Satellite Spotters Make Government Uneasy

An anonymous reader found an interesting little story about satellite spotters and how, not surprisingly, their painstakingly methodical hobby doesn't exactly make gazillion dollar government agencies all that excited. Of course the article raises the very obvious point that if a guy with a pair of binoculars in his back yard can spot a satellite, so can the Chinese government.

Comments

Re:Stealth Satellites?

[N8F8]

Don't quit your day job. The fact that you can spot the satellite with binoculars proves my argument. And from an intel standpoint, this is one piece of a puzzle to knowing what the satellites are sued for but I'd rather have the Chinese or whoever have to pay for it themselves. But go ahead, go report to your communist friends. It's your right.

Re:They act hostile towards us ...

[RiotingPacifist]

They attempt to manipulate our electoral system with illegal campaign contributions Pot kettle black, have you heard of this little agency called the CIA, the middle east didnt supress themselves.

recall their ramming of our surveillance aircraft erm you were spying on them, if they were aggressive then bye bye plane!

The blind eye turned towards piracy and counterfeiting. Supply and demand, if people are going to buy fakes then people are going to make them, its called capitalism look it any good bookshop. As for piracy i much prefer sweeden's approach more than a blind eye a straight out finger up to tell you that sweeden is not your jurisdiction.

Their involvement in the drug trade (precursor chemicals and opium exports, and money laundering) Again, not your jurisdiction

Their currency manipulation to remain an extremely inexpensive exporter. Atleast theyre not invading countries to try keep their currency afloat. (im not saying its why you went into iraq but definitely up there)

they entered the Korean War to save the North Koreans when they were on the verge of defeat. I have to admit, i don't know the specifics of Korea but i KNOW that if it wasn't for some American interest you wouldn't have been there at all(freedom doesnt count as an interest for the same reason it didnt count in nam,afganistan (both times) & doesnt count in iraq now).

They seem well poised to need a diversion and a scapegoat. We seem to be their number one candidate. Not everybody is dumb enough to ignore that their countries falling apart while they're spending millions fighting to rid the world of...evil!

Re:What's this new obsession with the Chinese...

[Feltron]

Funny story about nukes and how war actually works. NUKES DONT MATTER. its fighting strenght plain and simple. No one is actualy stupid enough to use a nuke these days. Great china doesnt have any but lest we forget there are a ton of other nations who hate us just chomping at the bit to decide to use theirs. Places like iran and north korea wouldnt pass that up for the world. They would all jummp behing the guise of we over excercised our military power so they would relatiate on chinas behalf. So that pretty much takes nukes out of the picture and china has a prety massive army and a pretty well trained air force so it wouldnt be total domination. See also the iraq war, were getting our ass handed to us by a relativly untrained under equiped bunch of fighters b/c they have a reason to fight...but thats a sotry for another day.

so

[Stanneh]

the worry here is that one evil empire doesnt like another evil empire spying on their spying sattelites. who has the moral high ground here?

Re:Stealth Satellites?

[N8F8]

I'm saying they have to do the work. And they wouldn't have free independent confirmation. But who cares. Fuck you all.