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Breaking News
US to use spy satellites on Americans
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.
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 semiautonomous law enforcement operations on reservations.
Under the new program, the DHS will create a subordinate agency to be known as the National Applications Office. The new office, which has gained the backing of congressional intelligence and appropriations committees, is responsible for coordinating requests for access to intelligence by civilian agencies. Previously, an agency known as the Civilian Applications Committee facilitated access to satellite imagery for geologic study.
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."
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.
