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Spy satellites for domestic surveillance: issue should unite right and left
By WDavidStephenson | August 20, 2007
I was too verklempt to blog last week about the outrageous news that the Bush Administration has approved increased domestic use of spy satellite images for surveillance.However, IMHO, this far surpasses any of the violations of privacy rights this gang has been guilty of to date, and is absolutely unconscionable and untenable, particularly insofar as it marks a significant increase in military intrusion into domestic affairs — that’s the posse comitatus breach that so many conservatives fear.
Simply put, you won’t be able to go outside without being observed, with all the threat that entails of first justifying this kind of surveillance to catch terrorists, then sliding down that slippery slope where more and more exceptions are allowed — and they’re already talking about this data being made available for routine criminal surveillance.
It comes on the heels of the warrantless monitoring of our phone calls, and means nothing is private anymore. George Mason, where are you when we need you??
As gauged by two recent posts, one on the left by Michael Froomkin:
“Unless social, legal, or technical forces intervene, it is conceivable that there will be no place on earth where an ordinary person will be able to avoid surveillance. In this possible future, public places will be watched by terrestrial cameras and even by satellites. Facial and voice recognition software, cell phone position monitoring, smart transport, and other science-fictionlike developments will together provide full and perhaps real time information on everyone’s location. Homes and bodies will be subject to sense-enhanced viewing. All communications, save perhaps some encrypted messages, will be scannable and sortable. Copyright protection ’snitchware’ and Internet-based user tracking will generate full dossiers of reading and shopping habits.” (NB: Froomkin wrote that in 2000…)
and on the right, from the Swanky Conservative:
“If there is reason enough for a law enforcement agency to require a spy satellite, then there should be reason enough to obtain a search warrant, at which time the spy satellite is a moot point….
I can’t support the administrations’ plans. It’s the wrong direction to take in fighting terror. There’s a lot of talk lately of domestic terror. That’s fine and it’s not an unreasonable thing to suspect. But this approach is too top-down. We should be encouraging a more distributed, wolf-pack way of fighting those who would threaten us. Better communication between agencies. Keeping an eye on the goal and not straying into traditional law enforcement areas with the heavy-handed militaristic approach of combatting terror. Better encouragement of the “pack, not a herd” mindset.
“‘I believe it’s reasonable to be vigilant citizens. Too often people cry out for The Government to come to our aid. It’s laziness. The danger there is that The Government will use that lax attitude to creep more and more into places it should be. There are always strings attached when The Government steps in. Want The Government to save your butt because you, your city and your state didn’t help out enough in a hurricane? Fine. Don’t be surprised if once The Government begins helping in your life that it doesn’t leave.”
.. make me think this is one of those issues, as I’ve said before about the erosion of privacy in the past six years, that right and left should make common cause and call a stop to this madness.
Oh yes, and chalk that up as one more more victory for the terrorists over The American Way….
Technorati tags:
homeland security George Bush War on Terror terrorism antiterrorism government IT government politics Al-Qaeda civil liberties surveillance Fourth Amendment privacy Constitution Bill of Rights ACLU
Topics: civil liberties | |
