Spy Satellites
Spy satellites will be used by local law enforcement to enforce the laws against United States citizens. Should this make us feel safer or more scared of our government?
On the one hand I expect any government to use the most sophisticated equipment it has available in the pursuit of law enforcement, but on the other, the more sophisticated the equipment gets the more difficult it will be for proper oversight to exist, and the tendency is increased (perhaps inadvertantly) that the tools will be used for nefarious purposes.
A lack of oversight has the potential to lead to disastrous results. The brouhaha that occurred over the warrantless wiretapping could be just a hint of what’s to come if programs such as this gain more ground.
When news of this type comes out I get an ominous feeling of “ickiness” about the fact that we have less and less implicit privacy (that being the general privacy to do things like walk outside into your fenced yard without risk of wanton surveillance). But at the same time I have a hard time determining where exactly the line is being crossed.
Can someone help determine where (if at all) a problem exists? Does it lie in the fact that the Federal government is using instruments of national security for issues that should be locally controlled? The Slashdot comments section has a lot of alarmist comments (including the ubiquitous “omg 1984” kind), but I’m not certain how a line is being crossed.
Source: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/13/2331224&from=rss
Comment by robert
February 18, 2008 @ 10:30 pm
Perhaps an even broader concern about the use of spy satellites in general is: how secure are the systems that are downloading images from them?
It seems quite clear that data has to be transferred from the satellite taking pictures to installations on the ground. It’s also fairly likely that these installations are remotely accessible (for some definition of “accessible”). This may mean that people can log in examine satellite imagery remotely, or it may mean something more benign. (Or it may not be remotely “accessible” at all). The possibility of our government taking pictures of our citizens breaking laws is certainly somewhat disconcerting, but it could arguably be more scary to have foreign governments or even citizens prying into the private lives of the country’s residents. Does anybody have any thoughts on how access to these images might be used to benefit individuals (or corporations). Foreign governments don’t count. 🙂
Comment by imv
February 24, 2008 @ 2:43 pm
I have a problem with any sort of warrant or oversight in which the citizen does not know he/she is under scrutiny. The satellites present a problem because infra-red imagery is able to see into our homes, which are the last vestiges of privacy we have. Not only is our privacy being invaded, but we are unable to find out if our privacy has been invaded. When this is the case, it is impossible to verify that the spying is justified in any way. Instead, we have a self-policing system – we’ve all seen how that goes. I don’t buy the check on power provided by having requests to see images being cleared by the Homeland Security Department. The department’s mission is overly-broad and has already crossed the line many times. The following quote is worrisome “The details of how law enforcement agencies could use the images during investigations would be determined in the future after legal and policy questions have been resolved, the official said.” Unfortunately, the system is being implemented before fully addressing policy questions.
Comment by Patrick Williams
February 24, 2008 @ 10:41 pm
Well what is there to lose? Why is one’s privacy so important? If everyone knew what everyone else did it seems as though there would be a much needed discussion about what laws we should keep, and those that we should abandon. I can’t claim to follow the law to the T (where does that expression come from?) but all in all I’d feel pretty bad about the person that will watch the video of my life. In fact I’d almost like for my life to be monitored to avoid being framed (hey, not valuing my privacy doesn’t mean I’m not paranoid).
Ok, I’ve done as much devil’s advocating that I can…