[Infowarrior] - US to Expand Domestic Use Of Spy Satellites

[Richard Forno]

August 15, 2007
 
PAGE ONE   

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118714764716998275.html

U.S. to Expand Domestic Use Of Spy Satellites
By ROBERT BLOCK
August 15, 2007; Page A1

The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range
of federal and local authorities who can get access to information
from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S.

The decision, made three months ago by Director of National
Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the
U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of
domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25 memo
sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his
department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of
civilian agencies and law enforcement.

Until now, only a handful of federal civilian agencies, such as the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Geological
Survey, have had access to the most basic spy-satellite imagery, and
only for the purpose of scientific and environmental study.

According to officials, one of the department's first objectives will
be to use the network to enhance border security, determine how best
to secure critical infrastructure and help emergency responders after
natural disasters. Sometime next year, officials will examine how the
satellites can aid federal and local law-enforcement agencies,
covering both criminal and civil law. The department is still working
on determining how it will engage law enforcement officials and what
kind of support it will give them.

Access to the high-tech surveillance tools would, for the first time,
allow Homeland Security and law-enforcement officials to see real-
time, high-resolution images and data, which would allow them, for
example, to identify smuggler staging areas, a gang safehouse, or
possibly even a building being used by would-be terrorists to
manufacture chemical weapons.

Overseas -- the traditional realm of spy satellites -- the system was
used to monitor tank movements during the Cold War. Today, it's used
to monitor suspected terrorist hideouts, smuggling routes for weapons
in Iraq, nuclear tests and the movement of nuclear materials, as well
as to make detailed maps for U.S. soldiers on the ground in
Afghanistan and Iraq.

Plans to provide DHS with significantly expanded access have been on
the drawing board for over two years. The idea was first talked about
as a possibility by the Central Intelligence Agency after 9/11 as a
way to help better secure the country. "It is an idea whose time has
arrived," says Charles Allen, the DHS's chief intelligence officer,
who will be in charge of the new program. DHS officials say the
program has been granted a budget by Congress and has the approval of
the relevant committees in both chambers.

Wiretap Legislation

Coming on the back of legislation that upgraded the administration's
ability to wiretap terrorist suspects without warrants, the
development is likely to heat up debate about the balance between
civil liberties and national security.


Access to the satellite surveillance will be controlled by a new
Homeland Security branch -- the National Applications Office -- which
will be up and running in October. Homeland Security officials say
the new office will build on the efforts of its predecessor, the
Civil Applications Committee. Under the direction of the Geological
Survey, the Civil Applications Committee vets requests from civilian
agencies wanting spy data for environmental or scientific study. The
Geological Survey has been one of the biggest domestic users of spy-
satellite information, to make topographic maps.

Unlike electronic eavesdropping, which is subject to legislative and
some judicial control, this use of spy satellites is largely
uncharted territory. Although the courts have permitted warrantless
aerial searches of private property by law-enforcement aircraft,
there are no cases involving the use of satellite technology.

In recent years, some military experts have questioned whether
domestic use of such satellites would violate the Posse Comitatus
Act. The act bars the military from engaging in law-enforcement
activity inside the U.S., and the satellites were predominantly built
for and owned by the Defense Department.

According to Pentagon officials, the government has in the past been
able to supply information from spy satellites to federal law-
enforcement agencies, but that was done on a case-by-case basis and
only with special permission from the president.

Even the architects of the current move are unclear about the legal
boundaries. A 2005 study commissioned by the U.S. intelligence
community, which recommended granting access to the spy satellites
for Homeland Security, noted: "There is little if any policy,
guidance or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and
dissemination of domestic MASINT." MASINT stands for Measurement and
Signatures Intelligence, a particular kind of information collected
by spy satellites which would for the first time become available to
civilian agencies.

According to defense experts, MASINT uses radar, lasers, infrared,
electromagnetic data and other technologies to see through cloud
cover, forest canopies and even concrete to create images or gather
data.

Tracking Weapons

The spy satellites are considered by military experts to be more
penetrating than civilian ones: They not only take color, as well as
black-and-white photos, but can also use different parts of the light
spectrum to track human activities, including, for example, traces
left by chemical weapons or heat generated by people in a building.

Mr. Allen, the DHS intelligence chief, said the satellites have the
ability to take a "multidimensional" look at ports and critical
infrastructure from space to identify vulnerabilities. "There are
certain technical abilities that will assist on land borders...to try
to identify areas where narcotraficantes or alien smugglers may be
moving dangerous people or materials," he said.

The full capabilities of these systems are unknown outside the
intelligence community, because they are among the most closely held
secrets in government.

Some civil-liberties activists worry that without proper oversight,
only those inside the National Application Office will know what is
being monitored from space.

"You are talking about enormous power," said Gregory Nojeim, senior
counsel and director of the Project on Freedom, Security and
Technology for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit
group advocating privacy rights in the digital age. "Not only is the
surveillance they are contemplating intrusive and omnipresent, it's
also invisible. And that's what makes this so dangerous."

Mr. Allen, the DHS intelligence chief, says the department is
cognizant of the civil-rights and privacy concerns, which is why he
plans to take time before providing law-enforcement agencies with
access to the data. He says DHS will have a team of lawyers to review
requests for access or use of the systems.

"This all has to be vetted through a legal process," he says. "We
have to get this right because we don't want civil-rights and civil-
liberties advocates to have concerns that this is being misused in
ways which were not intended."

DHS's Mr. Allen says that while he can't talk about the program's
capabilities in detail, there is a tendency to overestimate its
powers. For instance, satellites in orbit are constantly moving and
can't settle over an area for long periods of time. The platforms
also don't show people in detail. "Contrary to what some people
believe you cannot see if somebody needs a haircut from space," he says.

James Devine, a senior adviser to the director of the Geological
Survey, who is chairman of the committee now overseeing satellite-
access requests, said traditional users of the spy-satellite data in
the scientific community are concerned that their needs will be
marginalized in favor of security concerns. Mr. Devine said DHS has
promised him that won't be the case, and also has promised to include
a geological official on a new interagency executive oversight
committee that will monitor the activities of the National
Applications Office.

Mr. Devine says officials who vetted requests for the scientific
community also are worried about the civil-liberties implications
when DHS takes over the program. "We took very seriously our mission
and made sure that there was no chance of inappropriate usage of the
material," Mr. Devine says. He says he hopes oversight of the new DHS
program will be "rigorous," but that he doesn't know what would
happen in cases of complaints about misuse.

--Andy Pasztor contributed to this article.

Write to Robert Block at bobby.block at wsj.com3