Spy Satellite Deal Gets Hill Riled Up

Spy Satellite Deal Gets Hill Riled Up

www.gcn.com

Key members of Congress urged the Homeland Security Department to indefinitely postpone the launch of a controversial project to provide military spy satellite pictures and data to domestic homeland security and law enforcement agencies, citing the civil-liberties risks the project entails.

DHS’ newly created National Applications Office (NAO) planned to start the program in October.

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I found this snippet disturbing:

The department framed a procedure for shunting geospatial data from Defense Deparatment satellites to homeland security agencies to monitor counterterrorism and civil-safety matters, officials said.

I find it hard to believe once given access to this real time data that the government would use it in the way they are proposing.

This would be a huge infringement on civil liberties, unfortunately it appears that this is another example of back door policy changes that won't hit the news until it is too late.

It could be me but this is the first I have heard of this, all I have seen lately on the news is Britney, OJ, and other much more important news items.

I am all for the military to have this technology but to allow the DHS and local law enforcement agencies to be privy to this surveillance is troubling.

www.gcn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This article discloses the government keeping this satellite surveillance information from the House Homeland Security Committee, and we are supposed to believe that the government will ensure that no one's personal privacy will be respected?

Security official defends satellite surveillance plan

The committee's chairman, Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and others were outraged that they had not been told about the project before its existence was reported in the media.
Kropf indicated that the agency's 19-member privacy panel was kept in the dark until now. "You may have read about this in the paper," he told committee before briefly describing the plan. No members pressed him for additional details.

DHS has voluntarily postponed the program which was supposed to begin this month, until it can give some answers to congresses concerns:

U.S. Postpones Domestic Spy Satellite Program

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (AP) — A program to employ spy satellites for certain domestic uses has been postponed because of privacy concerns.