American spy agencies don't want Russian GPS sites in their backyard
Planto let Moscow build monitor stationson US soil, as a gesture to improve diplomatic relations, is opposed by the CIA and Pentagon
In the view of US spy services, the next potential threat from Russia may not come from a nefarious cyberweapon or secrets gleaned from the files of Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor now in Moscow.
Instead, this menace may come in the form of a seemingly innocuous dome-topped antenna perched atop an electronics-packed building surrounded by a security fence somewhere in the United States.
In recent months, the CIA and the Pentagon have been quietly waging a campaign to stop the State Department allowing Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, to build about half a dozen of these structures, known as monitor stations, on American soil, several US officials said.
They fear that these structures could help Russia spy on the US and improve the precision of Russian weaponry, the officials said. These monitor stations, the Russians contend, would significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of Moscow's version of the global positioning system, the US satellite network that steers guided missiles to their targets and thirsty smartphone users to the nearest Starbucks.
"They don't want to be reliant on the American system and believe that their systems, like GPS, will spawn other industries and applications," said a former senior official in the State Department's Office of Space and Advanced Technology.
"They feel as though they are losing a technological edge to us in an important market. Look at everything GPS has done on things like your phone and the movement of planes and ships," the former official, who requested anonymity, said.
The Russian effort is part of a larger global race by several countries - including China and European Union nations - to perfect their own global positioning systems and challenge the dominance of the American GPS.
