NBC Nightly News (6:30 PM ET) June 13, 2002
US military in embarrassing position as ordinary citizens able to pick up US spy satellite pictures
TOM BROKAW, anchor: Still ahead tonight, regular people with home satellite dishes picking up US military surveillance missions. How is that possible?
Mr. JOHN PIKE (Globalsecurity.org): This is a really unusual blunder for the American military.
BROKAW: A bizarre case of spy TV. Is the military taking it too lightly?
TOM BROKAW, anchor: Speaking of things in the air, the US military tonight is in the embarrassing position of having to explain how an ordinary citizen in Great Britain and perhaps many more people around the world managed to pull US spy satellite pictures out of the air on their way to the Pentagon, no problems whatsoever. More now from NBC's Andrea Mitchell.
ANDREA MITCHELL reporting: American spy plane video of US troops on patrol in the Balkans three days ago, part of a NATO force hunting war criminals and keeping the peace in a region recently threatened by Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda. The Pentagon tracks these troop movements by satellite live. Now, it turns out, so can war criminals on the run and al-Qaeda or anyone else with access to satellite TV. Mr. JOHN LOCKER (Satellite Enthusiast): I was rather amazed to see this sort of information being blasted across Europe.
MITCHELL: As first reported by the BBC, a British satellite hobbyist discovered the spy pictures on an open satellite channel, not electronically scrambled.
Unidentified Man: In fact, it's easier to see these pictures than pay-per-view films or even Saturday sports.
MITCHELL: He says he alerted US officials seven months ago, but the spy pictures kept appearing. How can this happen? US officials say the war in Afghanistan is taking up all the available space on military satellites, so the Pentagon is sending pictures of noncombat missions on commercial satellites, and to save time and money, isn't scrambling them. Experts call that a major blunder.
Mr. JOHN PIKE (Globalsecurity.org): This is exactly the sort of information that the people you're trying to catch with these cameras are going to use to figure out that you're chasing them.
MITCHELL: The Pentagon says it will now review the policy. A top Pentagon advisor tells the BBC it will be fixed.
Mr. RICHARD PERLE (Defense Policy Board): There are plans to encrypt this data so that we don't get stories like the one we are enjoying this evening.
MITCHELL: And so the bad guys can no longer watch us watch them. Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington.
Copyright 2002 National Broadcasting Co. Inc.
