Eye in the Sky Still Spys

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced yesterday that she will kill a controversial Bush administration program to expand the use of spy satellites by domestic law enforcement and other agencies.

Napolitano said she acted after state and local law enforcement officials said that access to secret overhead imagery was not a priority.

Two years ago, President George W. Bush’s top intelligence and homeland security officials authorized the National Applications Office (NAO) to expand sharing of satellite data with domestic agencies. But congressional Democrats barred funding for what they said could become a new platform for domestic surveillance that would raise privacy and civil liberties concerns.

Earlier this month, House Democrats expressed surprise that Obama included funding for the program in the classified portion of the Department of Homeland Security’s 2010 budget, and they threatened to kill the office.

“The Secretary’s decision is an endorsement of this Committee’s long-held position,” Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement.

The federal government has long permitted domestic use of intelligence imagery for certain scientific uses, such as creating topographic maps or monitoring volcanoes.

Bush officials said the NAO could give domestic security and emergency management agencies new tools to deal with a range of problems, from securing the borders to protecting land and sea ports against terrorism. In addition to tasking military satellites equipped with high-resolution sensors that can see through clouds or penetrate buildings and bunkers, the program would serve as a clearinghouse for state and local agencies seeking greater access to intelligence agencies, they said. Bush officials said the office would not intercept communications.

Charlie Allen, DHS chief intelligence officer from 2005 until January, criticized the decision to kill the program, noting that it was recommended in a 2005 study by a blue-ribbon intelligence panel.

“I have concerns we’re not fully utilizing legal and lawfully authorized capabilities of the U.S. government, capabilities for which U.S. taxpayers paid over decades hundreds of billions of dollars,” said Allen, now with the Chertoff Group, a consulting firm started by former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff.

Read more;

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062302060.html?hpid=topnews

 

Now let’s get the bigger picture-

Thomas Eddlem explains

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/tech-mainmenu-30/space/1291

Most of the press coverage of the decision creates the impression that the Obama-Napolitano DHS is slaying an evil surveillance office created by the Bush administration and nearly ready to go on-line. The Wall Street Journal reported near the top of its story: “The Bush administration had taken preliminary steps to launch the office, such as acquiring office space and beginning to hire staff. The plans to shutter the office signal Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s decision to refocus the department’s intelligence on ensuring that state and local officials get the threat information they need, the official said.” So the program just had a vague plan and had opened up offices in a few strip malls? Hardly.

The Washington Post reported that the federal government was heavily invested in the satellite surveillance program. “I have concerns we’re not fully utilizing legal and lawfully authorized capabilities of the U.S. government, capabilities for which U.S. taxpayers paid over decades hundreds of billions of dollars,” Charlie Allen, a Bush-era DHS chief intelligence officer told the Post.

Hundreds of billions of dollars for surveillance. Janet Napolitano wasn’t about to pull the plug on that kind of “investment,” and she didn’t. She’s still going “to use satellite imaging as currently allowed under existing policy in order to meet its many other responsibilities.”  As the Wall Street Journal summarized, “She also wants to make the department the central point in the government for receiving and analyzing terrorism tips from around the country, the official added.”

Terrorism, yes. But don’t forget that Janet Napolitano herself said that the DHS has “many other responsibilities.”