Happy Independence Day!

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a group of early American leaders ratified the Declaration of Independence.

The catalyst for this Dear John letter affirming our right to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness": tea.

At the time, the self-sufficient colonists were chafing at a series of taxes and controls imposed by the far-off English monarchy. The final straw was the Tea Act of 1773, which tried to force colonists to import tea from the "financially troubled British East India Company." The colonists preferred Dutch Tea, so, in an act of defiance, they chucked the English Tea into Boston Harbor.

In the 1700s the colonists were hooked on tea.

Today, the world is hooked on GPS.

While nobody is forcing people to use GPS (so no Declaration is necessary), it is tough to break free because it is ubiquitous: its signal is used by nearly all critical infrastructure and 8 billion receivers, one for every person on Earth.

While we all know GPS from our location apps, it's main value is as a source of time for the world's networks, financial transactions, data centers, and power grids.

It wasn't meant for this. GPS is a US military asset that was only reluctantly made available for the civilian world. It was perfect timing (pun intended) - a free, stable, global timing signal that just happened to arrive right when the first digital networks needed a timing reference.

But it is also easy to jam and spoof - and it has an off switch.

A pair of early Executive Orders made GPS available to the world. A more recent Executive Order now seeks GPS-independent alternatives.

In the US, and across the globe, GPS Independence is underway.

Last Week's Theme: Disruption at 36,000 km