Will the Lightsquared Interference Meeting be another arrow

[sad sally]

in the Republican's quiver to be used against the President?

On April 28, 2011 a meeting described in White House emails as the “Lightsquared interference meeting,” was set at Jackson Place conference center, a short stroll from the White House. The names of the people invited are blacked out in the records released under FOIA. Holding meetings in the Jackson Place complex has drawn the ire of Republicans who argue that the Obama administration has done so to keep from having to disclose names—especially those of lobbyists—in the White House visitors’ logs.

Peter L. Levin, the chief technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, didn’t mince words in an explicit warning he sent via email to White House technology official Chopra and two other senior White House aides on March 26, 2011. Levin described a “catastrophe” from GPS interference.

Levin attached a March 2011 PowerPoint slide presentation called “Unintended Consequences” by Stanford University Emeritus Professor Bradford Parkinson, a retired Air Force officer and expert in the field. In his presentation, Parkinson said LightSquared should bear the burden of proving that its transmitters would not cause interference with GPS and said officials should “withdraw or indefinitely postpone (a) decision” on the plan. He doubted such a fix was possible.

Parkinson ended with the comment: “We believe this is potentially a very serious embarrassment to the current administration.”

Jeffrey Carlisle, a LightSquared executive vice president, in written testimony said that LightSquared expects to invest $14 billion over the next eight years to build a nationwide wireless broadband network.

The investment promises over 15,000 jobs a year for each of the five years that it will take to build the network, which he said would provide fast wireless broadband service to more than 260 million people.

The administration remains fully behind broadband. Buried deep in the $450 billion jobs plan President Obama outlined in speech to Congress on Sept. 8 is $10 billion to pay for a massive expansion of broadband internet service.

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/09/14/6458/emails-show-wireless-firms-communications-white-house-campaign-donations-were-made/page/0/2?du