DOD's 5G/GPS Red-Flags a Coverup, Ligado Alleges in Suit

U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Named as defendants were the U.S., DOD, Commerce Department and NTIA. Commerce and Defense didn't comment Friday. Calling it "the largest uncompensated taking of private property by our nation’s government in modern times," Ligado said in the 69-page complaint its spectrum rights had an assessed value of $39 billion -- "all of which value has been destroyed by the United States’ unconstitutional taking of Ligado’s property." The litigation doesn't specify what the supposed systems are and indicates they could involve transmitters, receivers or both. Ligado said DOD has indicated it needs exclusive, permanent use of the company's spectrum authorized for wireless terrestrial 5G services. That Defense use "has prevented, and will continue to prevent, Ligado from using its duly and exclusively licensed spectrum for terrestrial services," Ligado said. It alleged uncompensated physical, categorical, regulatory and legislative takings. "If left unchecked, such uncompensated and unfettered appropriation of a company’s FCC license by other government agencies will detrimentally undermine the authority of the FCC to exclusively regulate commercial spectrum, cast doubt on the finality of FCC decision-making and regulatory processes, and create a dangerous precedent of governmental seizure of private property," it said. In its suit, Ligado cites an unnamed DOD whistleblower who allegedly shared internal emails and conversations, plus the company's own talks with current and former government officials. The whistleblower and those talks "lay bare how [Defense and Commerce] fabricated arguments, misled Congress in testimony supporting anti-Ligado legislation, and orchestrated a public smear campaign, which included repeating those false claims to the public and threatening Ligado’s business partners with canceling their own government contracts if they worked with Ligado," the company said.