Glenn Kessler
Washington Post
October 4, 2011
“And don’t forget I sit on the Intelligence Committee. We deal with the nation’s classified secrets. This is an open-source document. I’m not sharing something I shouldn’t, but China has blinded United States satellites with their lasers.”
— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Sept. 30
A reader sent us an article about Michele Bachmann’s comments on China during an appearance on Laura Ingraham’s show last week. The headline was “Bachmann: China Attacked US Satellites With Lasers.” That certainly got our attention, though when we actually listened to the quote, it was not quite as dramatic as “attacked.”
… On Sept. 28, 2006, Defense News reported that China had recently “fired high-power lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory in what experts see as a test of Chinese ability to blind the spacecraft.” In the context of satellites, “blinding” specifically refers to causing permanent damage to an imaging satellite’s detector.
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