One century's paranoia-inducing spy machine is another's "tool of sovereignty for Europe," it seems. A bit over 50 years ago was Sputnik launched, while the weekend saw a nice symbol of our technological advancement since that first height of the Cold War: The second launch in the European Union's planned satellite navigation system from a base in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

When the EU finally gave this most recent stage the thumbs up, Slovenian transport minister Radovan Zerjav stated that the project "represents a decisive step towards a further implementation of this project. Europe has to carry on by intensively developing [Galileo], which constitutes the greatest technical and technological challenge for the EU in terms of developing its proper navigational system." On the occasion of the launch, EU transport commissioner Jacques Berrot called the EUR 3.4 billion (approximately $5.31 billion) project "a tool of sovereignty for Europe."

Compare this with those similarly objective reports from America back in 1957. "Reds," indeed.

What MPR finds interesting about the nonchalance regarding Galileo is not only that the technology used is directly a product of the half-century of repression behind the "Iron Curtain," but that in buying a GPS system, you're basically giving permission to have yourself tracked by an even more ominous eye in the sky.
But, hey, since the Soviet Union bankrupted, we're all benevolent capitalists now, right? I mean, the Patriot Act isn't taken that seriously, is it?