Head Spook Kills Off Lame Spy Sat

It's an old saw in Washington that nobody takes the new guy in charge all that seriously until he's fired someone. New Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell did one better at a briefing on Tuesday, saying he'd been told he had to "kill a multibillion dollar program" to show he had the stones for the job, and adding, "Just did that." The sacrificial program was none other than Misty, the infamous $9-plus billion classified satellite boondoggle.

The whole "stealth" feature? Not so much. The first generation of Misty, which was launched back in 1990, was spotted almost immediately – and not by Russian spooks, either, but by a bunch of amateur space observers, sitting on their balconies with binoculars.

src: blog.wired.com...

Misty Info: en.wikipedia.org...(satellite)

Well with over 100+ other spook birds floating gently in the skies we shouldn't be too worried that any type of surveillance is being hindered. Apparently Mistys patents were also common knowledge revealing some of the possible techniques used to maintain stealth. If this mess was 9 billion one must wonder what the rest of the fleet costs run at.

brill