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DHS To Kill Domestic Satellite Spying Program
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Jun 23, 2009 09:26 AM
from the right-sporting dept.
from the right-sporting dept.
mcgrew writes "The Bush administration had plans in place to use spy satellites to spy on American citizens. This morning the AP reports that new DHS head Janet Napolitano has axed those plans. 'The program was announced in 2007 and was to have the Homeland Security Department use overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites for homeland security and law enforcement purposes. The program, called the National Applications Office, has been delayed because of privacy and civil liberty concerns. The program was included in the Obama administration's 2010 budget request, according to Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat and House homeland security committee member who was briefed on the department's classified intelligence budget.'"
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duerra writes "A plan to use U.S. spy satellites for domestic security and law-enforcement missions is moving forward after being delayed for months because of privacy and civil liberties concerns. The plan is in the final stage of completion, according to a department official who requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about it. While some internal agencies have had access to spy satellite imagery for purposes such as assisting after a natural disaster, this would be the first time law-enforcement would be able to obtain a warrant and request access to satellite imagery."
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DHS should kill (Score:3, Insightful)
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ATF
DEA
IRS
Re:DHS should kill (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know why you were modded "flamebait", but I agree ATF and the DEA should be abolished; alcohol, tobacco, and firearms are legal and the ATF is simply a holdover from alcohol prohibition. Drugs should be legalized, as drug laws cause all the problems they purport to solve.
But you can't have government without some means of payiing for it, and I, for one, don't want some rich asshole who already has a lower tax rate than me able to easily cheat on his taxes. I pay my taxes and it irks me that someone tries to get out of paying theirs. When you cheat on your taxes, you steal from ME.
Parent
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
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But jaywalking is a federal issue, it ummm effects the children, or is a terrorist act, or something like that...
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No, no, no... you've got it all wrong. See, there's the possibility that you might jaywalk across state lines while carrying items to be sold. Therefore, jaywalking falls under the "interstate commerce" clause of the Constitution, and federal regulation applies to all street crossings and incidents of jaywalking.
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Intel assets should not be used to spy on our own country.
What? And ruin the premises of many popular television programs? If we had nothing to watch but Dancing with the Stars, lame-assed pseudo reality shows, and similarly lame comedy, we'd have nothing to do. And what about films? Or white guys who like guns^H^H^H^H^H^H^H...conspiracy theory buffs?
Sounds to me like you want to weaken our government. If that happens, the terrorists win.
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Imagine the DOD budget being spent to enforce laws.
Imagine accidentally leaking classified operating parameters of our spy satellites in a (relatively) minor domestic case. And I doubt any prosecutor would want to rely on this kind of information. The defense could just claim that some classified parameters were needed to mount an effective defense, then the judge throws the evidence out when it's clear that they can't do that
Too much cost for too little payoff, even beyond the fundamental disagreement.
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Well, there are a lot them.
It's Far, Far More Efficient... (Score:4, Funny)
...to contract with Google to do it for them.
Why build when you can outsource?
Re:It's Far, Far More Efficient... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, usually what they do to get around regulations preventing the CIA from spying on the US (for example) is simply work out an agreement with an ally, so that (for instance) the CIA sends intel on Israelis to Mossad in return for Mossad sending intel on Americans to the CIA. So in fact outsourcing is often exactly the sort of thing intelligence agencies are up to.
Parent
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While your post makes sense, I simply don't see Google as being willing to join that group of people.
"Willing?" Who said anything about "Willing"? What's "Willing" got to do with anything?
Did they violate his anonymity? (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article:
"Napolitano recently reached her decision after the program was discussed with law enforcement officials, and she was told it was not an urgent issue, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about it."*
Later on:
"Bratton, in his role as head of the Major City Chiefs Association, wrote on June 21 that the program, as envisioned by the Bush administration, is not an urgent need for local law enforcement."*
*(Emphasis mine)
Anonymity. Yes, we've heard of it.
-dZ.
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It's confusing but correct. An unnamed official is saying that Napolitano reached her decision after hearing from Bratton that it isn't an urgent need.
Unnamed official != Bratton.
Great news, IMO (Score:5, Interesting)
A problem with camera surveillance, is much more innocent than criminal behavior is in view, so a fairly high proportion of suspicious behavior is actually innocent behavior that looks improbably suspicious. Statistically, its the same problem as with false positives in drug tests. Compounding this problem is that when law enforcement is impersonal and from a distance, the accused often is not given a fair, face-to-face chance to defend themselves before having their lives temporarily wrecked. By the time it goes to trial, it has already cost large legal fees and possibly employment.
In my own arrest a few years ago, for innocent behavior that looked suspicious from afar, I was never once interviewed by a law enforcement officer or prosecutor and given a chance to tell my story, right up to the morning of the trial.
There was to me surprisingly little public comment when the domestic satellite surveillance program was announced a couple of years ago. Its nice that the Obama administration seems to be doing the right thing with this anyway.
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And if you are worried about anonymity then just post as AC
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I was seen with property that the accuser incorrectly imagined was theirs, and accused of theft.
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A problem with camera surveillance, is much more innocent than criminal behavior is in view, so a fairly high proportion of suspicious behavior is actually innocent behavior that looks improbably suspicious.
I and my car were searched [slashdot.org] for parking in front of the wrong house. Two local cops, two FBI agents, and a DEA agent wearing a ski mask (in July in Illinois) came out with guns drawn. Not fun at all. Luckily there were no drugs, and they let us go after an hour or so.
There was to me surprisingly little pu
Re:Great news, IMO (Score:4, Interesting)
In my case the police showed up at my house at night, cuffed me, and took me to jail, but at least they didn't threaten to shoot me.
As life tribulations go, this is pretty mild stuff. But I think its instructive. I've always been Mr. Law Abiding, with no underage drinking, no drugs, no speeding, no jaywalking....is the legal system about justice? Not so much as I would have imagined, apparently.
Parent
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You can't make a comment like this and not tell us what they thought you did.
Stealing building supplies. Someone saw me carrying some boards and initial assummed that I took them from a nearby construction site. The initial suspicion was arguably reasonable under the circumstances. The problem in my view was the way the thing went down afterwards, with the physical coercion, the indifference to right and wrong, particularly by the prosecutor, and it costing me several times the maximum fine in legal fees, even though I could easily demonstrate my innocence to anyone interested.
Re:Great news, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Right. The system where any random person or machine with limited information can accuse you of a crime, you get arrested by default, and you have to pay thousands of dollars before even having a chance to argue your innocence, is nuts. Formally, there has to have been an "investigation" before the judge issued the warrant for the arrest. That investigation should include trying to find out whether the accused has done anything wrong, and that should usually involve talking with the accused. The further
Jack Bauer will be angry... (Score:2)
interesting. (Score:2)
I'd like to make the observation without judging that for a government it's no problem to spy on "them", but they can't spy on "us".
So the real story is... (Score:3, Insightful)
The title would be less exciting if it read "Bush and Obama has never used satellites to spy on Americans".
Bush didn't use spy satellites our of privacy and civil liberty concerns. Got it.
Now that we are straight on this particular issue, let the Bush bashing begin.
From what I have heard (Score:4, Interesting)
"... overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites for homeland security and law enforcement purposes.."
From what I have heard from certain people, they already have been doing this since Regan. The largest use for this was domestically was tracking the drug trade including but not limited to:
Large distribution rings by tracking differential images for trafficing patterns (e.g. large number of cars at 2 am at a pier that only stick around for a hour or two)
Using the IR module for finding growers in remote areas with camoed green houses.
Using the information to track abnormal warehouse activity.
Spying seems a slanted term since the cops don't SPY on people, they investigate. Same with the FBI and ATF.
So what we really have is DHS decides for what appear to be largely buget issues, not taking the information, THAT IS ALREADY BEING COLLECTED, and using it for DHS purposes. Since the DHS is a new agency they probably didn't have access to that data. This sounds largely like a formality to get them access to the data. Now the DHS will have to step through the FBI and local law enforcement channels which was the whole reason we created the DHS in the first place.
Seriously, this amounts to "The cops can use it, the FBI can use it, but the 'new' intelligence community can't." Here contract a plane to get your imagining instead.
If there was a privacy issue why not raise it when ATF raids a pot grower? Why now and not under Regan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2? And why no outcry over the fact it has been used for years already? Surely the use of images from those darn helicopters and airplanes must be a privacy conern also? Right? You know those images you can get from the county and local city... Hello? Sensible Dissent where are you? (in my best Shaggy impersonation).
Don't cheer yet (Score:3, Informative)
Small correction (Score:4, Insightful)
The program was included in the Obama administration's 2010 budget request
It seems the opening paragraph should have said, "The Obama administration had plans in place to use spy satellites to spy on American citizens." On the other hand, why let the facts get in the way of a good line?
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Re:Like targetting agreements. (Score:4, Insightful)
In lots of jurisdictions, a cop could just smash through your door and chalk it up to a mistake, with few consequences.
Sure, they wouldn't be able to prosecute you, but that wouldn't make the events a whole lot more convenient to you.
Parent
Re:Like targetting agreements. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Death Penalty (Score:3, Funny)
It's murder and conspiracy. This is the same damn thing we executed Tookie for. Death penalty. You cannot have cops murdering people and planting evidence to justify it. Absolutely not. Death penalty.
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Or simply lie to a judge to get a warrant. Man who beat cocaine rap sues the city; whistleblower's case survives [illinoistimes.com]
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Do you have any idea how much red-tape laws create? ... This is a huge deterrent for corruption
It only deters people that think they have to follow the law, not be above it, and in our government, we have more of the latter.
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The real value of "Red Tape" is if a request has to pass through five or six people, they all know about it, so there's at least some chance a particularly stupid or unethical request will become public knowledge. Would the general public have ever heard about how ridiculously big the FBI file on Martin Luther King was if fewer people had been involved in maintaining it?
The second value is in where records are kept. Without any 'red tape' there may still be one copy of a request for a particu
Re:Like targetting agreements. (Score:5, Insightful)
The interesting thing here -- and this comment is partly motivated by your sig -- is that this killing of the domestic satellite spying program is not a liberal action but a conservative one. If you need an example of where real conservatives and today's Republicans differ, here it is. Republicans such as Peter King will say this is "a step back in the war on terror" but a real conservative would say the U.S. government never had any business spying on its citizens in the first place.
Parent
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If you need an example of where real conservatives and today's Republicans differ
Nice word game, and example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
All nice job at partisan baiting. Attribute all positives to the side you identify with, and all negatives to your mythical "liberal" enemies.
I'm getting really sick of these silly dogmatic partisan statements. 100% of conservatives, liberals, libertarians, socialists, and whatever stupid ideology people identify with are wrong. Some small amount of their greater id
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I saw a live-action documentary about tinfoil-hatted houses on Broadway...
I think it was called "LOLCat on a Hot Tin Roof" or something. Google it.
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Imagine I have a 7 foot (or higher) privacy fence around my back yard. I have an expectation of privacy. Or I happen to own 150 acres in the middle of nowhere. I have less, but still some, expectation of privacy there as well.
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How do you know those things can't see through your roof?
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We've already crossed that line: helicopters with infrared to spot marijuana grow houses. They're not yet at the point of detecting body heat through walls from helicopter altitude, AFAIK.
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