Big Brother is watching you. And all his cousins are crowding around the monitor, too..
The Bush administration has approved a plan to expand domestic access to some of the most powerful tools of 21st century spycraft, giving law enforcement officials and others the ability to view data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors that can see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground bunkers.
A program approved by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security will allow broader domestic use of secret overhead imagery beginning as early as this fall, with the expectation that state and local law enforcement officials will eventually be able to tap into technology once largely restricted to foreign surveillance.
I suppose that, in the right hands, with the right safeguards, there could be some circumstances where this would be of value …
Oh, wait. I said “right hands” and “safeguards” in conjunction with a law enforcement / national security initiative from the Bush administration. Silly me.
A statement issued Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security said that officials envision “more robust access” not only to imagery but also to “the collection, analysis and production skills and capabilities of the intelligence community.”
“These systems are already used to help us respond to crises,” Charles Allen, the chief intelligence officer for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a telephone interview.
Insert object lesson here. Systems and capabilities are designed for Dire Threats, as those are the only things that can justify them. Then it becomes “Hey, these things are around, let’s use them more casually for merely Important Things.” Soon it’s “This is a standard tool in the toolbox for Everyday Occurrences, how can you talk about taking it back away from us?” (And, of course, that justifies getting even Bigger and Better satellites because of the demand on the Older and More Plebeian ones.)
Or, put another way, do you really want the local gendarmerie using satellite capabilities to note the vehicles up on Lovers Lane? Or collecting and passing on information about when someone’s car left the parking lot at work?
Oh, but I’m sure such trivial use of these capabilities would never be countenanced by the judiciary. I mean, folks would need search warrants and the like, right?
Oversight of the department’s use of the overhead imagery would come from officials in the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and would consist of reviews by agency inspectors general, lawyers and privacy officers. “We can give total assurance” that Americans’ civil liberties will be protected, Allen said. “Americans shouldn’t have any concerns about it.”
Well, as long as the DHS says that they are giving total assurance to us, and that we shouldn’t have any concerns about it, I’m sure it will be all right.
Always watch the skies.
Look! Comments are open!
Huzzah (as one who was going to comment). Just wondering who oversees Google Earth and like services like that street-by-street photography project. Aren’t privacy concerns just as great? And since anybody can access that stuff, who is to prevent (for example) nefarious types from accessing it and scoping your neighborhood and house? Kind of like the “gentleman” who was cyberstalking me earlier this year. No government agency was watching over him!
Well, yes, on one level it’s an incremental extension of the more static and lower rez satellite photography available through Google Earth and the like — but it’s not an insignificant increase in real-time capabilities, now explcitly being “allowed” to law enforcement based on someone thinking it’s a good idea.
We’re going to have to come up with a different baseline for what’s “normal” and what’s “legal” if the fuzz can see through the roofs of our houses. Hell, we already have a higher percentage of people in prison than anybody except – what – China?
“Yeah, but they were all bad …”
LOL Dave!
To me I am fine with police and the government having these tools available to them. What I am not fine with is when they can use them whenever they want without a warrant. That is BS!
I recommend Penn and Teller on this one. Their Bullshit episode was pretty funny.
Playing Devil’s Advocate, satellite surveillance is not (to my mind) significantly different from any visual surveillance. The cops don’t need a warrant to watch me driving down the street, whether it is from a prowl car or from the air from geosynchronous orbit. So on that level, I don’t have a bitch about it.
Of course, the cops can now also see into my backyard. No more sex in the open-air, fully-screened-from-the-neighbors hot tub. That’s (beyond the specific case mooted here) a bit more bothersome.
In some ways, it’s the “now it’s all much easier” argument viz databases and privacy. A lot of what privacy advocates complain about being collected in databases were actually already available on public records at City Hall or the Library or whatever. The problem is they are now much more virtually accessible, which makes them a tool much easier to use in petty and harrassing ways. Ditto for satellite access. When, I wonder, will we hear the first stories of police abusing the access for personal gain or for dubious restriction of civil rights?
Of course, even without satallites, more police surveillance seems to be the order of the day.