DHS To Share Spy Satellite Data Over the US

An anonymous reader sends us to the Wall Street Journal for the news that later this year the US Department of Homeland Security will begin sharing US spy satallite data with law enforcement and other customers. From the article: "...one of [DHS]'s first objectives will be to use the network to enhance border security, determine how best to secure critical infrastructure and help emergency responders after natural disasters. Sometime next year, officials will examine how the satellites can aid federal and local law-enforcement agencies, covering both criminal and civil law... DHS officials say the program has been granted a budget by Congress and has the approval of the relevant committees in both chambers... Unlike electronic eavesdropping, which is subject to legislative and some judicial control, this use of spy satellites is largely uncharted territory... [A CDT spokesman said] 'Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating intrusive and omnipresent, it's also invisible. And that's what makes this so dangerous.'"

Comments

Re:Google earth already publishes all of this

[SatanicPuppy]

Um, no.

The spy satellites are considered by military experts to be more penetrating than civilian ones: They not only take color, as well as black-and-white photos, but can also use different parts of the light spectrum to track human activities, including, for example, traces left by chemical weapons or heat generated by people in a building....According to defense experts, (spy sats) use radar, lasers, infrared, electromagnetic data and other technologies to see through cloud cover, forest canopies and even concrete to create images or gather data.

We're talking higher rez, multiple spectrums, and updated extremely often. Just a touch different from Google Maps.

Re:Transparency

[jdigriz]

Invisible, my ass. http://www.satobs.org/

Re:Two types of satellites - wide view and narrow

[DerekLyons]

If you've read enough Tom Clancy novels, you know that these types of satellites are terrific for passively recording movement of vehicles and (specks that are people), and running the tape backward after an event to see where the perpetrators originated from. Then you run the tape forward and catch the perp's.

There's all manner of things in Tom Clancy novels - some of them are even true. This particular one isn't, because satellites aren't over one area long enough to do so. (Only geosync birds are - and they have a resolution measured in meters. Not nearly good enough for tracking individual vehicles.)
 
 

Another type of satellite has super magnification, but a narrow field of view. These need to be targeted (which is expensive), but yes, they can tell if you need a haircut or not. These are the ones that cannot hover over an area.

No satellite has that kind of resolution - period. To do that, you need a resolution on the millimeter scale - which is at least two orders of magnitude greater than is physically possible. (I.E. in the realm of 'science fiction' rather than in the realm of 'well, maybe they can do it'.) No satellite can hover over an area except for geosync birds - see above.
 
 

But if the goal is to snap a photo of you holding evidence (or being in the presence of the wrong people), and DHS has an idea of when to monitor you, it is possible. Not likely, but absolutely possible.

Suuure it's possible - if your name is Jack Ryan and you are a character in a Tom Clancy novel. Otherwise, not.
 
Like the OP, you appear to have gotten your impression of what spy birds can do from Hollywood and tinfoil hat websites.