Satellite Surveillance: Just Trust Us
Homeland Security is beginning the first phase of a surveillance program, known as the National Applications Office. And, they’re using satellites. There’s been no guarantee that privacy laws will not be broken. The new spy program is meant to supply officials with satellite images, and will be used to identify port and border weaknesses as well as monitoring emergency responses
Not everyone is in favor of this NAO program. Critics are against it because nothing been said about protecting civil liberties and rights of the American people. They are worried about the satellites possibly “eavesdropping.” The government has simply responded that they won’t spy on its citizens. Why isn’t that very comforting?
A 60 page report on this program pointed out a couple of major flaws, the main one being that there is no guarantee that the system won’t be ill-used by other agencies that have access to it. Of course, the government promised that “legal reviews and protection of classified information will be effective.”
I’m still not comforted.
This past Tuesday, a bill was signed that gives the right for the testing of a limited version of the program, which will only be useful for scientific needs and emergency responses. Law enforcement and Homeland security measures will begin later as long as NAO meets its requirement. This makes sense because it will help protect borders and battle terrorism while giving the program enough time to work out the bugs.
But, we have to ask, what exactly are the requirements the NAO has to meet? Are they difficult? Easy? Realistic? Who will benefit from them? Will the standards be lowered or raised if something doesn’t work well? And how do we know if our privacy will be protected? When something goes wrong with our national security, no one is above scrutiny. This program could be beneficial to our nation, but when it comes to all the money that’s going to be invested and the possible risks to our privacy, I think we need to hear more than a simple “Just believe us.”
Dr. Hall Says:
I think the government has helped us enough with satellite surveillance. Too many people are voicing loss of privacy and outright attack with directed energy for it to be mental illness alone. See http://www.satweapons.com for a book about the true accounts of satellite surveillance gone way too far!!!