A new proposal for granting emergency responder agencies, border control, and law enforcement increased access to satellites and sensors monitoring the US has civil liberties advocates newly worried. For years, some civilian agencies have had access to a limited array of images from US spy satellites to "track hurricane damage, monitor climate change and create topographical maps," according to this NYT story by Eric Schmitt, but this new plan expands that access in ways some fear amount to a new form of domestic surveillance:
“It potentially marks a transformation of American political culture toward a surveillance state in which the entire public domain is subject to official monitoring,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.
At issue is a newly disclosed plan that Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, approved in May in a memorandum to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, which puts some of the nation’s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials as early as this fall.
The uses include enhancing seaport and land-border security, improving planning to mitigate natural disasters, and determining how best to secure major events, like the Super Bowl or national political conventions. Eventually, state and local law enforcement officials could be allowed to tap into the technology on a case-by-case basis, once legal guidelines are worked out, administration officials said.
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