Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

Aha, the Navy has provided the world with a free (if illegal) method of communicating that even former governor George Bush’s secret agents probably didn’t know to wiretap.

A Wired story today, The Great Brazilian Sat-Hack Crackdown (4/20/2009) describes how, for about a decade now, Brazilians have been using cheap equipment to communicate via US Navy satellites, compliments of Uncle Sam:

Truck drivers love the birds because they provide better range and sound than ham radios. Rogue loggers in the Amazon use the satellites to transmit coded warnings when authorities threaten to close in. Drug dealers and organized criminal factions use them to coordinate operations.
,,,
"It's impossible not to find equipment like this when we catch an organized crime gang," says a police officer involved in last month's action.

Well, 39 people have just been arrested in a raid. But guess who they picked: 

Among those charged were university professors, electricians, truckers and farmers, the police say.

So the crooks and drug dealers continue to use the satellites while the university professors face jail time. Brazilian justice sounds just like American justice.

Your tax dollars are at work, supporting organized crime in Brazil with state-of-the-art US Navy satellite communications.