Overhead Surveillance...Coming to Your Town Soon !!!

I was wondering what the excuse would be to activate drones full time over America.

Lawmakers soon may enlist the nation's spymaster to help fight Mexican drug traffickers and others who use federal land in California and elsewhere to grow marijuana. A provision of the 2012 intelligence authorization bill calls on the director of national intelligence to assess and report on how federal intelligence agencies can help park rangers, fish and wildlife wardens, and other U.S. land managers weed out pot gardens and other activities operated by foreign drug traffickers.

It looks like the "Drug Cartel" argument will justify using the drones.



It's not bad enough we are sniffed, listened too and watched...Now, they will watch from above.

The intelligence world previously has tried to help with domestic eradication efforts. In the 1980s, state and federal law enforcement in California used the high-altitude U-2 spy plane to help spot pot gardens, with limited success.

I never heard of that before....I knew they used Choppers.

“Bringing in the (intelligence community) to help public land managers have a better understanding of the threats is an essential part of managing the problem of marijuana cultivation on public lands,” LaNier said. Others, however, question involving the director of national intelligence. They say there are greater security threats that require the office’s attention. Other agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House drug czar’s office, already know the issue. There also are civil liberties and transparency concerns about having the intelligence community involved in domestic issues.

I admit....I have more than a few Civil Liberties questions.

Among the intelligence agencies that could be tapped if the bill becomes law are the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for its unclassified satellite imagery of public lands and the Treasury Department’s intelligence office to track illicit money, LaNier said. The National Security Agency could be assigned, on a limited basis, to intercept public two-way radio communications. The CIA would not be involved.

Just going to slip in the two-way radio stuff?

“The barriers between federal intelligence and domestic security that existed in the past have all but disappeared,” he said in an e-mail. “We have a right to ask for greater transparency.”

Since we are paying for it....Do we have the right of transparency?

“The question is, what specific constraints are there on the use of imagery – pictures of individuals and their activities?” he said. “Inevitably, it gets you into the area of domestic spying by using overhead surveillance for law enforcement purposes. It always raises questions of what’s the next step? Where does it go next?”

Where does it go next....indeed.

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*This thread is strictly about government overhead surveillance.

*Keep in mind the TOS when commenting....Thanks

I love it. The country is BK and there are 2 wars and unemployment through the roof. China is on the move. Isreal is ready to attack and be attacked. The CIA is data-mining The American People Hillary looks like she smoked some wacky tabacky and they are now going to peep on us with video and tell us it's once again for a good reason so they can violate or rights to expect privacey. All in the name of Pot this time. Last time they raped our rights on the home-front is was with a need to protect us and now its needed ot keep that awefull pot away from us while the drug manufacturers pump out every drug know to man and sell it to anyone with their hands out. s/f op thx..

PS I guess they got tired of slaughtering civilions in Pakistan from the air so now they need to find a new subject to practice their flying skills on.

I would be more worried about surveillance biotech then drones. Imagine your government being able to look into your house threw your pets. Or a fly.

We've already got drones on the borders. They say they're looking for drug traffickers and people with backpacks, and brag about being able to see people's faces from miles away, and how lit cigarettes make a much easier target.

Domestic Use of Spy Satellites To Widen
Law Enforcement Getting New Access To Secret Imagery

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 16, 2007

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.

Administration officials say the program will give domestic security and emergency preparedness agencies new capabilities in dealing with a range of threats, from illegal immigration and terrorism to hurricanes and forest fires. But the program, described yesterday by the Wall Street Journal, quickly provoked opposition from civil liberties advocates, who said the government is crossing a well-established line against the use of military assets in domestic law enforcement.

Although the federal government has long permitted the use of spy-satellite imagery for certain scientific functions -- such as creating topographic maps or monitoring volcanic activity -- the administration's decision would provide domestic authorities with unprecedented access to high-resolution, real-time satellite photos.

They could also have access to much more. A statement issued yesterday 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."

The beneficiaries may include "federal, state, local and tribal elements" involved in emergency preparedness and response or "enforcement of criminal and civil laws." The "tribal" reference was to Native Americans who conduct semi-autonomous law enforcement operations on reservations.

"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. "We anticipate that we can also use it to protect Americans by preventing the entry of dangerous people and goods into the country, and by helping us examine critical infrastructure for vulnerabilities."

Domestic security officials already have access to commercial satellite imagery, including the high-definition photographs available from Google and other private vendors. But spy satellites offer much greater resolution and provide images in real time, said Jeffrey T. Richelson, an expert on space-based surveillance and a senior fellow with the National Security Archive in Washington.

"You also can get more coverage more often," Richelson said. "These satellites will cover during the course of their orbits the entire United States. They will be operating 24 hours a day and using infrared cameras at night."

Other nonvisual capabilities can be provided by aircraft-based sensors, which include ground-penetrating radar and highly sensitive detectors that can sense electromagnetic activity, radioactivity or traces of chemicals, military experts said. Such radar can be used to find objects hidden in buildings or bunkers.

One possible use of the technology would be to spot staging areas along smuggling routes used to transport narcotics or illegal immigrants, officials said. In a handful of cases, security officials have requested -- and obtained -- similar help, but only on a case-by-case basis.

Allen said the agreement with the DNI grew out of the general impetus for wider intelligence-sharing in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when administration and intelligence officials began examining the possibility of increasing officials' access to secret data as a means of strengthening the nation's defenses.

There are lighter-than-air-craft, too...

Unmanned Army blimp crashes in PA

July 27, 2011

An unmanned reconnaissance blimp launched from Ohio by defense contractor Lockheed Martin has crash landed in the woods of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Lockheed Martin spokesman Keith Little tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that the remote-controlled airship took off from Akron, Ohio, shortly before 6 a.m.

Little says the high-altitude ship was being tested as a communications relay for the Army and was supposed to climb to 60,000 feet. The blimp made it 32,000 feet off the ground, but a problem kept it from flying higher.

ground penetrating radar, thermal imaging, who knows what else...

All for "our safety" my ass

articles.latimes.com...


Pentagon plans blimp to spy from new heights
The giant dirigible would use radar to closely and constantly monitor activity on the ground from 65,000 feet.

March 13, 2009|Julian E. Barnes

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Thursday that it intends to spend $400 million to develop a giant dirigible that will float 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10 years, providing unblinking and intricate radar surveillance of the vehicles, planes and even people below.

"It is absolutely revolutionary," Werner J.A. Dahm, chief scientist for the Air Force, said of the proposed unmanned airship -- describing it as a cross between a satellite and a spy plane.

The 450-foot-long craft would give the U.S. military a better understanding of an adversary's movements, habits and tactics, officials said. And the ability to constantly monitor small movements in a wide area -- the Afghanistan- Pakistan border, for example -- would dramatically improve military intelligence.

"It is constant surveillance, uninterrupted," Dahm said. "When you only have a short-time view -- whether it is a few hours or a few days -- that is not enough to put the picture together."

The project reflects a shift in Pentagon planning and spending priorities under Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has urged the military services to improve intelligence and surveillance operations while cutting high-tech weaponry costs.

If successful, the dirigible -- the brainchild of the Air Force and the Pentagon's research arm -- could pave the way for a fleet of spy airships, military officials said.

...

Giant Spy Blimp Battle Could Decide Surveillance’s Future

Here’s why. Surveillance drones like the Predator and the Reaper are starting to lose just a bit of their sheen in military circles, even though their number of “orbits,” or combat air patrols, has more than quadrupled in the last five years. Giant spy blimps are the new hotness. They can stay in the air for much longer than any drone. Instead of a Predator’s single camera, the blimps can carry a whole bunch of surveillance equipment, because they’re so freakin’ huge. Any one of those sensors could spy on an entire town at once. There’s even enough space on board the airship to process all that data in the sky, easing the burden on overloaded intelligence analysts.

Thanks for adding the additional information.

This is the biggest Liberty grab yet.

Not a word from the Sheeple.

Altogether Now....BAA BAA...

Hasn't anyone watched the net or enemy of the state? We will soon all be surveilled everywhere. The scary thing about this is that if things get bad enough and everybody takes to the streets, they will declare all of us enemies of the state and use these things to find us to send to halliburton prison camps.