Cameras on street corners, in businesses, plus Google and others photographing us with their fisheye lenses. And now from space. Big Brother IS watching, so stop whatever (legal or illegal) you’re doing.
U.S. to Expand Domestic Use Of Spy Satellites
The U.S.’s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation’s vast network of spy satellites in the U.S.
The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.’s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25 memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of civilian agencies and law enforcement.
According to officials, one of the department’s first objectives will be to use the network to enhance border security, determine how best to secure critical infrastructure and help emergency responders after natural disasters. Sometime next year, officials will examine how the satellites can aid federal and local law-enforcement agencies, covering both criminal and civil law. The department is still working on determining how it will engage law enforcement officials and what kind of support it will give them.
If they’ll also give us regular folk live web access so we could look down on topless beaches and things like that, I’m OK with it.
Just use GOOGLE maps…
they dont need to see my License plate ONLY the roads…
*sigh*
The state of things is so depressing.
You know 5 years ago when I told people that this was the way society was going they called me nuts. My new prediction is we find out that the government has been or will start tracking every movement we make with our cars via computer license plate readers or RFID tags.
I am starting to think that this is an irreversible trend. Any ideas on how we stop this?
Which is why I need this:
http://www.silohome.com/
At least for the time being they may need a warrant to search my place.
Welcome to Amerika.
#4 you are correct. The awful truth is our children will not even notice or care. This 9/11 has enabled the future destruction of our constitution. What can we do write our congressmen/Senator? I don’t know. This is getting scary.
Well, I guess Patrick Norton’s Jay-Walking days are over!!!!!
“You are talking about enormous power,” said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group advocating privacy rights in the digital age. “Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating intrusive and omnipresent, it’s also invisible. And that’s what makes this so dangerous.”
Dangerous? Holy jumpin’ eyeballs, this is outrageous! Good Grief Charlie Brown!!
#4 high speed license plate readers are old news wired circa 2005
DHS has its censorship duties handled by its ostensibly non-governmental wiretap partner at+t .
And now, by adding this satellite capability to blank-check warrantless wiretaps and e-mail scanning and damn, they got themselves a citizen watch system the likes of which would give the Stasi a hard-on.
go team bush!
Damn, I wish the elections were this year. The Bush admin has another full year to continue this horrible mess and it doesn’t look like anyone is going to do anything about it.
#4 and anyone else who is still talking about how this is all Bush, or the republicans, or the democrats… the irony is that this is all actually YOUR fault. From the mall rat who “doesn’t follow politics” to the paranoid conspiracy nut; people get the leaders they deserve.
It will never cease to entertain me how you people pick & choose the parts of the constitution that it’s OK to translate into meaninglessness while you call the other guy a traitor or some trendy equivalent. For the most part, your all traitors.
Spy cameras in the sky?
I have a lot of issues with surveillance, but not this… These cameras can help agencies acquire data to solve port vulnerability issues and large scale issues. These cameras deliver black and white still images, at better resolution, I understand, than Google earth, but not much better.
They are also very useful for assessing large scale storm damage because they can see through clouds.
These cameras are pretty much incapable of being used to target an individual person or to obtain personal data. They can watch a border. They can’t watch a bedroom.
Plus, these satellites are not in geosynchronous orbit, so it isn’t like you can stake out a house from space. As a military tool, these cameras are good. For law enforcement, not so much.
So Bobbo… There shall be no debate with me this time 🙂 (unless you should happen to be anti-satellite)
#12 – For the most part, your all traitors.
And you are a traitor to the language. If you are gonna make a stupid sweeping generalization about all of us, at least do us the courtesy of knowing the difference between your and you’re.
#12 well, GW is the boss of the CIA, NSA, DHS, FBI, ATF, the entire military, etc. he has signed off on warrentless wiretaps and internet monitoring and he has done so by presidential order, not through congress, not through the courts, ergo the culture of invasive government surveillance pretty much actually is all bush.
he has called himself the decider, let him be a man and take credit and blame for what he had done.
Is there any way of easily disabling a camera, like maybe with an electromagnetic pulse, or with a strong laser? Then again, maybe just a spray paint can mounted on a long pole with a string trigger might take one out.
When Bush read 1984 in college he thought to himself, “Why is this stuff bad? A lot of good ideas in here…”.
#14
Last refuge of a lost argument, attack punctuation and spelling.
#11
Question is, is anything going to be done to reverse this after the election.
#18 Hell no. The Dems are just the other side of the same coin. They won’t want to surrender gov’t power. Look how “hard” they are fighting Bush now. Makes me sick.
#18 – I wasn’t in an argument, so how could I lose one?
Bush needs to get life.