Friday, August 17, 2007

Surveillance satellites to aid anti-terror operations in US

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — For years, a handful of civilian agencies have used limited images from the nation’s constellation of spy satellites to track hurricane damage, monitor climate change and create topographical maps.

But a new plan to allow emergency response, border control and, eventually, law enforcement agencies greater access to sophisticated satellites and other sensors that monitor American territory has drawn sharp criticism from civil liberties advocates who say the government is overstepping the use of military technology for 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.
[Emphsis mine]

That's the thing. There is no expectation of privacy when one is in "the public domain". Let me say it again. You have no (zip, zero, nada) expectation of privacy for what you do in public.

Even the ACLU knows this, so you have to ask yourself what are they worried about?

James Lewis has a theory that the ACLU's positions flow naturally from a particular kind of psychological condition:

The craving that "Everyhing must be different!" begins in personal psychology, and then becomes articulated in political beliefs. That's why the same people can turn into anarchists or Nazis, Communists, or today, Post-Modernists, Deconstructionists, Radical feminists, Socialists, Hillary followers, Islamo-fascists, you name it. It is why the ACLU chooses the worst criminals to defend; they secretly adore criminals, who are the ultimate rebels against
society.


He very well may have a point. Terrorists would certainly fit the bill as the ultimate rebels, as long as you are only looking at the situation from the standpoint of a desire to harm your own culture.