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US Set to Use Spy Satellites on US Citizens
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wednesday February 13, @08:13PM
from the eye-in-the-sky dept.
from the eye-in-the-sky dept.
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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Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oblig. 1984 in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
Every major city & town is already 90% covered by CCTV. You can't walk from one side of the street to the other without appearing on a CCTV system.
We're already covered.. Say cheese
If only... (Score:5, Funny)
Starting now? (Score:5, Insightful)
FEMA MAC (Score:5, Interesting)
Get it right. The "internal agencies" is FEMA. See:
http://www.gismaps.fema.gov/ [fema.gov]
The GIS specialists don't have direct access to classified data but instead are given polygons of requested data which is based on those satellite images. Only the military, NSA, Other Security Agency has access to the output of the sats directly.
War on America (Score:5, Interesting)
And how long will this language remain? (Score:5, Insightful)
With the way things have been going, I'm surprised they're still even pretending to care about due process. And really, I wouldn't have a problem with law enforcement gaining access to spy satellite photography as long as they can only get it after supplying evidence to establish probable cause that a specific person committed a specific crime in a specific time and place. But I'm very concerned that little requirement is going to fall by the wayside and they'll be able to spy on citizens waiting for anybody to slip up.
Slippery slope indeed . . .
What about Google Earth, you OK with that too? (Score:5, Interesting)
For that, we volunteer all kinds of information, because it's not The Man(tm).
At least the government is still trying to convince detractors of this program that they'll ask for warrants and whatnot; Google does it with impunity, daily, and you think it's cool!
Wake up, people. Be consistent in your positions. If you're going to whine about how The Man(tm) is trying to make 1984 look like child's play, then complain about Google basically doing the same exact thing, with *YOUR* help (but in a much cooler way).
Re:What about Google Earth, you OK with that too? (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdot users are immune... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:W00t. 1st post (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:W00t. 1st post (Score:5, Insightful)
Just be thankful you are not in an evil totalitarian regime, like the UK.
Re:W00t. 1st post (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is, we are still clinging to our 2nd amendment - so at least we still have armed revolt as an option. The UK doesn't even have that.
Either way, it's probably a good time to start learning Chinese.
=Smidge=
Re:W00t. 1st post (Score:5, Funny)
Or Canadian.
Re:W00t. 1st post (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:W00t. 1st post (Score:5, Interesting)
A warrant might give some imagery weenie the legal go ahead to distribute specific files, but that doesn't mean the pictures are only taken when a warrant is present. Over the years 'real time' has expanded to include 'sifting' through huge amounts of data storage to pick out not only a location of interest, but also a time of interest.
If the warrant doesn't include a time frame, then you can bet your backside it will be assumed to mean an unlimited capacity to view any imagery for the location of interest until the warrant expires.
Depending upon the acquisition method and storage, you might only have a few days of historical info, or you might have years.
Ex 3 letter agency drone typing.
Re:It's of no consequence (Score:5, Insightful)
We will get fooled again.
If a major political party supports a candidate, you can be sure they've checked with their masters before allowing them to become viable.
Re:It's of no consequence (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow....all hail the Second Coming. Messiah Obama. He will magically rescue us from all our ills...
Look, I love the guy, and he is heads above anyone else in this race. But don't think for a second that he's going to represent some wholesale shift in government policies. He'll be corrupted and compromised, at least to some extent, by the realities of D.C. culture and by those who wield the real power. (Hint: it's not in the White House. Think big bureaucracies with three initials. Not to mention nine people in ugly black robes.) Once power is obtained, those who yield it tend to be quite reluctant to let go of it.
Will we be better off under an Obama presidency? Hell yes, no doubt. Will all government corruption and Constitution-gutting cease? When pigs fly. It's always about choosing the lesser of the evils.
Re:It's of no consequence (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is, if he wins the nomination, someone will make an assassination attempt just prior to the November election. There's just too many groups out there to whom Obama would be a threat, both philosophically and economically, and not just the neocons either.
Considering that Obama has been compared to JFK, and the groundswell of excitement for his campaign (especially among young folks) akin to that of RFK, and with his being African-American like MLK....well, yes, I worry about the same thing happening. As Mark Twain once said: "History does not repeat itself. But it does rhyme."
Re:It's of no consequence (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me an executive and a bloc of legislators who would willingly relinquish powers. A few examples notwithstanding, these sorts of people don't make it into government. Not here and now, anyway. The principles embodied in our primary charters, those from the Enlightenment, are res non gratae to modern politics. If acknowledged at all, they are given lip service. The judiciary upholds the principles sometimes; but without a constructive force creating new law to rebuild them, all we have is case law, which is a crapshoot.
Re:I am a member of the US Intel community. (Score:5, Interesting)
First, let me thank you for your service to our country. I am sure that you folks "in the trenches" are hard-working, honest individuals, and as patriotic as any one of us could hope to be. With that said, I urge you not to take it personally when I say: "WE DON'T WANT YOUR HELP."
There are bad things in the world. I recognize that, and I am glad to hear that there are people like you working to keep me safe from those things. Surly you must realize, however, that no matter what you and the rest of our government do, some element of danger will still exist... but in the process, we are being stripped of the very freedoms that we as Americans used to hold absolutely sacred.
Look at it like this: I have an 18-month-old son. My wife and I made sure when he started crawling that we had those safety plugs in floor-level outlets, we put some cabinet locks on the cupboards with the dangerous substances, and we put gates across the stairwells. We did these things because there are real dangers around our house that we can very easily mitigate. Of course, there are also dangers that are harder to deal with -- for example, he could fall off the sofa (and has). Does this mean we should get rid of all the furniture, because he could fall off? Maybe we should just take the furniture out of his room, and keep him in there 23 hours out of the day. Perhaps some form of restraints?
Obviously, I can't make the world perfectly safe for my son. My job as a parent, then, is to try to strike that balance between keeping him reasonably safe and giving him the freedom to learn and grow. Similarly, it's the job of the government to keep myself and the rest of the American citizenry reasonably safe, while still giving us the freedoms we value so much.
This administration, in my and many others' minds, has crossed far past that balance point. The safety this sort of program would grant is certainly a good thing, but the cost is just too high. Thanks, but no thanks.
Re:I am a member of the US Intel community. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care if you're truly Intel, someone pretending to be, or just on crack. The point is that "Trust us, we know what we're doing" is not the proper response to "what the hell do you think you're doing?" Your stance that we cannot know what the Intelligence community is doing is just as irrelevant to the problem. The set of *possible* uses (as opposed to the set of actual uses) is very well known, and the problem is around the potential for abuse. Even a technology's potential for abuse is not necessarily a problem, if the users and wielders of the technology are known to abide by accepted laws and standards. The problem really is in the last few years, it has been shown that there are enough shitbags in the Intelligence community and those using its reports that these technologies are guaranteed to be abused.
I'll be damned if I consent to drag-net type intelligence gathering on citizens that are supposed to be presumed innocent.
Misquoting Ben Franklin... (Score:5, Informative)
Here it is: [franklinpapers.org]
Franklin is referring to bearing arms as an essential liberty. And he says that those who give up that essential liberty has only himself to blame for getting victimized by raiding parties.
Re:They've won. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to be deceived if you are ignorant, arrogant, complacent, and passive. Those of us who saw the US moving down this path right from the start (using 2007.09.11 as the start, because that seems to be when the massive powergrab started, though the symptoms where there long before) were derided as paranoid, "tin-foil hatters". We were told, "This is America. Stuff like that can never happen here." We were told to "Calm down. It will never get that bad."
You know what? The US Constitution IS just a goddamn piece of paper. You know why? Because it is a contract from the people to the Government telling the government exactly what it can and cannot do. It's up to the people to enforce that, and when they don't, then it stops having any value greater than the paper it is written on. Your actions, or lack there-of, speak for you, and what they are saying is you don't care that this is happening.
You know what the US reminds me of? In the old cartoons, when a character ran off the cliff, he didn't start falling until he looked down and noticed that it was too late. That's where America seems to be. I hope I'm wrong, but I honestly don't see enough people caring to actually set things right.
I'm glad I left.
/cue the "good riddance" comments
Re:1984 one giant step closer... (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like the only option is to leave... yeah... where they require a passport for you to cross the canadian border on foot. Where a passport takes months to get. Where even if I go, I pretty much can't take my most valuables (AKA my computer), because they will likely look all through it or even take it.
Seriosly. We are already too far gone. Nothing can be done.