Going Public - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 86

Reagan administration announced that it had decided to make the new navi-
gation technology available to civil aviation.
Today, nearly every gps historical timeline features Reagan's announce-
ment, but most accounts either ignore the details or stretch the truth. Exam-
ples abound, particularly in poorly sourced online histories of gps, of statements
that Reagan “declassified gps” or “gave it to private industry.” 13 Very intelli-
gent people have succumbed to such hyperbole. A high-proile example hap-
pened at the 2011 South by Southwest (sxsw) festival in Austin, Texas, during
an onstage interview of Tim O'Reilly, the founder and ceo of O'Reilly Media,
who is credited with coining the term We b 2 . 0 . While making the point that
people should view government as a platform that helps birth new technolo-
gies, O'Reilly dubbed Reagan “the father of Foursquare.” 14 His remark drew
an audible reaction from the audience and attracted lots of press coverage
because of the unlikely coupling of the iconic president, who died in 2004,
with the rapidly growing location-based service launched at sxsw in 2009.
Foursquare employs gps to allow its users, via smartphones, to share their
location with friends, “check in” at restaurants, shops, and other hotspots, and
take advantage of promotional offers targeted to them by businesses. 15 What
neither the audience nor the press seemed to notice were the factual errors in
O'Reilly's comments: “When the Navy and the Air Force put up the gps sys-
tem, they did not have to make the decision to open it up for civilian use. In
fact, there was a lot of debate about that. It was Reagan, who after a U. S. air-
liner was shot down over North Korea because it strayed over North Korean air-
space , said 'Hey, when you guys finish this gps thingy, let's open it for civilian
use.' It was an executive order that he gave” (emphasis added).
Recalculating the Facts
Reagan never issued any public executive order pertaining to gps. (Some assert
that nsdd 102, now largely declassified, contains references to gps within por-
tions that remain redacted.) 16 Furthermore, an Internet search of his speeches
and interviews archived at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library offers no
evidence that he ever publicly uttered the phrase “Global Positioning System.”
Reagan was vacationing in California when the shoot down occurred. His
deputy press secretary, Larry M. Speakes, read a short statement on Septem-
ber 1 during a briefing with reporters at the Sheraton Santa Barbara Hotel. The
next day, Reagan cut short his vacation, gave prepared remarks to reporters
before boarding Air Force One for Washington, and issued Proclamation 5086,