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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.'"
Hmm...so, should this info be made freely available to the US citizens, so we can monitor how well our govt. is doing things like protecting our border...where they are gathering in reference to peaceful protests, how well they're responding to emergencies (would have been interesting for Katrina to see them all standing around).
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Let's be honest...Law enforcement isn't going to get much use out of this...there is too much data, and they have too few people and resources to sift through it all.
Geeks on the other hand, would have a field day. There would be AJAX pages tracking border crossers in real time, sites dedicated to assembling satellite photos of crimes in progress, the works.
Sure, you'd have to deal with lawsuits from every nude sunbather in america, but that's a small price to pay for freedom.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Department, Commissariat (as in KGB) of Homeland Security -- what's the difference? The concept is the same, the purpose as well. There are still some details in implementation, but let's cut them some slack, they started just in 2002 so there's still much to be ironed out.
The real question is, does the population really believe any agency of this sort has a place in a democratic country?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
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.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Did you not read this at all?
They say that they're going to track your every move, and your response is, "Well, at least I don't live in that other place where they track my every move..."?
Maybe in England they're saying, at least I don't have to check the undercarriage of my car for GPS devices planted by the police without a warrant. (Of course, that's old news, so we've probably all forgotten about it by now.)
Besides, even if things are much worse in England (they're not), is that supposed to be some kind of justification for the gross invasion of privacy taking place? If our government starts deciding to randomly kill a bunch of its citizens just to demonstrate its power, would that be okay because there are other governments out there that randomly kill more of its citizens? Would you still say, "At least I don't live in that other country..." instead of actually feeling a bit of outrage?
No wonder this country is going to hell. With rationalization like that, our government will be able to get away with pretty anything it wants to.
One word: Resolution. When one pixel might or might not represent a huge boulder, that's one thing. When it represents darker pigment on the tip of your left nipple, that's something else entirely.
Ever hear of adaptive optics? Multiple aperture arrays? Interferometry? The amount of money and technology available to the US government moves the bar right out of your reach.
No, think of it this way: It's some person half a continent away looking into your yard despite your privacy fence, watching your significant other sunbathe, nude. Without a warrant, an invitation, or anything remotely resembling a good reason.
What this means is that in order to attempt to be secure from unreasonable search (again, see the 4th amendment) from individuals in the employ of an invasive and out of control government, fences are no longer going to be sufficient. Now we're going to have to roof our properties too.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Law enforcement can't just make arbitrary searches; that's what the fourth amendment is about. If you hold a reasonable expectation of privacy, then fourth amendment rights apply, even in the face of advancing technology. The use of infrared cameras to look for marijuana grow lights is illegal without a warrant, for example. Similarly, even though it is feasible for there to be a microphone planted inside a phone booth, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy inside phone booth. So, LEOs need to get a warrant before they can bug a phone booth.
Also, there are some traditional privacy rights which can interact in interesting ways. For instance, you have the same privacy rights in the area immediately around a house (the curtailage) as you would inside. The curtailage includes any areas under a roofing overhang, and any areas generally bounded by fences, hedges, and other physical obstructions which would prevent a ground-level observer from peeking in. So, even though your back yard is open to the sky, both aerial photography or satellite imagery requires a warrant. Viewing from a nearby tall hill doesn't.
Law enforcement can already use commercial satellite imagery (within 4th amendment limits), or their own aerial overflights (again, within limits) to get images just as readily as they could from the US government. For the scary things people are worried about, they can already do them if they are willing to break the law themselves. Using military satellites would be just as illegal.