Video Phones confiscated???

[ipa2tf]

Anyone heard that the US Military has confiscated some French made video phones that embedded reporters are using? The French have provided Iraq with codes that enabled them to track the phones.

[homeschool mama]

Do you have a source for this information?

[cactusSharp]

heard it on CBS radio...Frence were already warned but did not adhere

[xm177e2]

It would not suprise me if the French had tried to do something like this. But there have been so many crazy rumors and false finds, that I think we should give this story 24 hours before we even touch it.

[konaice]

Post a link, or stop spreading rumors.
What makes you think Iraq has enough technical assests
to do such a thing!?!

You made this up didn't you....?

[anobjectivist]

If true...

This really needs to be put out more prominently. I expect the US to make a showcase out of the UN, France, Germany, Russia, China, and all of the other anti-american goons.

I demand the UN be dismantled.

[section9]

This reeks of Urban Legend, but could be true. I'm sure the good people at Snopes.com are on the case.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Cultural Jihad]

ipa2tf signed up 2002-11-18.

Odd that this was his or her very first and only post, a rumor.

[ipa2tf]

no konaice, my father heard it on CBS radio this morning, I am trying to verify it.

[OWK]

Hall monitors are geeks.

[Illbay]

Rumor-mongers are freaks.

[blackdog]

Duct tape the phones to food aide trucks and see what happens? Any bad or evil act has an equally if not greater countermeasure.

[Mister Baredog]

We do know that satellite phones can be pinpointed, remember we used to have Bin Laden"s SAT phone until the MEDIA told them about it.

[syriacus]

Inmarsat deploys extra satellite in Middle East [excerpt]

http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=32460813

WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - Global satellite communications company Inmarsat said on Tuesday it has deployed a fifth satellite to the Middle East region to handle the expected increased demand from the news media and aid agencies as a war in Iraq looms.

News organizations are one of the biggest users of the company's Global Area Network, which allows television networks like ABC, the BBC, NBC and CNN to connect videophones and run live broadcasts from the field.

...

Inmarsat, whose owners include big European telecommunications companies such as Britain's BT Group Plc (ISEL:BT), Deutsche Telekom , France Telecom (SBF:FTE) and Norway's Telenor (OSL:TEL), also provides satellite links for governments, including the United States, as well as aid agencies like the Red Cross.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

This would not surprise me in the least.

[Redcloak]

It may not be that the Iraqis are able to track these phones so much as our own HARM missiles tracking them. Who wants an embedded reporter in their unit when he's using an "enemy" phone and thus attracting the attention of the local JSTARS?

[Cultural Jihad]

Self-avowed libertarian ideologues are freaks. ; )

[coloradan]

Fundamental to the way cell phones operate is there are cell sites (those towers with three sets of three antennas in a trangle) which hand off to one another whichever calls are closet to each cell site, as the caller roams around. Which cell site is taking which call, and in which direction from the cell site center it originates, is knowable. If the French phones use Iraqi infrastructure to operate, then the Iraqis can track phone movements, which are tantamount to troop movements if the phones are with troops.

(The FBI tracks US citizens by this method within the US. If your cell phone is on and within any service area, they know where it is - you don't have to be making a call for them to track you. They have caught criminals this way, but the privacy implications are chilling.)

[LiteKeeper]

read and study later