United States v. Haynie: satellite interference from a third-party uplink (September 1987, 940 F.2d 653)
What happened
On 6 September 1987 three religious messages were transmitted into the transponders of several satellite broadcasters, interrupting their regularly scheduled adult programming; one of the three interfered with a broadcast by the Playboy Channel. The government's case was that Thomas M. Haynie used the satellite ground station facilities of his employer, the Christian Broadcasting Network, to generate and transmit the messages. Haynie was indicted on three counts of interfering with the operation of a satellite under 18 U.S.C. section 1367(a) and three counts of transmitting energy without a licence under 47 U.S.C. sections 301 and 501, and was convicted on one count of each. He was sentenced to three years probation, a 1,000 US dollar fine and 150 hours of community service, and the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed on 14 August 1991. The government tied the interfering transmission to the network's own equipment through signal analysis, identification of a Knox K-50 character generator, and step-up timing measurements of a Varian Gen-2 transmitter that matched the facility's.
The only record in this batch backed by a court record, which makes it the batch's strongest evidence and its anchor for the insider-at-a-licensed-uplink pattern. The opinion does not quote the message content and does not name the transponders or the satellite, so this description stops where the opinion stops. Note that the incident is 1987 and the cited document is the 1991 appellate opinion; SPARTA's bibliography cites the opinion, which is why the incident is commonly identified by its reporter citation, but the slug and date_occurred carry the incident year.
Attack vector
Misuse of a licensed commercial satellite uplink facility by an insider with legitimate access to it, transmitting an interfering carrier into transponders the facility had no authorisation to use.
Operational impact
Interruption of the regularly scheduled programming of several satellite broadcasters on 6 September 1987, including a Playboy Channel broadcast.
Affected segments
link, ground
Disclosed
1991-08-14
SPARTA techniques evidenced
Each row is a technique this record evidences, with the reasoning and the source that attests to it.
What relationship, confidence, and evidence mean on the rows below
- Relationship
What kind of link this is between the technique and the target.
Mitigates: the target actively prevents, detects, or recovers from the technique.
Addresses: the target governs the technique or is relevant to it, without interdicting it. Most governance and policy obligations sit here.
Triggers obligation: the technique occurring is what triggers the duty the target imposes.
Relates to: related to the technique, but the target neither interdicts nor governs it. Used sparingly.
- Confidence
How strongly the source supports this mapping, not how severe the technique is.
High: the source supports the mapping squarely.
Moderate: supported, with a qualification such as a cross-tactic reading that stays operationally sound.
Low: the source reaches the technique only in part.
- Evidence
How close to the source text the mapping was made.
Direct: a verbatim excerpt of the cited source was read against the technique, and the rationale argues from that excerpt.
Derived: the mapping follows from the source's scope or structure, with no on-point excerpt addressing the technique.
Inferred: reached by composition through another framework, or by domain reasoning the source does not support on its face.
The station transmitted into transponders it had no authorisation to use, which is the substance of the 47 U.S.C. section 301 count on which Haynie was convicted. Held at moderate rather than high because the facility was a licensed commercial teleport rather than a clandestine station: what was rogue was the use of it, not the equipment.
The regularly scheduled programming of several satellite broadcasters was interrupted, one of the messages interfering with a Playboy Channel broadcast. Loss of service to the intended audience is the finding the section 1367 conviction rests on.
The opinion records the government's contention that Haynie used the satellite ground station facilities of his employer, the Christian Broadcasting Network, an organisation unconnected to the affected broadcasters, to generate the messages. Staging a transmission through a third party's ground system is RD-0002.02, and the court states it rather than leaving it to inference.
Considered and not mapped
These techniques were considered for this record because a source, a related record or SPARTA's own catalogue pointed at them. Each was read against what the sources say and not mapped. The reason is given in full.
Founder ruling 2026-08-05, editorial question 3 (
docs/decisions.mdentry 73).EX-0012.06sits underEX-0012Modify On-Board Values. An interfering uplink displaced a legitimate carrier at a bent-pipe transponder and no source establishes that anything on board was modified. That is theSI-7stored-versus-transient boundary already codified inCLAUDE.md, applied to a technique rather than a control. SPARTA cites this incident atEX-0012.06; the citation is domain context, not evidence that payload data was modified on board.Accepted for Captain Midnight, where the sources document a power contest between the intruder and the legitimate uplink. Here the opinion describes interference and interruption but no such contest, and no source retrieved describes the power relationship. Mapping it would assert a mechanism the record does not establish.
Haynie had ordinary employment access to CBN's facility. Nothing in the opinion describes persistence being established, and legitimate employment is not the unauthorised foothold PER-0003 covers.
Sources
The published accounts this record rests on. The tier is SafeMode Space's own assessment of the source, and the reason for it is given beside it. What the tiers mean and how they are assigned: the source tiers.
A source is listed when a mapped technique rests on it, or when it disputes the account. One the curators read but neither cited nor recorded as disputing the record is not listed, so an absence here means neither is true rather than that nobody looked.
Tier 1: A primary legal document: the opinion of a United States Court of Appeals, published in the Federal Reporter and mirrored by public.resource.org. Facts stated in it are findings of a court on a trial record. Retrieved in full in this session.
Every source SafeMode Space reproduces, and on what terms: sources and attribution.