US To Employ Overhead Spying Domestically

DigitAl56K writes "The Washington Post reports that 'The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon' and that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has said that 'Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement.' Initially, it appears that the administration plans to leverage conventional satellites for domestic surveillance purposes. Congress last October delayed launch of the DHS office that would coordinate law-enforcement requests for satellite and other technical data, and demanded answers to legal questions about the program. The administration supplied answers that some Congress members characterized as inadequate and appears determined to go ahead anyway."

Comments

There's a website I came across last year...

[Jafafa Hots]

...that vowed to track abuses of power, defend privacy rights and freedoms, fight fascism, defend the constitution.

It was based in the south, covered with the flags of the USA and the CSA, and railed against Clinton for the filegate thing, Waco, etc.

Odd thing was, it hasn't been updated since around 2000, the forums have gone strangely silent. Not a peep about Bush.

I think perhaps these brave defenders of freedom are so outraged by Bush, so aware of constitutional issues that they say the threat more clearly than others, and that they have decided to take their movement underground, make it more clandestine.

Yeah, that's probably it.

Re:welcome to your new totalitarian home

[Tony Hoyle]

There's still time to amend the law so he can have another term. Another war breaking out should just about do it.

If he can't manage that, just engineer an election. That's quite easy provided you don't get stupid.. win by 51%-49% and few will be able to seriously question the result.

Movie reclassification

[Prisoner's Dilemma]

Now I'm going to have to reorganize my movie collection moving titles like '1984' and 'Enemy of the State' from science fiction to current events.

Re:One nation...

[Anonymous Coward]

... under surveillance.

With security and safety for all.

What was once fodder for cyber-dystopian heavy metal bands is now reality:

"Up here in space, I'm looking down on you
My lasers trace everything you do
You think you've private lives, think nothing of the kind.
There is no true escape, I'm watching all the time.

I'm made of metal, my circuits gleam!
I am perpetual, I keep the country clean!
I'm elected, electric spy,
I'm protected, electric eye.
)

Always in focus, you can't feel my stare,
I zoom into you, but you don't know I'm there.
I take a pride in probing all your secret moves,
My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove...

Electric eye (in the sky)
Feel my stare (always there)

There's nothing you can do about it, develop and expose,
I feed upon your every thought, and so my power grows!

I'm made of metal, my circuits gleam!
I am perpetual, I keep the country clean!
I'm elected, electric spy,
I'm protected, electric eye.

I'm Elected - Protected - Detective - Electric - Eye..."
- Judas Priest, Electric Eye, 1982

Hey, great idea here ...

[tuxgeek]

Let's just strap George W. Bush to a rocket, give him some binoculars and launch him into orbit. I can hear him now, "Hay, thoss 2 are git'n it doggie styel, arrist thim. ann look et thim, iz a three sum goin on, greb thim tew. dam! ah dint bring me no vas-lin, sheut!"

I know it'll work, well, it worked for the coyote anyway.