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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."
Last year CNET reported on at least one county in North Carolina already using a UAV to "monitor gatherings of motorcycle riders at the Gaston County fairgrounds from just a few hundred feet in the air -- close enough to identify faces".
Discovery Channel's Future Weapons has provided insight into numerous UAVs, including the Fire Scout, Global Hawk, Predator 2, and the Dominator, their coverage of the Predator 2 particularly demonstrating surveillance and tracking capabilities of these units.
According to DefenseNews the US Air Force just announced the purchase of 28 Predators as part of a contract awarded to General Atomics. The US Air Force has just begun running ads on cable TV as part of their "Above All" campaign that feature the UAVs (sorry, no online video yet).
Initially, it appears that the administration plans to leverage conventional satellites for domestic surveillance purposes.
"The Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to domestic military operations."
We're far beyond the ability to fight back against the stripping of our rights. Fight back and you're a terrorist, pedophile, and communist, of course.
By what name do you wish to be mourned?
Has anyone else seen the "Masters of Science Fiction" episode "Watchbird"? If you haven't, do.
Avoiding the technical issues of having an autonomus flying robot that can stun & kill people, the actual story of how politicians would use something developed for military use decide that a modified version could work just as well for domestic use, isn't far from the truth as has been shown here in the UK when a council used the RIPA to spy on a family for a month (including watching them in their house and following them in their car) because they applied for their 3-year old to go to a primary school and the council wanted to make sure the family wasn't cheating the system.
It proves that is the powers are there for the people in charge to use then there's no way in hell they won't eventually (ab)use those powers.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
I'm sorry but you aren't making any sense. If you want to use federal powers for good police use, there already is an FBI.
What these people are trying to do is give LOCAL COPS the ability to access top secret spy technology.
Will these local cops have top secret military clearance? That is not being mentioned. Will these local cops have to follow all the federal laws?
Wtf is going to be next? Giving corporations police powers and making CEO's into deputy and letting them access all the top secret spy satelites and launch UAVS?
Do you realize what this does? The domestic law enforcement is even more filled with moles than the federal law enforcement. So instead of having to worry about the Soviets, the domestic law enforcement has to worry about the bloods, the crips, mafia, MS13, the vice lords, and all these other gangs and mafias who have infiltrated and who have moles all throughout domestic law enforcement and police departments all over this country.
If we give the domestic law enforcement access to all this technology, don't you realize that you'll be giving even more power and access to the very criminals you think this technology will be targeting?
You think they are stupid? They read the news too, they go to Slashdot too, their spies in the police department soon may have the power to look into your house and see what you do.
That's just flat out wrong. There are a few places in the constitution where it specifically refers to citizens, everything else including the bill of rights applies to all people.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I wrote to my various congress critters, state side and federal side... so far, I have yet to ever get anything back but a cookie cutter letter. Hell even the signature was a copy.
Pretty sad that people like you still believe that congress critters listen.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
In 2001 the Supreme Court held in Kyllo v. United States that the use of a device from a public vantage point to monitor thermal radiation from a person's home was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and thus required a warrant.
This is different from using a radiation detector or drug sniffing dog because both of the later are much more selective about what is revealed.
Your hasty disclaimer - that your relevant, mild, and ordinary hypothetical is indeed just a hypothetical - speaks volumes towards your fear of your own government.
I would recommend neither qualifying nor apologizing for such words. Don't let them take away your right of expression by censoring yourself for them. Instead, embrace your words and defend the strength of your feelings with an indignant fury.
You might want to read this essay: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/06/0081057
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
The current administration took a Zippo to the envelope, said "fuck you and your stupid envelope," and called us terrorist sympathizers, traitors, and actual terrorists if we complained.
The previous president -- not just his administration -- called his political opponents terrorist sympathizers. The only difference back then was that 90% of the mainstream media voted for him, so they were more than happy to go along with his program.
"But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy... The people who came to the United States to bomb the World Trade Center were wrong.... How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny.... There is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government." (May 5, 1995)
and
"But do not condemn people who work for the government. That's the kind of mentality that produced Oklahoma City." (June 1, 1995)
and
"We recognized, once again, that we can't love our country and hate our government." (December 31, 1995)
See also Virginia Postrel's "Does Reading This Make You A Terrorist?" (July 1995)
Funny how a lot of the people who are outraged now were (at best) not paying attention then.
people posting facts
Only when twisted inappropriately. While the grandparent is wrong about "inalienable rights" in the Constitution, the great-grandparent poster is wrong about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights giving "specific rights to citizens of the US", they do no such thing: the first lays out the powers of the federal government, and restrictions on those powers, the second lays out further restrictions on those powers. The rights exist separately from the Constitution and its amendments.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Wow, with the first post you're already referencing Hitler. Impressive.
"Just because you're eloquent doesn't mean you aren't a fucking crackpot." -Wavebreak
Ron Paul.
Check out his voting record. Maybe you're not libertarian, but show me where he has voted in favor of any advances of government power like this.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Look at it a different way: we are not living in a world where overtaking the government is even considered. A common parallel people have been making is to the Nazis: they were a democracy, voted the wrong people, and then became a dictatorship. Could it happen here? Remember the Germans had just barely left its monarchy behind. In the previous century, Chancellor Bismarck had actively looked for excuses to mass kill his political opponents. In a society like that, people learned that they should just go along if they didn't want to die. The first thing the Nazis did after gaining power was kill all their political opponents. People accepted it as normal. If you want to rest your mind more on the matter, study the details of some Latin-American dictators, or study 19th century France, begin to get an idea of what it takes to overthrow a government, and you will begin to feel that America is alright. n my opinion, the purpose of the U.S. government's war with Iraq is largely to make money for weapons and oil investors. The US is quite capable of spending money on weapons without going to war (see the F22-Raptor, for example).
There were a number of different reasons to enter Iraq. The main reason is that Iraq is a strategically important country, and IF a friendly democracy is maintained there, it will be a stabilizing influence throughout the entire middle east. This is all clearly outlined in the ideology of PNAC, of which Rumsfeld is a member. They'd been pushing to oust Saddam since at least 1998.
Personally I was opposed to the war from the beginning, however, I am now grudgingly having to admit that there have been some good effects from the war as well. It can be argued that one of the main reasons Syria left Lebanon is because they were afraid they would be invaded by the US. Also, despite some horrible mistakes, the US really does look good compared to Al Qaeda in Iraq (compare Abu Ghraib to Al Qaeda, who tortured and killed people in horrible ways, raped girls, etc), and the rest of the middle east is starting to notice. There are even starting to be signs of divisions within the terrorists. It's hard to hate soldiers who are building schools and giving candy out to kids.
There is also evidence that Bush really felt Saddam was evil, and needed to be destroyed. He included him in the axis of evil, after all.
Qxe4
Don't they teach you knuckleheads anything in Civics class anymore?
Yes, using a multi-spectral image of the thermal IR pouring through one's houses walls is quite a bit different than looking in car windows for a handicapped sticker.
Here is the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
This explicitly says that randomly peeking behind peoples walls and into private property or belongings, without probable cause, is neither legal nor acceptable. Not in the 18th century when the rules were written, and not now. The fact that there is technology to do now what wasn't possible in the 1780s makes no difference. This is not a right that the US government has, based on its own rules. Please also note that the Amendment refers to people, not to citizens.
Another bit of enlightenment is in the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
There is nothing in this amendment, or the Constitution as a whole, that gives the Federal government the kind of surveillance rights you suggest. The Fourth Amendment prevents the Federal government and state governments from assuming these rights. Therefore, it is not legal, it is not something the government is permitted to do, it is not constitutional, and it is not acceptable.
If you really think you have nothing to hide, then why not invite me over to go poking through all your stuff?
"National security" are the words they need to use to push the courtroom proceedings from being judge/jury situation to a military tribunal. And of course if it's "in the interest of national security" then the information cannot get out because it will "jeopardize national security."
The parent mentions dictatorship. Here is a great article about the steps necessary to secure power in that fashion, and the author (Naomi Wolf) compares what has happened recently to other situations in the past.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html
Some of you people need to get over yourselves. You're not important enough for the government to care about.
Really? I am on the TSA's terrorist watch list. I am not allowed to use electronic check in at the airport, and I get my bags searched every time. This is not my paranoid imagination - airport personnel have explicitly told me so... but when I've called TSA they won't take me off the list and they sure as hell won't tell me how I got on it.
What have I done? Hell if I know. I'm a white non-religious male. I've bought a spur-of-the-moment one-way plane tickets. I own guns. I've spoken out on Slashdot a time or two. I've googled some weird shit. I will never know exactly how I got on that damned list, but the fact of the matter is I am getting special scrutiny from Bush's cronies and I have no fucking idea why.
Maybe YOU haven't been inconvenienced by this regime yet, because you stay home and watch TV all day. Just try exercising your freedoms and see what happens.
Point of clarification: the Fourth Geneva convention, as written, applies to standing armies, organized militias, and civilians. The current administration has interpreted that to mean "unlawful combatants" have no protection under the Geneva convention. However, they are ignoring the Commentary to the Fourth Geneva convention that states that unlawful combatants shall be tried under domestic law of the detaining state. It also states specifically that there is no intermediate state, no one in enemy hands can be outside the law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Geneva_Convention
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.