Replying to a message of Ross Sauer to Bob Ackley:

 RS> "Bob Ackley -> Ross Sauer"  wrote in
 RS> news:31529$POL_INC{at}JamNNTPd:

 RS>>> I was just reading about a satellite that was recently launched,
 RS>>> basically it's an upgraded version of the ones already up there
 BA>>   that RS> listen to communications, like cell phones.

 RS>>> Seeing as I don't have a cell phone, (don't need or want one
 BA>>   right RS> now,) looks like I don't have to worry. 

 BA>> Forty years ago the US military maintained radio intercept sites all
 BA>> over the planet.  Around that time a method of 'broadband' recording
 BA>> was developed and mounted in reconnaissance aircraft.  Those
 BA>> 'broadband' recordings were then transcribed at ground installations
 BA>> in the US - said ground stations operated just like the overseas
 BA>> sites did.  Those overseas sites began to be shut down in the 1980s. 
 BA>> I presume the 'broadband' technology was extended to use satellites
 BA>> rather than reconnaissance aircraft.

 RS> I read somewhere, that the move from aircraft to satellites was
 RS> prompted mostly by the Soviets shooting down KAL flight 007, since
 RS> there had been a elctronic snooping aircraft in the area also.

Not likely.  Most folks don't know that the US ran 'peripheral reconnaissance'
missions all around the former Soviet Union and mainland China.  The Soviet
Union shot down several of them, and was known to set up false beacons to
cause the US aircraft to stray across the border instead of remaining on 'our'
side of it.  BTW, the Soviets do it to this country, too - just not as much;
their TU-95s have a humongous unrefuelled range.

More likely it was simply the cost.  If you have the 'backenders' sitting at
consoles somewhere on the ground transcribing material it's a whole lot less
expensive than it is to put them in an aircraft to do the same thing.  And,
of course, if you're not using an aircraft you don't have to worry about the
compromise of any classified material if it goes down - as happened with
that Navy P3 off Hainan Island some years back.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+