A May 7 report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) suggests that government dysfunction and under-funding could result in increased GPS outages. The story got the press very hot and bothered, though even the Airforce seems to admit there's not much to worry about. In the UK, TelecomTV's Martyn Warwick argues that the GAO report is designed to scare lawmakers and the public into ramping up funding in order to protect America's GPS dominance.

"This is more about political machinations, xenophobia, and jostlings for preferment and money than anything else," argues Warwick, who complains the U.S. government is playing Chicken Little in order to panic citizens "and anyone else anywhere else that takes the cynical ploy at face value."

More funding would certainly lessen the call for non U.S. controlled GPS systems like the EU's Galileo project, which the United States has vociferously opposed for years and even threatened to shoot down. On this side of the pond we have gotten pretty good at manufacturing a techno-crisis and stirring up the unskeptical press for political effect.

That said, while a lot of U.S. agencies who are supposed to be objective have shown they're anything but, the GAO traditionally hasn't been one of them. The office has frequently taken unpopular positions that disrupt the status quo, such as repeatedly pointing out the FCC's inability to accurately track broadband statistics.

The full report is available here in PDF format for your own analysis.