Spy Satellite Photos Used To Fight Drug Smugglers

Hugh Pickens writes "The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, part of the Department of Defense, is using satellites to track the activities of drug cartels operating along the US-Mexican border. The agency is supplying photos to pinpoint Mexican narcotics operations and anticipate smuggling attempts into the United States. During a conference on border security held in Phoenix last week, Scott Zikmanis said his agency already has supplied some data to the El Paso Intelligence Center, a federal clearinghouse for investigating drug cartels. Any border-security surveillance will be done over Mexico, not the US says Zikmanis because a federal law, the Posse Comitatus Act, strictly limits US military operations on American soil unless such operations are authorized by Congress. Civil rights attorneys question the use of satellite technology in law enforcement. 'We are in the midst of a really dangerous time in terms of technology,' said Chris Calabrese, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. 'The idea that such a powerful tool might be turned on US citizens is really troubling.'"

Comments

I doubt the military uses all of their satellites

[falconwolf]

When not in use for other things, why not use them to help fight crime?

What crimes can they used to fight? The War on Drugs? Legalize drugs. Besides getting rid of laws that deny liberty, that will also reduce violence. The economic and racist war on immigration? The ancestors of Central Americans were here before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. Even today American Indian tribes on both sides of the US Mexico, as well as the US Canadian, border have rights to cross the border. Such as the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Iroquois Confederacy.

Falcon

liberty and immigration

[falconwolf]

Sorry, but immigrants don't have the "liberty" of invading this country and breeding it into crippling poverty like the failed states from whence they came. They have the priviledge of getting in line, entering through the front door and being integrated into our society.

So, what American Indian tribe are you a member of?

Look at the facts from the latest recession:

1) All major sectors of the economy contracting, except Education and Government.

Including technology, which illegal immigrant are not taking jobs away. However that does not address the cause of the recession, immigration did not cause it. Actually immigrants are more likely to start new businesses creating jobs than those born in the US. More jobs make for a better economy in general. The recession was caused by financial institutions giving mortgages to people who could not afford those mortgages.

Jails are filled with immigrant criminals and drug users supplied by foreign smugglers

The US, with the world's largest prison population, has more people in prison from drug convictions than from any other crime. Legalize drugs and release those convicted of non violent drug offenses. Not only would this reduce the costs of laws enforcement but it would reduce drug violence as well.

Borders are not racist. Unchecked immigration has crippled the US economy and is fueling the largest government expansion since that idiot Bush's failed war.

Borders may not be racist but immigration laws are.

Falcon

Nationalism

[Demonantis]

I greatly hope that Mexican Government has approved of these actions. America seems to take their own rights so seriously that they treat the rest of the world as second class citizens. If America wants to be the land of the free they should extend their rights to people that aren't American.

Re:Military required?

[shadowbearer]

  Well, we could just build a wall all along our southern border. A tall concrete wall, with barbed wire, etc. Guard towers every few hundred feet, searchlights, machine gun nets, etc, etc...

  That would keep the undesirable elements out, right? Right?

  Then we could built one on our northern border, as well.

  And around the ports on our coasts.

  And airports. And every entry into the US. "Papers, please." - forget the Please.

  And forget the lesson that history has taught us, that repressive empires tend to fall from within.

  For all our technology, all our hype about the superiority of our government system, we have learned NOTHING.

  In another few hundred years - perhaps sooner - the United States of America, Give us your poor, your hungry, etc... is going to be just another footnote in history books.

  Just like every other system of government in history that started off with good intentions, we have deteriorated to being run by rich people with no scruples whatsoever.

  WE ARE NOT SPECIAL.

  Although, we might get noted, in those history books, as being the most potentially - ? - repressive government in human history, if we keep going in the direction we are.

  I guess we can hope that the best mention we may have in those history books, is as an object lesson in the WORST uses of technology.

  Well, we can hope that those history books will mention that. Depends on who writes them.

  SB