Slashdot Mirror
US Set to Use Spy Satellites on US Citizens
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."
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Does this mean they are just now starting to do this or just now admitting to doing this? ;)
Weaksauce as they say...
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 . . .
if they can do it WITH a warrant, they have already shown they will circumvent the warrant process when it's suits them. be it a valid use or not.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Just be thankful you are not in an evil totalitarian regime, like the UK.
That is, if you even care.
Given the level of comments to this article so far, I'm guessing that is not the case.
This is part of the spirit of the mandate of the sweeping Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which prioritizes information sharing, including between federal, state, and local entities, and enabling state/local/tribal governments to leverage federal intelligence resources across the spectrum.
The people don't realize the power they have yet when acting in Unity. They divide us with fictions.
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
Meet the new boss, the same as the old boss.
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.
Look, I might even vote for the guy, but if he or any other presidential candidate, if elected, manages to undo even a fraction of past wrongs done unto the People---and I'm not just talking about what has changed in the past eight years---then I will eat my socks.
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.
Ok, it is easy to blather on (blah blah blah sheep blah cattle blah blah), but seriously, what the hell are we supposed to do? It isn't like I don't vote. It isn't like I don't write my senators and congressmen long, thought out, well worded letters.
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.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
You're missing the point. No one is concerned that the spy satellites are used to conduct actual counter-terrorism and counter-espionage intelligence and surveillance. That's fine. The problem is that every little bit of technology in the last few years has been openly abused to conduct drag-net surveillance of innocent American Citizens.
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.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
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=
A Government should never be seen as a parent.
Anonymous Coward
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."
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Got a good rifle?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
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
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Are you willing to kill other people to stop this kind of thing? Are you willing to give up your life, so that your children, or even the children of your friends, family, and neighbors, can live in a freer society than we? If you hesitated or said "No", or indeed anything other than a forceful "Yes", to either of those questions, you are a part of the problem and have only yourself to blame.
Not every colonist in 1776 supported the Revolution, but enough people did to change history. Can we find enough people with strength of heart, character, and purpose like that today?
I think it's time to stop talking and asking questions, and to start making some powerful people sleep a little less well at night.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Armed revolution is much less interesting than reality TV or celebrity gossip. Bread and Circuses. Keep the masses fed and entertained and you can get away with anything.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Gods I hate to do this. I'm going to be modded offtopic, and it's going to be justified. But it is also very much on-topic, depending on how you look at it. Tradition, however, insists that /. readers mod me down.
Ahh. here goes.
It looks like Obama is gonna win the democratic nomination, unless something very bizarre happens.
in 1998, Obama stated that he would Ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons. that includes about half the shotguns, more than half of the pistols, and a fairly good chunk of the rifles in the U.S. There are also some quotes about putting in "thousands" of intelligence assets at the state & local level.
I look around at the social networking sites, and see that no one seems to be mentioning this; this freaks me out to the core, and when something like this topic comes along that mentions it, I can't help but take the opportunity to mention it.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
See, I'm not worried about that. I don't think the president -any president- has the power to do that. Only Congress could do that, and there's no way they're going to. On the things that the president is in charge of, like general domestic and foreign policy and economic policies, I like Obama's platforms. That's why no one is worrying about his gun platform (until the republicans convince everyone he's gonna personally come and take their guns) - because it doesn't matter.
I keep seeing this ludicrous "we can take up arms!" justification for having no control of guns in the United States. You do realize that for any practical purposes, unless they allow private citizens to own nuclear weapons, no amount of firepower you amass will do you a damned bit of good, right?
If you don't believe me, ask some of the guys who had a hell of a lot more guns that you probably do and decided to take up arms against the government. Ask David Koresh. Oh, that's right, you can't, because he's dead. Ask Timothy McVeigh. Whoops, he's dead, too. Ask Eric Rudolph. Whoa, you actually can, because he's not dead yet, he's rotting in a jail cell in Colorado!
Anyone who threatens to take up arms against the government is either playing on irrational emotions or an idiot, and they're more dangerous to society than helpful to it. You would have thought that people would have learned more from Dr. Martin Luther King, but I guess he was just some kind of weird ineffectual idealist, right?
When it comes to guns, I'm infinitely more concerned about well-meaning stupid people who think they're responsible gun owners than our government, because in the U.S., the government already own us, lock, stock, and barrel. (Pun slightly intended.) No, it's not a good thing, and I don't particularly like the situation, but it's the way it is, and gun control didn't have a damn thing to do with it. Stupid voters constantly giving the government too much power and taking away our civil liberties is what got us in this situation.
If you really want to make a change for the better, then quitcherbitchin' with all this gun talk, get off your ass, and either run for office or support someone running for office who will do a better job of protecting our privacy and civil liberties. Because when you rationalize wanting to own dangerous weapons with the excuse that you might want or need to take up arms against the government someday, you're not coming off as a patriot, you're coming off as a bloodthirsty idiot.
It looks like Obama is gonna win the democratic nomination, unless something very bizarre happens.
in 1998, Obama stated that he would Ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons. that includes about half the shotguns, more than half of the pistols, and a fairly good chunk of the rifles in the U.S. There are also some quotes about putting in "thousands" of intelligence assets at the state & local level.
And if it came to an armed revolt, it would be like the US Army vs Iraq... no not Iraq... Iraq had tanks, rocket launchers, fighter planes, SAM installations, a proper disciplined armed forces each armed and trained with using automatic weapons, etc, etc, etc. And they couldn't hold off the US at all. What do you think some angry rabble with rifles and pistols is going to accomplish in a pitched battle?
Squat. Jack Squat.
If it ever comes to violent revolt, whether or not we're legally allowed to bear arms prior to the revolt is utterly irrelevant. We will immediately be reduced to guerrilla or terrorist tactics. We will be using home made explosives, and importing rockets, pistols, rifles, automatic weapons, grendades and ammo from black market arms dealers. We won't be much different than the Iraqi's current 'insurgents', and fighting for much the same reason... to take our own country back.
The only edge we'll have over the iraqis is that -hopefully- our own army will have a slightly harder time killing fellow americans. But if history has taught us anything that shouldn't be a much a deterrent as one would think it should be.
> so at least we still have armed revolt as an option.
To me it seems as if the "at least we still have armed revolt as an option" is the most effective means of keeping people in the US quiet until they find themselves in a facist policestate and it's too late.
Of course, they could then have their armed revolution against a government equipped with all the best technology of oppression but it would be pointless. You will have no means of communication left, the enemy will know all your whereabouts, your thoughts and will be able to proactively put you in jail, torture you, kill you.
Maybe it would make more sense to avoid the fascist policestate in advance.
Firearms are giving you a sense of false security.
The right to own firearms comes from a time when firearms was to most effective means of oppression a government could have. So to have an equilibrium of power this amandmend exists.
However, today you would need the right to have spy satellites, secret surveillance, secret rendition etc. pp.
So your guns give you no safety at all.
>Now that's funny. We always have a good laugh at that bullshit. You have a gun so the pigs have
>armor piercing rounds, gas, and tanks. They train for armed resistance and usually shoot to
>kill if there is even the suspicion of a weapon (or a piece of tinfoil). The pigs are a lot
>more polite on this side of the Atlantic.
I am one of those who strongly believes the purpose of the 2nd Amendment was primarily to arm the citizenry so that they could revolt against tyranny if necessary.
I am always amazed by people who say, "The common people could never rise in armed revolt against a modern military force."
There are so many reasons why this is clearly untrue.
First of all, it has been demonstrated historically that it is indeed possible for numerically and technologically inferior forces to force the withdrawal of superior forces. Four relatively modern scenarios that come to mind are Vietnam, Mogadishu, Afghanistan vs. the Soviets, and probably Iraq. Remember, for an insurgency to be effective it does not have to win battles with military victories. It merely has to sap enough resources until the enemy finds it not worth fighting.
Second of all, domestic insurrections have another "positive" in their favor - they are highly disruptive to the local economy. Since it is the tax revenue that feeds the government that will be resisted, any disruption of tax revenue erodes the power of the tyrannical government, and probably gets their attention more readily that the loss of troops and material. I'm sure congress people get upset over troop losses. I bet they get more upset over losses in tax revenue. We saw from the DC sniper case that 2 guys shooting out of the keyhole in the trunk of a car caused a huge financial impact over a wide area because people stopped going outside to go shopping. Imagine the economic disruption caused by 10,000 insurgents.
Third of all, if things deteriorated to the point that it motivated a significant portion of the population to engage in a rebellion, it is likely that not all troops would stay in step with the federal government.
To me, the biggest problem with the safeguard of the 2nd Amendment is not how effective will average citizens be as resistance fighters. To me the biggest problem is will average citizens be too apathetic to ever stand up and rise in rebellion should it be warranted.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
It's not just the ISS that's getting budget cuts, friend.
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. So, what happened to those "privacy and civil liberties concerns"? Did they just go away? As usual, the Bush Administration sees civil liberties as damage and routes around them.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Iraq had tanks, rocket launchers, fighter planes, SAM installations, a proper disciplined armed forces each armed and trained with using automatic weapons, etc, etc, etc. And they couldn't hold off the US at all."
Do you actually think the United States has "won" in Iraq? How many U.S. soldiers have been killed and maimed since the Iraqi army was defeated and the whole "Mission Accomplished" thing? How much is the U.S. spending day after day to maintain a troop presence and conduct operations in the country? The thing that history has taught us is that an insurgency will eventually break the will of the invader.
This has to be the best example of a truly insightful post I've seen in a long time.
However, I think you are being a bit too pessimistic. I was around in the 70's when serious commentators were asking if the Republican party was in its death throes. In the previous 30 years it had elected only 2 presidents and never controlled congress. Huge social strides were being made, and the Left seemed in total control. Wiser people argued that these things run in cycles, and that the Right would eventually come back.
Boy did they. I never lost faith that things would eventually swing back to Liberalism, but I did fear that it might not happen in my lifetime.
So now what has happened, almost 30 years later (on cue)? Bush and merry band have, through herculean efforts, pushed the pendulum as far to the right as they can shove it. But it is clear to anyone looking that they have nearly hit the stops. The American people are now starting to awaken and take a good look at what is going on, and they don't like it one bit. The pendulum is about to swing back with a vengence, and woe betide those in its way.
I could of course be wrong about this, but if I am I'm about the wrongest on anything that I have been in my entire life. The signs are all around. The last election 2006 was all set to be a good one for Republicans. Nearly all the vulnerable Congressional seats were Democratic held. Instead, they got waxed. They didn't just loose a bit more than they won, they *everything* that was competitive, and some that weren't supposed to be. *This* is the election where the vulnerable Republican seats were up, and if anything the mood in the electorate for them is worse now than it was in 2006. Twenty Nine Reps so far have announced that they aren't even going to try. Party identification is swinging Democrats' way. Young voters (the electorate of the future) are turning out to be overwhelmingly Democrat. The Rep's only hope for the future, our rapidly growing Hispanic population, they have spent the last 2 years insulting (with no signs of stopping). The count of Democrats voting in the primaries is shattering records. I'm not talking by 5 or 10%, but in some cases 300%! Nearly every state has had more voters in the Democratic primary than the Republican, even though both are contested and on the same day. In Georga (a solid Republican state since '76), *two* different Democrats got more votes than the entire Republician slate!
Still not impressed? The Democrats are actually raising more money. They have been since 2006. I always thought that was physically impossible. Even in the 70's when things were good, we had the people, they had the money. That's just the way things work. Well, apparently not anymore.
Now I'm normally the most pessimistic guy you can meet, but I just don't see how the Reps pull this one out. So personally, I'm sad for you that you left. Even if you aren't of the Left == good, Right == bad mindset that I am, its clear that something major is going on. I have never in my life seen anything like this. The closest equivalent was the mood around Regan's election back in '80. For better or worse, change is comming. This is a very exciting time.