Official U.S. government information about the Global Positioning System (GPS) and related topics

Selective Availability

Selective Availability (SA) was an intentional degradation of public GPS signals implemented for national security reasons.

In May 2000, at the direction of President Bill Clinton, the U.S government discontinued its use of Selective Availability in order to make GPS more responsive to civil and commercial users worldwide.

The United States has no intent to ever use Selective Availability again.

In September 2007, the U.S. government announced its decision to procure the future generation of GPS satellites, known as GPS III, without the SA feature. Doing this will make the policy decision of 2000 permanent and eliminate a source of uncertainty in GPS performance that had been of concern to civil GPS users worldwide.

Information About the September 2007 Decision

Information Released in 2001 and 2003

Information About the May 2000 Decision