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DHS To Kill Domestic Satellite Spying Program
mcgrew writes "The Bush administration had plans in place to use spy satellites to spy on American citizens. This morning the AP reports that new DHS head Janet Napolitano has axed those plans. 'The program was announced in 2007 and was to have the Homeland Security Department use overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites for homeland security and law enforcement purposes. The program, called the National Applications Office, has been delayed because of privacy and civil liberty concerns. The program was included in the Obama administration's 2010 budget request, according to Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat and House homeland security committee member who was briefed on the department's classified intelligence budget.'"
DHS.
Hope is the currency of fools
I think these things are as symbolic as the targetting agreements the USA used to make with the likes of Russia. "Oh, are missiles are no longer pointed at each other." Except that, its really not too hard to change that. Similarly, if the President wants to get a picture, covertly, of USA territory, he certainly can. It's not like the satellites don't ever fly over the USA.
This is my sig.
Intel assets should not be used to spy on our own country. They have too much money to spend on this sort of thing. Imagine the DOD budget being spent to enforce laws. Traffic tickets being issued because a satellite saw you going too fast, or jaywalking. Obviously I'm going for histrionics here, but it's a slippery slope once you take away the absolute prohibition.
Just my $0.55 (US inflation, 1774-2008, for $0.02)
...to contract with Google to do it for them.
Why build when you can outsource?
Food for thought:
The best way to maximise the power of these would be to use them day to day. The more comfortable and accurate we can make it on the common stuff, the better the technology will be when we need it for something more serious.
On that note, where can I get a tinfoil hat to cover my house?
So they axe the publicly known plan...
I wonder just how much more intrusive the "secret" plans that will take the public plans will be.
Politicians are politicians, parties don't matter when power is on the line. A politician won't give up power unless it is to get ever more power. This publicity stunt just gets them good press for awhile until the other shoe drops which will conveniently happen just after the re-election.
This was just the moment when they stopped to exist *officially*. ^^
See if can spot a satellite, spying on your country. I bet you can, and will still be able to in a decade.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I prefer to think of law enforcement as a good thing. If we can cut the costs of law enforcement personell (which, by the way, can be more easiliy corruptable) and use more effecient methods to enforce the laws we have, then I think we should. If you believe you should not get a ticket for speeding, then you need to petition a law change... not expect law enforcement to turn a blind eye.
But more to the point, I don't think it's fair that Americans expect their government to do everything for them and blame the leadership when a terrorist attack is successful and then complain when the DOD actually tries to improve their surveillance, with VERY LITTLE infringement on your privacy at that.
One more comment: I am actually scared the way our country is going that it is starting to make personal convictions a criminal offense (go religious freedom), so perhaps what the DHS has done here is actually a good thing despite my general opinion of government surveillance.
Or just blacken it so that privacy and rights concerns will become moot? Cant complain about what you don't know about.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
DHS can probably secretly fund Google to develop a realtime Google Maps/Earth app.
All in the name of national security of course.
Seems that I was taught, when the megolomaniacs speak
of what they are NOT going to do?
"First they deny it, then they do it!"
From the article:
"Napolitano recently reached her decision after the program was discussed with law enforcement officials, and she was told it was not an urgent issue, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about it."*
Later on:
"Bratton, in his role as head of the Major City Chiefs Association, wrote on June 21 that the program, as envisioned by the Bush administration, is not an urgent need for local law enforcement."*
*(Emphasis mine)
Anonymity. Yes, we've heard of it.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
A problem with camera surveillance, is much more innocent than criminal behavior is in view, so a fairly high proportion of suspicious behavior is actually innocent behavior that looks improbably suspicious. Statistically, its the same problem as with false positives in drug tests. Compounding this problem is that when law enforcement is impersonal and from a distance, the accused often is not given a fair, face-to-face chance to defend themselves before having their lives temporarily wrecked. By the time it goes to trial, it has already cost large legal fees and possibly employment.
In my own arrest a few years ago, for innocent behavior that looked suspicious from afar, I was never once interviewed by a law enforcement officer or prosecutor and given a chance to tell my story, right up to the morning of the trial.
There was to me surprisingly little public comment when the domestic satellite surveillance program was announced a couple of years ago. Its nice that the Obama administration seems to be doing the right thing with this anyway.
How is Chloe supposed to track the terrorists?
I'd like to make the observation without judging that for a government it's no problem to spy on "them", but they can't spy on "us".
Privacy is terrorism.
I didn't realize that what I did outside was private.
Don't complain any more about using all resources available for the next series of forest fires and hurricane disaster recovery operations. I am sure Google streetview will suffice.
Amazing.... you're an anonymous moron. On Slashdot.
Who ever would have suspected that?
The polling data you link to doesn't mention any reasons as to why anyone voted for Obama or McCain. Yes, it breaks it down by race, income, education, and when they decided who to vote for... but there's a lack of reasons why.
Piss off, you troglodyte, and take your crapola with you.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
It's murder and conspiracy. This is the same damn thing we executed Tookie for. Death penalty. You cannot have cops murdering people and planting evidence to justify it. Absolutely not. Death penalty.
This is my sig.
Posting the same crapola multiple times doesn't make it informative.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I kinda question the utility of this.
The satellites that are close enough to get enough resolution for this
essentially take snapshots of whatever the window is for
a given satellite. so,
In real time, they'd need to know the location of the target, and have some available for targeting.
Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper to have meat intelligence on the ground watch the target?
For history, just the management of the information would be an expensive trick.
"Ok, here's an obvious nuclear reactor in Elizabeth, NJ."
Or, can I read the license plate on that car at 4:30 PM
on December 21 in Anchorage.
How many analysts does it take to locate a terrorist lightbulb?
Like the NSA cares what she wants stopped
wake up and hold your nose
This news is just fluff and misdirection. So what if they aren't going to use satellites to watch us. They can monitor us more easily, efficiently, and cost effectively with CCTV, red light cameras, and speeding cameras.
If you're not doing anything wrong, then what's the big deal?
They are killing the program the public is aware of, but the satellites will continue to operate over the USA. The data will still be collected. The data or analysis of the data will still be forwarded to law enforcement using a mechanism that obscures the origin of the data (info laundering?). There just won't be an official federal program for law suits to target.
The title would be less exciting if it read "Bush and Obama has never used satellites to spy on Americans".
Bush didn't use spy satellites our of privacy and civil liberty concerns. Got it.
Now that we are straight on this particular issue, let the Bush bashing begin.
"... overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites for homeland security and law enforcement purposes.."
From what I have heard from certain people, they already have been doing this since Regan. The largest use for this was domestically was tracking the drug trade including but not limited to:
Large distribution rings by tracking differential images for trafficing patterns (e.g. large number of cars at 2 am at a pier that only stick around for a hour or two)
Using the IR module for finding growers in remote areas with camoed green houses.
Using the information to track abnormal warehouse activity.
Spying seems a slanted term since the cops don't SPY on people, they investigate. Same with the FBI and ATF.
So what we really have is DHS decides for what appear to be largely buget issues, not taking the information, THAT IS ALREADY BEING COLLECTED, and using it for DHS purposes. Since the DHS is a new agency they probably didn't have access to that data. This sounds largely like a formality to get them access to the data. Now the DHS will have to step through the FBI and local law enforcement channels which was the whole reason we created the DHS in the first place.
Seriously, this amounts to "The cops can use it, the FBI can use it, but the 'new' intelligence community can't." Here contract a plane to get your imagining instead.
If there was a privacy issue why not raise it when ATF raids a pot grower? Why now and not under Regan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2? And why no outcry over the fact it has been used for years already? Surely the use of images from those darn helicopters and airplanes must be a privacy conern also? Right? You know those images you can get from the county and local city... Hello? Sensible Dissent where are you? (in my best Shaggy impersonation).
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
It's copypasta and they don't care what you think. Replying just confirms to them that you read it, or at least noticed it.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
DFTT
Feeding the same troll multiple times does not make it useful.
But replying to each one does make him(her?) successful.
Should be: "DHS Claims to be Killing the Domestic Satellite Spying Program"
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Don't start cheering how great DHS is just yet, because while they're simultaneously talking about killing this program, they're putting UAV drones in the air. http://www.newswatch50.com/news/local/story/Homeland-Security-drone-patrolling-NNY/8ujqf9M2YkCXVlOmBVxFOg.cspx
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
This isn't WW2 America; badguys don't wear the same uniform and at least pretend to keep the Geneva Convention. Nowdays, three men in a Dutch bar can decide they hate America (usually with media help) and come over and kill people. See also: all the attacks that have occurred in malls around the country.
Worse yet is political dissidents; I know that the Fed has no business telling the private sector people how much they will be paid (or not at all), and I think it's a rude loss of rights to have Congress and 'Buckwheat' crushing industries to control them, claiming they had nothing to do with it. "Un-checked capitalism! Bad, bad! Must stop!"
Because of these beliefs, and my belief in God, I'm on the DHS watch list. No, not an opinion, for those of you who never get outta the NOC. This was stated, I believe, in March or April.
How else can you transact a coup with people who don't agree? They're already bad-mouthing talk radio so they can shut IT down, as well. Seems "the enlightened" like to burn books, quash protests (see what they told you about the TEA Parties) and have their way.
Yeah, they need to keep an eye on me. I vote, and I care for rights.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Remember when they pretended to kill Total Information Awareness after public outcry, and really just moved parts of it to NSA where it wouldn't be seen until whistleblowers came forward?
But even if Napalitano actually has managed to end this program (and good on her if she has) for now, there is this persistent authoritarian streak across a wide swath of career folks in D.C. that isn't going away. It's going to be a constant and continuous battle to keep these people from pissing on the Bill of Rights.
The program was included in the Obama administration's 2010 budget request
It seems the opening paragraph should have said, "The Obama administration had plans in place to use spy satellites to spy on American citizens." On the other hand, why let the facts get in the way of a good line?
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
The terrorists have won!
Janet Napolitano -- fresh from her attempt to persecute conservatives -- has now waved the white flag of defeat at the terrorists of the world, letting them know that they can do whatever they like while in America, and no one will know about it. This is a sad, sad day for Real Americans(tm). [/CONSERVATIVESTRAWMAN]
What I would like to see is a method under which under my UID I could filter out posts that are repeats of the same copy/paste troll text. Once I have banned that particular post it would never appear again when logged in.
These announcements are kind of funny - how do you ever verify whatever they promise? These are "top secret", "for eyes only", "Heimat - oops, homeland security", "against terrorists", blah, blah systems so no public information, control, whatever needed, you can feel safe now - we don't do it!
Seriously, if they want to use all the money to track me, they are more than welcome as long as it isn't my tax money! I might allow the same as for election hold in my taxes but only if I can use the satellite tracker, our neighbor is hiding behind a fence and may be planning something evil?