about weather photos.
Does anybody read the article? Like the article says, this info is available, more accurately, from a global collaboration of amateur observers.
I'm a bit puzzled. If the U.S. is "withholding" satellite data, why is it still freely available via another web site? Less editorializing, more reporting.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
I agree.
The simplest solution is to stop voting these folks into office. Unfortunately that requires people to actually give a crap and not just pick a party and stick to it like a religion.
It also requires people to realize there are issues other than abortion and gun control that are both important and likely to be seriously addressed.
These laws are "quietly passed" because everyone is focused on the media-friendly issues that are never resolved (because they are political suicide for any politician who addresses them seriously).
I also see from your post that you are thinking of not voting any more. I see this more and more in my generation (I'm 31 years old) and I hate it more and more. Not voting is NOT a political statement. Find a party or if nothing out there stands for what you stand for MAKE a party, even if it only gets one vote, yours. Or if you don't want the trouble go to the polling station and vote blank. A blank vote is a vote against ALL parties and shows yor dissatisfaction with them AND with the system. The main problem is that nowadays we have left politics to the professionals, and we forget that it is our OBLIGATION rather than our right to participate in the commons.
I have absolutely no sympathy towards people who say "I don't vote". Apathy is not a valid political point of view.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
If nobody cared about him snorting coke and driving drunk, why the hell would anyone care about him smoking pot?
Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. -- Thomas J. Kopp
How about violent revolution? How about moving (vote with your feet)?
Keep in mind voting is how we got into this mess in the first place. The instances of voter fraud don't help much.
Keep in mind the last election saw more people vote than ever before.
They voted to keep the same shit.
How did your vote affect much of anything?
That is a political statement.
Typical nonsense from the tinfoil brigade.
/. crowd won't pay attention unless you make a lot of loud noise.
A server supporting a system scheduled to end goes down a few weeks before that and the government decides not to spend the money to repair it. What's the problem?
The same data remains available. What's the problem?
The government -- any government with satellites -- doesn't want you or anyone else to know the location of its secret satellites. Why enable the very people those satellites are targetting to find out where they are?
And, what is that crack about legislation that was "passed quietly" supposed to mean? Looks like deliberate paranoia-mongering to me: those sneaky people in Congress passed a bill and didn't ven bother to jump up and down on TV about it. Guess they forgot that the
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Democracy has not been successfully instituted on anything larger than a small (by modern standards) city or township. Any bigger, and the working model is a republic, not a democracy.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
"NASA not distributing it the way it was done before" is NOT equivalent to "U.S. Withholding Satellite Data"
a sp to automatically download and convert Space Track data into CelesTrak data sets to help you with the transition. This will ensure you get the very latest data in the formats you are currently accustomed to...." (emphasis added)
n t-MUST be-fascist" fantasies of /.?
As CelesTrak says on their site, you can "...Register for a Space Track account today at http://www.space-track.org (only 4,000 users have done so to date) and use the application provided at http://celestrak.com/SpaceTrack/TLERetrieverHelp.
How is this "withholding" data, except in the "George-Bush-is-teh-debbil-therefore-the-governme
-Styopa
I've always wanted a "three strikes" law for legislators. If you vote in favor of three laws that are later overturned by the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional, you should be tried for treason.
Problem with this comes when the Courts interpret State and Country constitutions in ways the writers never dreamed of. As I recal, a new england state just declared a state law unconstitutional that was writen by one of the original writers of the constitution. They even admited that they were interpretating it in a way that was not originally intended.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Because he openly mocked Gore in 2000 for having admitted to smoking pot, when he had smoked it himself.
That is a very valid point. My answer is that if the loser gets nothing, i.e. if your minority vote gets "wasted", then there is something fundamentally wrong with the system.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Right! He has been elected, and now we should all stand behind him, because Senator Kennedy is such a fine...
...as I was saying, President Bush is such a fine elected official!
:-)
*listens to whisper in ear*
(Pot, meet kettle.
"it is our OBLIGATION rather than our right to participate in the commons."
If by commons, you mean the procedures of the majoritarian state, I respectfully disagree.
I have made a personal decision not to vote any longer. Why have I made this decision? Because I have come to the reasoned conclusion that majoritarianism ("democracy") is a corrupt system, and I cannot change it with the mechanisms it provides (i.e. voting).
In fact, because of what I believe, I feel it is immoral for me to support the system any longer. My only option then, is to opt out and not lend my country's corrupt procedures any moral support. I need neither the government nor the ballot box to defend my freedoms and the freedoms of my neighbours; I don't need them to live my daily life, to pursue my dreams, to help the less fortunate, or to do any of the other things that matter in life.
I've seen a lot of people rant about how if you don't vote, you have no right to complain. I believe the opposite is true. If you keep voting for the same corrupt system and the same corrupt politicians (there is rarely an honest candidate), you're the one who has no basis for complaint when the system fails you. I can complain, because I stand against the system and no longer participate in its corruption.
Before you flame me, please realize this is a difficult and considered position that has taken me many years to arrive at. Not voting does not mean one is apathetic. I believe the grandfather poster, whom you labeled "apathetic", has achieved a critical insight into the futility of the system he lives under.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Anyway, despite what people think, if I stumble across documents marked CLASSIFIED on a seat on the bus, I can release them. Does no one study history anymore? We had a rather infamous court case called 'The Pentagon Papers' that decided just that...if you have classified information leaked to you, you can publish it. As long as you haven't agreed not to, aka, as long as you don't have a security clearance.
Of course, the publisher can be tried for teason, but only if, by releasing said documents, they intentionally harm the country, which 99.999% of classified information would not. The bar for treason is fairly high.
And no one has ever suggested that data that is classified that has independently been obtained through another source could be illegal to reveal. Like the satellites we're talking about. That's just absurd.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?