There is a disturbing story out this week that four-star Air Force Gen. William Shelton testified under oath that the White House tried to pressure him into changing his testimony on a new wireless project in a way that would benefit a large Democratic donor. There is also an allegation that someone in the Administration leaked the intended testimony to the company.
Shelton heads the Air Force Space Command and was intending to raise serious concerns of how a new wireless project to threaten military operations. The project is being pushed by a satellite broadband company in Virginia called LightSquared, whose majority owner is an investment fund run by Democratic donor Philip Falcone. After allegedly leaking the testimony to the company, the White House allegedly asked Shelton to change his testimony to say he supported the use of more broadband for commercial use and could resolve the problems surrounding LightSquared with more testing in just 90 days. Shelton viewed the changes to be untrue and resisted. He was asked directly in a classified briefing about any such pressure and confirmed it.
Once again, I see a bit of a double standard in the coverage on this point. During the Bush terms, such intervention on behalf of donors was aggressively pursued by the media. This story would have been a major story. As search of the story this morning shows relatively light attention from the mainstream media. Why?
If there is another side to this story, the media should confirm it in broader discussion of the allegations. I am struck that the testimony was given in what appears to be a classified hearing. The intelligence and military committees appear quite selective in when to inform the public of such testimony. Torture was left classified and undisclosed until the media forced the story into the public. Yet, this story came out with little difficulty. Putting aside the selectivity, it is a story worthy of greater media attention.
Source: Daily Beast
Goes to show, regardless of what party is in power, our tax money and contracts will go to the biggest donors.
” The intelligence and military committees appear quite selective in when to inform the public of such testimony. Torture was left classified and undisclosed until the media forced the story into the public. Yet, this story came out with little difficulty. Putting aside the selectivity, it is a story worthy of greater media attention.”
To say the least.
Len,
Ditto…I am fairly confidant that whomever donates the cash….gets the best deals….in this case favorable results…
Reminds me of a certain senator from Texas that obtained affiliate licensing agreements from CBS, ABC and NBS…in the late 50′s and early 60…
I suppose you can own the cable company as well…
Kind of like a Murdoch…You can control what they say….
AN,
LOL
IMO worse is that the FCC ignored the testimony that he did give and went ahead with LightSquared, despite the long standing well documented issues that are, shall we say, unresolved.
http://joeclarksblog.com/?p=2972
Putting aside the selectivity, it is a story worthy of greater media attention.” -Jonathan Turley
Fox is all over it, like white on rice…
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/may/2011-09-16/general-defies-white-house-orders-weaken-our-national-security#.TnNVdeytO9g
AY,
I love that scene…
The intelligence and military committees appear quite selective in when to inform the public of such testimony. Torture was left classified and undisclosed until the media forced the story into the public. -Jonathan Turley
As a case in point, refer to the following posting:
Double Secret Probation
Published 1, August 4, 2011
Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
Excerpt:
“There is a significant discrepancy between what most Americans – including many members of Congress – think the Patriot Act allows the government to do and how government officials interpret that same law,” wrote the Senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. “We believe that most members of the American public would be very surprised to learn how federal surveillance law is being interpreted in secret.” The Senators tried to get the government to reveal some of the law’s contents, by forcing the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to produce a report outlining when this secret surveillance has gone overboard. Yesterday, the effort failed. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said no to the report by rejecting Wyden and Udall’s amendment to the FY2012 Intelligence Authorization Act.” Crooks and Liars
If two Democratic Senators cannot convince a Democratically controlled Select Committee to accept their amendment, all hell has broken loose and pigs can now fly. If you think about it, as long as any government agency can keep their interpretation of a law secret, it amounts to a completely independent legislature that does not answer to the American people. (end of excerpt)
Quoting judge Damon Keith, “Democracies go behind closed doors to die.”
anon nurse,
Thanks for the plug!
rafflaw,
You’re welcome… It’s a sincere one…
I inadvertently omitted the link:
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/08/04/double-secret-probation/
I await the Republicans complaining of this as another example of job-crushing government regulation of small business.
Big Questions Remain for LightSquared
The NPEF report indicates that after testing, even shifting the 10 Mhz block to a position lower on the spectrum band at a 50% reduction in maximum authorized power, still produces interference in both U.S. Government and commercial GPS applications.
The licensing of the spectrum should have included a spectral mask that the LightSquared transmitters have to meet. If LightSquared can’t design transmitters that don’t spew harmonics, I can recommend someone who can.
Kudos to General Shelton for standing “his ground” and telling the truth: we need more whistleblowers in government and elsewhere.
Nal,
I didn’t know that transmitters can also play the harmonica.
subscribe
And He is still The President of the United States!! I feel sick!!
T-P W-S….
Let’s see… The Bush-Cheney team took us to war on false pretenses and…
(This isn’t good…, but let’s keep it in perspective… I’m happy that it came out and I don’t condone it, but… and I’ll say it again: There were no WMD in Iraq… Many lives lost (good American men and women, as well as untold numbers of Iraqis…)… Oh, and there was that trivial torture business…
And I agree with wgward…
Where is the FCC in all this?
Nal,
I’m sure that your light-squared years ahead of me on this one, but will post the following on the off-chance that it includes any info of which you aren’t already aware…
http://www.insidegnss.com/node/2779
Excerpt:
FCC MIA
One member of the Obama administration was notable for his absence. Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski, though originally set to speak before the panel, had refused to appear, Turner said in his opening remarks to the hearing.
“I consider the chairman’s failure to show up today to be an affront to the House Armed Services Committee,” said Turner. “It appears to be symptomatic of a disregard by the chairman for the consequences of the FCC’s January 26 waiver to LightSquared.”
In response to questions from the committee Shelton said that, should a technical solution appear that would enable GPS and LightSquared to coexist, it would require thorough testing and perhaps modification to DoD’s software — and a lot of money and time.
“We have not estimated cost,” Shelton told the subcommittee, “however. I think it would be very safe to say that the cost would in the B’s — billions of dollars. We believe that the time would probably be a decade or more to accomplish all this. There are probably a million receivers out there in the military, maybe even more than that.”
The filters that are being suggested by LightSquared, he said, could undermine the precision of some receivers
“There is a set a frequencies and then there are harmonics off those frequencies. It is those harmonics . . . that are important for the precision of those wideband receivers,” Shelton explained. “Clipping off those harmonics decreases the accuracy of the receiver. If there is something else magic out there, we don’t know about it.”
Asked why DoD had not raised the alarm years earlier when the FCC was considering and approving the increases in power and numbers of broadcast towers at the center of LightSquared’s proposal, Shelton said that the threat to GPS only became clear early this year when LightSquared changed the focus of its business plan from satellite services to a terrestrial network.
“The frequency band that we’re talking about here has, by FCC rulings in the past, always been intended to be a ‘quiet neighborhood’ where GPS could coexist with other signals of the same magnitude,” the general said. “However, if you put a rock band in the middle of that neighborhood it is a very different sort of circumstance.”
Other witness at today’s hearing included Teresa Takai, the DoD’s chief information officer; Karl Nebbia, associate administrator, Office of Spectrum Management, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA); and Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering Technology.
In his prepared testimony, Knapp said, “I want to make absolutely clear that the Commission will not authorize LightSquared to begin commercial service if its operation would cause harmful interference to GPS.”
He later defended the general wireless broadband initiative, but added, “At the same time, the Commission will ensure that entities such as LightSquared do not cause harmful interference to GPS systems. We will continue to work closely with the NTIA, DOD and other federal agencies to assess LightSquared’s proposal and determine the viability of technical solutions that would enable both services to co-exist.” (end excerpt)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/16/1017462/-Republicans-accuse-Obama-of-trying-to-ease-regulatory-burden-on-job-creator-who-donated-to-GOP?via=blog_1 Falcone was also a republican donor.
Nal: “Where is the FCC in all this?”
—
They’ve been missing in action for years. I’m surprised the Administration doesn’t sell those bracelets for the FCC employees like the Vietnam vets do for MIA soldiers.
According to the FEC disclosure database, Falcone donated $28,500 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008, $20,000 to the Republican Party of Minnesota in 2008 and 2009, $12,300 to Norm Coleman’s recount campaign, $4,600 to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign and even $1,000 to George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. He also made large contributions to Democrats, but he didn’t contribute a dime to the Obama administration.
Frankly,
Good info…
I want to echo AY’s comment. Those fact things just keep getting in the way of a good story. Thanks Frankly!
raff,
You are a business man, right? If you predecessor gets the ball rolling and the economy is in the crapper like the US Job market was when Obama took office…wouldn’t you keep the White House Warned in 2009 That Solyndra Investment going….I had no ideal that it was Bush initiated….My question would be what should Obama have done differently….
If your predecessor….
At two points during the LightSquared regulatory process, according to the White House visitor logs, Falcone was cleared to meet with members of Obama’s staff. In the months before and after those meetings, he and his wife and the CEO for LightSquared donated more than $90,000 to Democratic Party committees .
On Sept. 22, 2009, as he was completing the takeover of SkyTerra, Falcone and LightSquared CEO Ahuja met with James Kohlenberger, chief of staff for the Office of Science and Technology. On Sep. 30, 2009, Falcone and his wife Lisa each gave $30,400 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the maximum allowed. On Sept. 23, 2010, Ahuja gave $30,400 to the Democratic National Committee; on Oct. 28, 2010, he gave the same amount to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Falcone has previously written checks mainly to Republicans, or split his donations. For instance, in June 2008, he and his wife, Lisa, each gave $28,500 to both the Republican and Democratic Senate campaign committees. That was the maximum allowed at the time.
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/07/19/5253/politically-connected-lightsquared-pushes-wireless-internet-plan-despite-gps/page/0/2
AY,
Just like our Wall Street friends, some investments don’t pan out. The best thing Obama could have done was to avoid everything Bush touched.
raff,
Now here I go defending Obama….I think that maybe his heart was in the right place…Jobs for and in America….I too agree that the best thing that could have happened was to walk away…I think that it was possible that if he did not proceed that the GOP would have used that against him and that Obama saw this as a political liability…Unfortunately it did not pan out and private investors lost I think equally as much…
This type of thing does not get that much money without having a Bi-Partisan Support…. at some point….