From DefenseLink, the military's news organ.

When it come to “space control,” for space situation awareness, Air Force Maj. Gen. Franklin “Judd” Blaisdell, the Air Force's director of space operations and integration, said, “We need to know what's happening in our space environment, not only for what we have, but what other countries may have.” He said the United States has a ground system that can read the lettering on a basketball out about 25,000 miles. But it's weather dependent.

Declan McCullagh's Politech list has hosted a pretty good trashing of this claim based just on the physics.  So is it the truth, or is “Judd”, who “pities” the enemy who goes up against the US's space capabilities, throwing reporters “bull”?

It's against the law for the military to lie to the US press, isn't it?