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November 14, 2004
The All Seeing Eye
The Pentagon is building its own Internet in the sky (the "Global Information Grid" or GIG), to give all American commanders and troops a moving picture of all foreign enemies and threats.
"This 'Internet in the sky,' Peter Teets, under secretary of the Air Force, told Congress, would allow "marines in a Humvee, in a faraway land, in the middle of a rainstorm, to open up their laptops, request imagery' from a spy satellite, and 'get it downloaded within seconds.'
Robert J. Stevens, chief executive of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, the nation's biggest military contractor, said he envisioned every member of the military having "a picture of the battle space, a God's-eye view. And that's real power."
The project is expected to take two decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to construct. And that's real money.
Tim Weiner, Pentagon Envisioning a Costly Internet for War, New York Times, November 13, 2004. URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/13/technology/13warnet.html (Subscription)
Posted by sjc at November 14, 2004 9:23 AM
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