Bush to start using spy satellites on Americans
 

If you don't have a problem with this you're fucked in the head. Fuck Bush and everyone who voted for him.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20290145/

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.

Oversight of the department's use of the overhead imagery data would come from officials in the Department of Homeland Security and from 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."

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.

?More robust access?
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 semiautonomous law enforcement operations on reservations.

But civil liberties groups quickly condemned the move, which Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a nonprofit activist group, likened to "Big Brother in the sky." "They want to turn these enormous spy capabilities, built to be used against overseas enemies, onto Americans," Martin said. "They are laying the bricks one at a time for a police state."

Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, said that the data could be useful but that oversight for the program was woefully inadequate. Enhanced access "shouldn't be adopted at all costs because it comes with risk to privacy and to the integrity of our political institutions," he said.

Start to use??? Ha!

I guess no one has heard of the microchips that these sick fucks are now putting in Passports and soon in drivers licenses that can also track your every move!
Just plug me the fuck in then!:1orglaugh

Fucked up.. This guy can't think of something better..

Oh yes they can believe me try this it cameras on every traffic light!
This shit is getting out of control here in U.S. cameras everywhere!
We are all on a fucking reality show now.
Its like they watched the movie sliver one too many times or some shit.:1orglaugh

You actually think they JUST started this?

More like the movie Enemy of the State

It's about time took responsibility for my actions

I need to be watched, there is no telling what I may do

Like anyones really shocked? Hitler did this 70 years ago. The USSR even more recently.

Get used to it people...this president picked up a lot of power this go around.

Anyone who isn't a Republican saw this stuff coming years ago.

And it's not a case of "if you aren't a criminal you have nothing to worry about" either. All of this technology. All of this spying. All of this grooming of Americans to accept it in the name of something or other. The desired climax will eventually be a USA that spys on grocery shopping habits, and then your health insurance rates go up and down based on what your family has been eating. That is just one example of many things to come.

This isn't just crazy talk either. The FACT is that they went from using this stuff on hardcore terrorists to using it on the common American criminal. By the time Republican supporters get around to asking when is it going to end, it will already be too late. The government DOES NOT EVER give back any power they have obtained over the people.

when are Robo Cops coming out ???

Yea lets give them a green light to go ahead and do it on a more large scale basis because they were illegally doing it before.