Not to sound too paranoid, but President Bush signed a new directive on 8 December 2004 which could affect future GPS availability. From:
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001280.html
US TO SHUT DOWN GPS IN CRISIS?
The White House has completed yet another piece of its never-ending review of the Clinton-era 1996 National Space Policy.
U.S. SPACE-BASED POSITIONING, NAVIGATION, AND TIMING POLICY, signed by the President on 8 December 2004, "establishes guidance and implementation actions for space-based positioning, navigation, and timing programs, augmentations, and activities for U.S. national and homeland security, civil, scientific, and commercial purposes."
In other words its a GPS policy, and pretty aggressive one at that.
The policy, which also comes in a classified flavor, reportedly resulted in a directive to the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) to develop plans to shut down civil use of U.S. GPS signals in certain emergencies and to deny advesaries access to foreign space-based satellite navigation services, such as the European Union's Galileo system.
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GPS Availability
Posted - 01/02/2005 : 02:03:36
