Homeland Security's Space-Based Spying Goes Live 289
BountyX writes "While America's attention has shifted to the economic meltdown and the presidential race between corporate favorites John McCain and Barack Obama, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) National Applications Office (NAO) 'will proceed with the first phase of a controversial satellite-surveillance program, even though an independent review found the department hasn't yet ensured the program will comply with privacy laws.' NAO will coordinate how domestic law enforcement and 'disaster relief' agencies such as FEMA use satellite imagery intelligence (IMINT) generated by US spy satellites. Based on available evidence, hard to come by since these programs are classified 'above top secret,' the technological power of these military assets are truly terrifying."
Re:above top secret? (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be under the impression that the government cares about what is "legal".
You haven't learned anything in the last... 100 years?
Just look at (what is left) of the Constitution.
Re:above top secret? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Above top secret" doesn't make any sense. This is classified at "top secret" with talent/keyhole code words.
Why haven't we heard of this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too much Enemy Of The State (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Trollish Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
I am getting really sick of hearing how big corps "picked" Obama and McCain, ... we picked them not Exxon or McDonalds
Or Newscorp?
After watching how Ron Paul and Alan Keys were both marginalized by selective non-reporting (despite Paul's recordbreaking fundraising and massive grassroots support), I have no trouble viewing McCain as a corporate pick (or the people's pick from the corporations' small set of approved options). Ditto Obama (and Clinton) vs. Kucinich.
And.... (Score:1, Insightful)
It doesnt really matter how good your cameras are, any surveillance system is really limited by how much area it can see at a time and as that increases the manpower needed to sort through all the data increases exponentially. Until they have 300 million of these guys up there full time, and another 300 million people watching the feeds, do you really think they are going to be spending much time looking at you unless you stand out?
I really dont think even the government is stupid enough to use a multi-billion dollar instrument to track someone who ran a red light.
Re:Why haven't we heard of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
One of their rationalizations is that if you have widespread secret spying on your population, but if individuals don't know/can't be told they are being spied on, then there is nothing for the individual to complain about.
Of course, say, your boss or your bank gets an NSA letter requesting all the information they have about you (but they can't tell you they are doing this), you may just happen to find yourself the first to be laid off if there is some kind of economic downturn (if they wait that long), and you may find getting a loan slightly more difficult (as in, impossible), but it most definitely won't be because of these secretive spy programs. You must just not be a reliable, honest citizen anymore.
Re:Too much Enemy Of The State (Score:5, Insightful)
If our remote sensing was really as good as the article implies, then US forces wouldn't have been subject to as many IED attacks in Iraq as we have suffered. Now you want me to believe that they can put such resources to work tracking domestic US citizens?
I'll say it also, satellite imagery isn't all it's made out to be. It ain't that great.
Re:Eyeroll (Score:3, Insightful)
*cough*ULTRA*cough
Sorry, I was going to say that there is a certain precedent for clearence levels so high most people don't even know they exist. That's not to say that it's the case here, just that in general it's would be foolish to think that TOP SECRET is as high as you can go.
USA, Lost its way! (Score:2, Insightful)
This is yet another reason that USA appears to have lost its way.
FTFA "But as the Journal reported, Congress' "partial funding" for the program in "a little-debated $634 billion spending measure," "
Now assume for a second that this funding figure is correct, (the article reads a little like one of those conspiracy theory types are writing it) WTF is congress thinking?
The country is in meltdown that will NOT be stopped, the healthcare system is screwed (I am waiting for our system in Australia to fall that far) and congress thinks it is ok to spend that sort of money on spying on people?
I cheered when the first bailout bill failed. I hoped that it represented an outbreak of common sense. I hoped that the bailout would save the little guy, but NOT the banks.
This is the result of needing to have increasing profit, needing to have ways to make money that have ZERO actual use to the economy/population (they don't create anything, they don't help anyone, they just exist for people to gamble to make money)
Take a step back, large debt is bad. Always needing growth will eventually bite back.
To be on topic, this kind of spending seems to be indicative that NO lessons have been learned OR that the common man is as truly helpless as the "fat cats" seem to think
Limited utility (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too much Enemy Of The State (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why have it? It is built for surveillance or why would you have it. Obviously it doesn't have to be that great to be useful and is meant to be used with other apparatus (that doesn't exist in Iraq) to achieve it's goals. Saying this is a means to justify feeling comfortable living in a police state and maintain the illusion of freedom. It doesn't matter what it can or can't do, what matters is what it is for.
Benjamin Franklin said that the constitution (for all it's flaws) wouldn't save America from despotism, and as the mechanism's have been put in place incrementally, we see he was right.
I wonder how hot the water is for the frog now?
Re:Trollish Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Trollish Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, what indication do you have that any of their messages would have resonated with a largely apathetic, willfully ignorant american public?
I contest your characterization of the American public.
Ron Paul effectively got exposure ONLY on the internet - which the Old Media were unable to gatekeep - and by word of mouth. His message had VERY broad appeal - among Republicans, Democrats, Independents, new voters, old voters who had given up and dropped out, ... (If he'd gotten started 9 months earlier and the rate had kept up he'd have taken the nomination handily - and the presidency as well.) He broke the all-time one-day fundraising record, pulling in millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of contributors averaging about $100 each, while his support in polls was still single-digit.
His message is an old one: Freedom, limited government. And it is the SAME message that has a track record of doing this same sort of mass-movement-inspiration in the past, resulting in the American Revolution and the creation of the current government (among its other success stories).
Given the message's historic track record (especially among downtrodden elite-ridden "huddled masses") and Ron's personal record using it, I have little doubt that it was only the lack of exposure in, and distortion by, the old media that is responsible for his continued marginalization.
I think their messages have merit, but they didn't get any traction because most people weren't already convinced, not because they were ignored by the media.
And how does one convince them if they don't hear the arguments? Since the message is very convincing WHEN IT'S DELIVERED, it's specifically "being ignored (or distorted and libeled) by the media" that is the missing link.
Re:Trollish Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
I never watch TV news, listen to news radio, or read newspapers. My internet news comes largely from international sources. Despite all of that, I still think Ron Paul is a nutbar and would not even think about voting for him.
When you get that far, you need to realize that it is, in fact, a problem with the person himself, not some vast conspiracy.
slashkos (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember when distrusting government spending our money on spying on us, violating our rights, was a favorite "value" for Conservatives, not just some kind of sign of weakness by "liberals".
Liberals always said that Conservatives were just fascist lemmings. Now that Conservatives have created this huge infrastructure for spying on us and violating our rights, rather than protecting them, it's obvious that liberals were right.
Re:abuse vs. misuse (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, considering the present-day prominence (and a comfortable life of a tenured professor) of an anti-war protester turned terrorist [nytimes.com] (to this day unrepentant), the Maryland cops' action is not that unconscious...
Yes it is. If he did something illegal, arrest and charge him. If he didn't, then he should be considered on an equal footing to every other innocent man. You do not get to come up with an arbitrary third category of "didn't break the law but I still don't like him" and then persecute people in that category.
Re:Too much Enemy Of The State (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't know anything about the quality of the images of the latest military and NSA spy satellites.
All you know is that your government can do no wrong. OK, you don't know anything about that, either - despite the indelible lessons of this entire decade.
Re:Eyeroll (Score:1, Insightful)
There is no level above TOP SECRET because Wikipedia said so. Wow! Who's the frickin nut case? Don't believe everything you read, especially if anybody in the world can edit the gd page you're reading.
Re:Eyeroll (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but I've got to ask, because I always wondered but never knew someone with a Top Secret clearance.
Why do they have things like Top Secret Poly (and other qualifiers) which use polygraphs, when the polygraph is a bullshit technology?
Re:And.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The public knowledge of feasible technology tod (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:also, US Army troops now deployed against citiz (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/24/army/print.html [salon.com]
Not sure why that hasn't made Slashdot yet. It's huge. Far bigger than just a satellite spying on us.
I do not blame you for posting as AC.... I know that even though I post this information for others to look at and decide for themselves, just by posting it a certain percentage will label me a conspiracy nut and I might even get modded as trying to cause problems when I am just acknowledging that I too have heard about (article [infowars.com]) this and am providing additional information for people to chew on and think about.
The USA is slowly being turned into a police state [infowars.com] so that we can be controlled, systematically taking away freedoms from Americans. This site suggests there are over 800 camps around the USA [globalresearch.ca]. Here is a video about a FEMA camp in Indiana, supposedly closed in 1933, but has received funding within the last two years [youtube.com] as a amtrak - train maintenance facility.
I heard Alex Jones on Coast to Coast [coasttocoastam.com], here is a link to his website infowars [infowars.com]. Supposedly he predicted not just the current collapse over two years ago, but nailed the reason as sub-prime markets...I need to find the document with the date he first made the prediction. My Realtor and mortgage broker friends knew the Real Estate bubble would burst over 2 years back. As a Notary/Signing Agent we talked about what was going on. As a person who participated in the RTC bailout, I am not surprised that it is happening again. My friends 2 to 2 1/2 years ago did not tie the bubble bursting to the sub prime market as Alex supposedly did.
Per the show, Alex got interested in how the government worked in High School and has actively looked into many issues for well over 20 years. The amount of information he has is incredible...again, check it out for yourself.
Not only did he sound very, very credible, he stated that there is so much dis-information being put online much in his name that he sometimes has 50 - 100 utube videos removed that are slandering him, all posted in the same 24 hour period. If you listen to the recorded show you will hear it in his words, but he basically is very well known at utube and once they verify it is him, the videos are instantly yanked. When someone is attacked so ardently as he obviously is, someone does not want you and I to know or think too much about what he is saying. Again listen yourself and form your own opinion.
I ask myself, what do they NOT want me to know. There is a reason they distract us from what is really going on with other things.
Supposedly he has a document that shows the Banking groups' plans that they are currently following now...supposedly leaked by someone when they left the Federal Reserve system. I need to look for it and provide a link. He stated on the show, that they are not doing anything in secret but instead are following a well thought out and detailed plan. This same template has been used to take the physical assets of other countries using that country's own banks and currency to do it. The documents state that the countries were expected to default on the loans the group of banks provided. I believe the details are in this video End Game [prisonplanet.tv], however I am not a subscriber so I have not watched it yet.
I also admit that I currently do not have three or more sources for this information, so it is up to you to decide for yourself.
I personally don't believe there are as many coincidences as many would like for us to believe. I find it very coinci