Going Mainstream - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 132

Both studies acknowledged that differential augmentation techniques were
rapidly eroding the rationale for Selective Availability and recommended that
the Department of Defense shift its focus to better offensive and defensive
electronic countermeasures. The military needed to end its reliance on civil-
ian receivers (a holdover from Desert Storm) and develop new receivers that
could lock onto the encrypted military signal without first using the civilian
signal to acquire satellites, a shortcoming that would prevent jamming the
civilian signal to deny it to adversaries. The nrc also recommended adding a
second civilian signal, expanding and upgrading the monitoring stations and
creating a backup master control station.
When President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive, National
Science and Technology Council 6 (pdd nstc-6) on March 28, 1996, it com-
bined elements of both studies. The directive created a “permanent inter-
agency gps Executive Board, jointly chaired by the Departments of Defense
and Transportation” and committed the nation to providing gps “for peaceful
civil, commercial and scientific use on a continuous worldwide basis, free of
direct user fees.” 72 It charged the Defense Department with continuing to
“acquire, operate, and maintain” gps, designated the Transportation Depart-
ment as the lead agency “for all federal civil gps matters,” and charged the
Department of State with coordinating bilateral or multilateral agreements
involving gps. The National Command Authorities (president and secretary
of defense) retained ultimate control of gps and any government augmenta-
tion systems. Most notably, the directive announced the intention to discon-
tinue Selective Availability within a decade and committed the president,
beginning in 2000, to make an annual determination about the continued
need for it based on input from the various agencies.
At a press conference the next day Vice President Al Gore compared the
government-sponsored origin and private sector potential of gps to that of the
Internet. He promised one hundred thousand new high-tech jobs soon and,
eventually, the development of handheld phones that could provide precise
location information and allow civilian “rescues” similar to Scott O'Grady's.
Gore went further than the official text of the president's directive, telling the
audience to expect a more accurate civilian signal in “four to ten years.” 73 His
time frame for the demise of Selective Availability proved accurate, and his
prognostication about gps-enabled phones with navigation capabilities was
correct, although that advance was more than a decade away.
Four months after the president issued the directive the faa awarded a $475