Forwarded by: "Thomas B. Baines" <tbainesat_private> Is it just me, or is anyone else bothered by the insistence on the part of the general media to call that poor old P-3 a "spy plane?" As a veteran of countless covert operations, I find it offensive that the news geeks of the country can't get it through their collective head that an aircraft collecting electronic data that has been broadcast with a very low expectation of privacy is NOT spying. By continuing to dumb down the news through the use of catch phrases that eleminate the necessity of thought about the nuances of a story as much as possible ([ANYTHING]GATE, for example, the various drama school dropouts and frustrated novelists are creating a dangerous level of ignorance that will bite us badly down the road. In international law, a very clear distinction is made between uniformed military personnel who fall into the hands of any foreign power, and spys who suffer a similar fate. Uniformed military persons are to be repatriated as soon as ongoing hostilities, if any, permit. Spys can be tried and condemned under the domestic laws of the custodial country. Be continuing to call the P-3 a spy plane, the media are, by inference, branding the crew as spys. That strips surveilance crews of their rights and exposes them to mistreatment for being engaged in perfectly legal activities. ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email LISTSERVat_private with a message body of "SIGNOFF ISN".
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 20 2001 - 03:51:04 PDT