G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
Institutionalized Spying on Americans
By Stephen Lendman
Created Jan 17 2008 - 9:50am
This article reviews two police state tools (among many in use) in America.
One is new, undiscussed and largely unknown to the public. The other was
covered in a December article by this writer called Police State America.
Here it's updated with new information.
The National Applications Office (NAO)
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established a new domestic spying
operation in 2007 called the National Applications Office (NOA) and
described it as "the executive agent to facilitate the use of intelligence
community technological assets for civil, homeland security and law
enforcement purposes within the United States." The office was to begin
operating last fall to "build on the long-standing work of the Civil
Applications Committee (CAC), which was created in 1974 to facilitate the
use of the capabilities of the intelligence community for civil, non-defense
uses in the United States."
With or without congressional authorization or oversight, the executive
branch is in charge and will let NAO use state-of-the-art technology,
including military satellite imagery, to spy on Americans without their
knowledge. Implementation is delayed, however, after Committee on Homeland
Security Chairman, Bennie Thompson, and other committee members raised
questions of "very serious privacy and civil liberties concerns." In
response, DHS agreed to delay operating (officially) until all matters are
addressed and resolved.
Given its track record post-9/11, expect little more than pro forma
posturing before Congress signs off on what Kate Martin, the director of the
Center for National Security Studies, calls "Big Brother in the Sky" and a
"police state" in the offing.
DHS supplies this background information on NAO. Post-9/11, the Director of
National Intelligence appointed an Independent Study Group (ISG) in May,
2005 to "review the current operation and future role of the (1974) Civil
Applications Committee and study the current state of Intelligence Community
support to homeland security and law enforcement entities."
In September 2005, the Committee produced a "Blue Ribbon Study," now
declassified. Its nine members were headed by and included three Booz Allen
Hamilton officials because of the company's expertise in spying and
intelligence gathering. Its other members have similar experience. They all
have a vested interest in domestic spying because the business potential is
huge for defense related industries and consultants.
ISG members included:
Keith Hall, Chairman Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton
Edward G. Anderson LTG US Army (Ret) Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton
Thomas W. Conroy Vice President National Security Programs Northrop
Grumman/TASC
Patrick M. Hughes LTG US Army (Ret) Vice President, Homeland Security L-3
Communications
Kevin O'Connell Director of Defense Group Incorporated (DGI) Center for
Intelligence Research and Analysis (CIRA)
CIRA is a think tank that calls itself "the premier open source and cultural
intelligence exploitation cell for the US intelligence community." Its
business is revolutionizing intelligence analysis.
Jeff Baxter Independent Defense Consultant with DOD and industry ties
Dr. Paul Gilman Director Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies Oak Ridge
National Laboratory US Department of Energy
Kemp Lear Associate Booz Allen Hamilton, and
Joseph D. Whitley, Esq Alston & Bird LLP, Government Investigations and
Compliance Group, former Acting Associate Attorney General in GHW Bush
administration, and former General Counsel for DHS under GW Bush
The ISG's report produced 11 significant findings and 27 recommendations
based on its conclusion that there's "an urgent need for action because
opportunities to better protect the nation are being missed." It "concluded
a new management and process model (is) needed to effectively employ IC
(Intelligence Community) capabilities for domestic uses."
In March 2006, DHS unveiled the new agency to implement ISG's
recommendations called the National Applications Office. In May, 2007,
Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Michael McConnell, named DHS as its
executive agent and functional manager. At least in principle according to
DHS, Congress agreed with this approach and to provide funding for it,
beginning in the fall of 2007.
The public knew nothing about this until a feature August 15, 2007 Wall
Street Journal story broke the news. It was headlined "US to Expand Use of
Spy Satellites." It noted that for the first time the nation's top
intelligence official (DNI's McConnell) "greatly expanded the range of
federal and local (civilian law enforcement agencies that) can get access
to" military spy satellite collected information. Until now, civilian use
was restricted to agencies like NASA and the US Geological Survey, and only
for scientific and environmental study.
The Journal explained that key objectives under new guidelines will be:
-- border security,
-- securing critical infrastructure and helping emergency responders after
natural disasters,
-- working with criminal and civil federal, state, and local law enforcement
agencies, and
-- unmentioned by the Journal, the ability to spy on anyone, anywhere,
anytime domestically for any reason - an unprecedented act using
state-of-the-art technology enabling real-time, high-resolution images and
data from space.
NAO will also oversee classified information from the National Security
Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and other US
agencies involved in dealing with all aspects of national security,
including "terrorism."
NSA was established in 1952, is super-secret, and for many years was never
revealed to exist. Today, its capabilities are awesome and worrisome. It
eavesdrops globally, mines a vast amount of data, and does it through a
network of spy satellites, listening posts, and surveillance planes to
monitor virtually all electronic communications from landline and cell
phones, telegrams, emails, faxes, radio and television, data bases of all
kinds and the internet.
NGA is new and began operating in 2003. It lets military and intelligence
analysts monitor virtually anything or anyone from state-of-the-art spy
satellites. Both NSA and NGA coordinate jointly with the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) that designs, builds and operates military spy
satellites. It also analyzes military and CIA-collected aircraft and
satellite reconnaissance information.
Combined with warrantless wiretapping, pervasive spying of all kinds, the
abandonment of the law and checks and balances, intense secrecy, and an
array of repressive post-9/11 legislation, Executive Orders and National
Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directives, NAO is another
national security police state tool any despot would love. It's now
established and may be operating without congressional approval.
Using spy satellites domestically "is largely uncharted territory," as the
Wall Street Journal noted. Even its architects admit there's no clarity on
this, and the ISG's report stated "There is little if any policy, guidance
or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and dissemination of
domestic MASINT (Measurement and Signatures Intelligence)."
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is the main DOD spy agency. It manages
MASINT that's ultra-secret and sophisticated. It uses state-of-the-art
radar, lasers, infrared sensors, electromagnetic data and other technologies
that can detect chemicals, electro-magnetic activity, whether a nuclear
power plant produces plutonium, and the type vehicle from its exhaust. It
can also see under bridges, through clouds, forest canopies and even
concrete to create images and collect data. In addition, it can detect
people, activity and weapons that satellites and photo-reconnaissance
aircraft miss, so it's an invaluable spy tool but highly intrusive and up to
now only for military and foreign intelligence work.
Further, military spy satellites are state-of-the-art and superior to
civilian ones. They record in color as well as black and white, use
different parts of the light spectrum to track human activities and ground
movements and can detect chemical weapons traces and people-generated heat
in buildings.
This much we know about them. Their full potential is top secret and
available only to the military and intelligence community. The Journal
quoted an alarmed Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Project
on Freedom, Security and Technology, that advocates for digital age privacy
rights saying: "Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating
intrusive and omnipresent, it's also invisible. And that's what makes this
so dangerous."
Anyone for any reason may be watched at all times (through walls) with no
way to know it, but a June 2001 (before 9/11) Supreme Court decision offers
hope. In Kyllo v. United States, the Court ruled for petitioner 5 to 4 (with
Scalia and Thomas in the majority). It voided a conviction based on police
use of thermal imaging to detect heat in his triplex to determine if an
illegal drug was being grown, in this case marijuana.
The Court held: "Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in
general public use, to explore details of a private home that would
previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance
is a Fourth Amendment 'search," and is presumptively unreasonable without a
warrant....To withdraw protection of this minimum expectation would be to
permit police technology to erode the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth
Amendment" protecting against "unreasonable searches and seizures."
In 1981, Ronald Reagan seemed to agree in Executive Order 12333 on United
States Intelligence Activities. It bars the intelligence community from most
forms of home eavesdropping while providing wide latitude to all government
agencies to "provide the President and the National Security Council with
the necessary information (needed to) conduct....foreign, defense and
economic policy (and protect US) national interests from foreign security
threats. (Collecting this information is to be done, however,) consistent
with the Constitution and applicable law...."
That was then, and this is now. It's hard imagining congressional concern or
DHS meaning that NAO will "prioritize the protection of privacy and civil
liberties" and citing the Reagan Executive Order and the 1974 Privacy Act.
That law mandates that no government agency "shall disclose any record (or)
system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another
agency, except pursuant to a written request, or with the prior written
consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains." The Privacy act
requires the US government to maintain an administrative and physical
security system to prevent the unauthorized release of personal records.
Post-9/11, the Patriot Act ended that protection, so DHS is shameless saying
NAO must comply with civil liberties and privacy laws and be subject to
"oversight by the DHS Inspector General, Chief Privacy Officer, and the
Officer for Civil Rights and Liberties" plus additional oversight. No longer
post-9/11 when the national security state got repressive new tools to erode
the constitution, ignore democratic principles, and give the President
unrestricted powers in the name of national security. NAO is the latest one
watching us as our "Big Brother in the Sky." Orwell would be proud.
Real ID Act Update - Another Intrusive Police State Tool
The Read ID Act of 2005 required states to meet federal ID standards by May,
2008. That's now changed because 29 states passed or introduced laws that
refuse to comply. They call the Act costly to administer, a bureaucratic
nightmare, and New Hampshire said it's "repugnant" and violates the state
and US Constitutions.
The federal law mandates that every US citizen and legal resident have a
national ID card that in most cases is a driver's license meeting federal
standards. It requires it to contain an individual's personal information
and makes one mandatory to open a bank account, board an airplane, be able
to vote, get a job, enter a federal building, or conduct virtually all
essential business requiring identification.
States balked, and that doomed the original version. On January 11, changes
were unveiled when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued binding
new rules. Under them, states have until 2011 to comply (instead of 2008),
until 2014 to issue "tamper-proof licenses" to drivers born after 1964, and
until 2017 for those born before this date. DHS said the original law would
cost states $14 billion. The new regulations with an extended phase-in cuts
the amount to around $3.9 billion or $8 per license.
These numbers may be bogus, however, the true costs may be far higher, and
that's why the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) is
lobbying for Real ID's passage. Its members include high-tech card makers
like Digimarc and Northrup Grumman and data brokers like Choicepoint and
LexisNexis that profit by selling personal information to advertisers and
the government.
Under new DHS rules, licenses must include a digital photo taken at the
beginning of the application process and a filament or other security device
to prevent counterfeiting. They must also have three layers of security that
states can select from a DHS menu. In addition, states must begin checking
license applicants' Social Security and immigration status over the next
year.
As of now, a controversial radio frequency identification (RFID) technology
microchip isn't required. It may come later, however, and here's the
problem. It'll let cardholder movements and activities be tracked
everywhere, at all times - in other words, a police state dream along with
other pervasive spying tools.
Even worse would be mandating human RFID chip implants. It's not planned so
far (but not ruled out), and three states (California, Wisconsin and North
Dakota) preemptively banned the practice without recipients' consent.
Think it can't happen? Consider a January 13 article in the London
Independent headlined "Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs.' " The article
states that civil rights groups and probation officers are furious that
"hi-tech 'satellite'.... machine-readable (microchip) tagging (is) planned
(for thousands of offenders) to create more space in jails." Unlike ankle
bracelets now sometimes used, tiny RFID chips would be surgically implanted
for monitoring the way they're currently used for dogs, cats, cattle and
luggage. They're more reliable, it's believed, as current devices can be
tampered with or removed.
Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), was
quoted saying: "We have looked at....the practicalities and the ethics (and
we concluded) its time has come." The UK currently has the largest prison
population per capita in western Europe. It sounds like authorities plan to
expand it using fewer cells. It also sounds like a scheme to tag everyone
after testing them first on prisoners. And consider the possibilities. RFID
technology is advancing, and one company plans deeper implants that can
vibrate, emit electroshocks, broadcast a message to the implantee, and/or be
a hidden microphone to transmit conversations. It's not science fiction, and
what's planned for the UK will likely come to America. In fact, it's already
here.
In 2004, the FDA approved a grain-of-rice sized, antenna-containing VeriChip
for human implantation that allows vital information to be read when a
person's body is scanned. The company states on its web site that it's "the
world's first and only patented, FDA-cleared, human-implantable RFID
microchip....with skin-sensing capabilities." Reportedly, about 2000 test
subjects now have them, but it may signal mandatory implantation ahead.
Consider for whom for starters - prisoners, military personnel and possibly
anyone seeking employment. After them, maybe everyone in a brave new global
surveillance world.
It gets worse. Katherine Albrecht authored a report called "Microchip-Cancer
Report - Microchip-Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review
of the Literature 1990-2006." After reading it, Dr. Robert Benezra, Director
Cancer Biology, Genetics Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
said: "There's no way in the world, having read this information, that I
would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family
members. Given the preliminary animal data, it looks to me that there's
definitely cause for concern."
Albrecht's report evaluated 11 previously published toxicology and pathology
studies. In six of them, up to 10.2% of rats and mice developed malignant
tumors (typically sarcomas) where microchips were implanted. Two others
reported the same findings for dogs. These tumors spread fast and "often led
to the death of the afflicted animals. In many cases, the tumors
metastasized and spread to other parts of the animals. The implants were
unequivocally identified as the cause of the cancers."
Report reviews, conclusions and recommendations were to immediately stop
further human implantations, inform people with them of the dangers, offer a
microchip removal procedure, and reverse all animal microchipping mandates.
Debate Ahead on New DHS ID Rules
DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said new ID rules require states to verify
each cardholder's personal information (including a person's legal status in
the country) by matching it against federal Social Security and passport
databases and/or comparable state ones.
States have time to adjust, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy
wasted no time saying he'll recommend legislation to ban Real ID drivers'
license provisions because "so many Americans oppose" them. They're
intrusive, burdensome, and federal databases are full of false or
out-of-date information that's hard to disprove, but unless it is Americans
will be denied their legal right to a driver's license.
The ACLU also strongly opposes Real ID because it violates privacy, lets
government agencies share data, and its "tortured remains" represent an
"utterly unworkable" system that will "irreparably damage the fabric of
American life." An ACLU January 11 press release further states that DHS
"dumped the problems of the statute on future presidents like a rotting
corpse left on (its) steps (and) whoever is president in 2018." Congress
must "recognize the situation and take action." The Real ID Act and new DHS
rules must be "repealed and replaced with a clean, simple, and vigorous new
driver's license security law that does not create a national ID" or violate
Americans' privacy.
Futuristic Hi-Tech Profiling
On January 14, Computerworld online revealed more cause for concern in an
article called "Big Brother Really is Watching." It's about DHS "bankrolling
futuristic profiling technology...." for its Project Hostile Intent. It, in
turn, is part of a broader initiative called the Future Attribute Screening
Technologies Mobile Module. It's to be a self-contained, automated screening
system that's portable and easy to implement, and DHS hopes to test it at
airports in 2010 and deploy it (if it works) by 2012 at airports, border
checkpoints, other points of entry and other security-related areas.
Here's the problem. If developed (reliable or not), these devices will use
video, audio, laser and infrared sensors to feed real-time data into a
computer using "specially developed algorithms" to identify "suspicious
people." It would work (in theory) by interpreting gestures, facial
expressions and speech variations as well as measure body temperature, heart
and respiration rate, blood pressure, skin moisture, and other physiological
characteristics.
The idea would be detect deception and identify suspicious people for
aggressive interrogation, searches and even arrest. But consider what's
coming. If developed, the technology may be used anywhere by government or
the private sector for airport or other checkpoint security, buildings, job
interviews, employee screening, buying insurance or conducting any other
type essential business.
Aside from Fourth Amendment issues, here's the problem according to Bruce
Schneier, chief technology officer at security consultant BT Counterpane:
"It's a good idea fraught with difficulties....don't hold your breath" it
will work, and a better idea is to focus on detecting suspicious objects.
Schneier further compares the technology to lie detectors that rely on "fake
technology" and only work in films. They're used because people want them
although it's acknowledged, even when well-administered, their median
accuracy percentage is 50% at best.
This technology is worse, it may never be reliable, but may be deployed
anyway in the age of "terror." Something to consider next time we blink
going through airport security, and ACLU Technology and Liberty Project
director Barry Steinhardt states the concern: "We are not going to catch any
terrorists (with it), but a lot of innocent people, especially racial and
ethnic minorities, are going to be trapped in a web of suspicion." Even so,
DHS spent billions on this and other screening tools post-9/11. Expect lots
more ahead, and here's the bottom line:
As things now stand, Washington, post-9/11, suspended constitutional
protections in the name of national security and suppressed our civil
liberties for our own good. This article reviewed their newest tools and
wonders what's next. This writer called it Police State America in December
that won't change with a new White House occupant in 2009 unless organized
resistance stops it. Complacency is unthinkable, and unless we act, we'll
deserve Aleksandr Herzen's curse of another era - to be the "disease," not
the "doctors."
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Stephen Lendman
Created Jan 17 2008 - 9:50am
This article reviews two police state tools (among many in use) in America.
One is new, undiscussed and largely unknown to the public. The other was
covered in a December article by this writer called Police State America.
Here it's updated with new information.
The National Applications Office (NAO)
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established a new domestic spying
operation in 2007 called the National Applications Office (NOA) and
described it as "the executive agent to facilitate the use of intelligence
community technological assets for civil, homeland security and law
enforcement purposes within the United States." The office was to begin
operating last fall to "build on the long-standing work of the Civil
Applications Committee (CAC), which was created in 1974 to facilitate the
use of the capabilities of the intelligence community for civil, non-defense
uses in the United States."
With or without congressional authorization or oversight, the executive
branch is in charge and will let NAO use state-of-the-art technology,
including military satellite imagery, to spy on Americans without their
knowledge. Implementation is delayed, however, after Committee on Homeland
Security Chairman, Bennie Thompson, and other committee members raised
questions of "very serious privacy and civil liberties concerns." In
response, DHS agreed to delay operating (officially) until all matters are
addressed and resolved.
Given its track record post-9/11, expect little more than pro forma
posturing before Congress signs off on what Kate Martin, the director of the
Center for National Security Studies, calls "Big Brother in the Sky" and a
"police state" in the offing.
DHS supplies this background information on NAO. Post-9/11, the Director of
National Intelligence appointed an Independent Study Group (ISG) in May,
2005 to "review the current operation and future role of the (1974) Civil
Applications Committee and study the current state of Intelligence Community
support to homeland security and law enforcement entities."
In September 2005, the Committee produced a "Blue Ribbon Study," now
declassified. Its nine members were headed by and included three Booz Allen
Hamilton officials because of the company's expertise in spying and
intelligence gathering. Its other members have similar experience. They all
have a vested interest in domestic spying because the business potential is
huge for defense related industries and consultants.
ISG members included:
Keith Hall, Chairman Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton
Edward G. Anderson LTG US Army (Ret) Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton
Thomas W. Conroy Vice President National Security Programs Northrop
Grumman/TASC
Patrick M. Hughes LTG US Army (Ret) Vice President, Homeland Security L-3
Communications
Kevin O'Connell Director of Defense Group Incorporated (DGI) Center for
Intelligence Research and Analysis (CIRA)
CIRA is a think tank that calls itself "the premier open source and cultural
intelligence exploitation cell for the US intelligence community." Its
business is revolutionizing intelligence analysis.
Jeff Baxter Independent Defense Consultant with DOD and industry ties
Dr. Paul Gilman Director Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies Oak Ridge
National Laboratory US Department of Energy
Kemp Lear Associate Booz Allen Hamilton, and
Joseph D. Whitley, Esq Alston & Bird LLP, Government Investigations and
Compliance Group, former Acting Associate Attorney General in GHW Bush
administration, and former General Counsel for DHS under GW Bush
The ISG's report produced 11 significant findings and 27 recommendations
based on its conclusion that there's "an urgent need for action because
opportunities to better protect the nation are being missed." It "concluded
a new management and process model (is) needed to effectively employ IC
(Intelligence Community) capabilities for domestic uses."
In March 2006, DHS unveiled the new agency to implement ISG's
recommendations called the National Applications Office. In May, 2007,
Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Michael McConnell, named DHS as its
executive agent and functional manager. At least in principle according to
DHS, Congress agreed with this approach and to provide funding for it,
beginning in the fall of 2007.
The public knew nothing about this until a feature August 15, 2007 Wall
Street Journal story broke the news. It was headlined "US to Expand Use of
Spy Satellites." It noted that for the first time the nation's top
intelligence official (DNI's McConnell) "greatly expanded the range of
federal and local (civilian law enforcement agencies that) can get access
to" military spy satellite collected information. Until now, civilian use
was restricted to agencies like NASA and the US Geological Survey, and only
for scientific and environmental study.
The Journal explained that key objectives under new guidelines will be:
-- border security,
-- securing critical infrastructure and helping emergency responders after
natural disasters,
-- working with criminal and civil federal, state, and local law enforcement
agencies, and
-- unmentioned by the Journal, the ability to spy on anyone, anywhere,
anytime domestically for any reason - an unprecedented act using
state-of-the-art technology enabling real-time, high-resolution images and
data from space.
NAO will also oversee classified information from the National Security
Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and other US
agencies involved in dealing with all aspects of national security,
including "terrorism."
NSA was established in 1952, is super-secret, and for many years was never
revealed to exist. Today, its capabilities are awesome and worrisome. It
eavesdrops globally, mines a vast amount of data, and does it through a
network of spy satellites, listening posts, and surveillance planes to
monitor virtually all electronic communications from landline and cell
phones, telegrams, emails, faxes, radio and television, data bases of all
kinds and the internet.
NGA is new and began operating in 2003. It lets military and intelligence
analysts monitor virtually anything or anyone from state-of-the-art spy
satellites. Both NSA and NGA coordinate jointly with the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) that designs, builds and operates military spy
satellites. It also analyzes military and CIA-collected aircraft and
satellite reconnaissance information.
Combined with warrantless wiretapping, pervasive spying of all kinds, the
abandonment of the law and checks and balances, intense secrecy, and an
array of repressive post-9/11 legislation, Executive Orders and National
Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directives, NAO is another
national security police state tool any despot would love. It's now
established and may be operating without congressional approval.
Using spy satellites domestically "is largely uncharted territory," as the
Wall Street Journal noted. Even its architects admit there's no clarity on
this, and the ISG's report stated "There is little if any policy, guidance
or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and dissemination of
domestic MASINT (Measurement and Signatures Intelligence)."
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is the main DOD spy agency. It manages
MASINT that's ultra-secret and sophisticated. It uses state-of-the-art
radar, lasers, infrared sensors, electromagnetic data and other technologies
that can detect chemicals, electro-magnetic activity, whether a nuclear
power plant produces plutonium, and the type vehicle from its exhaust. It
can also see under bridges, through clouds, forest canopies and even
concrete to create images and collect data. In addition, it can detect
people, activity and weapons that satellites and photo-reconnaissance
aircraft miss, so it's an invaluable spy tool but highly intrusive and up to
now only for military and foreign intelligence work.
Further, military spy satellites are state-of-the-art and superior to
civilian ones. They record in color as well as black and white, use
different parts of the light spectrum to track human activities and ground
movements and can detect chemical weapons traces and people-generated heat
in buildings.
This much we know about them. Their full potential is top secret and
available only to the military and intelligence community. The Journal
quoted an alarmed Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Project
on Freedom, Security and Technology, that advocates for digital age privacy
rights saying: "Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating
intrusive and omnipresent, it's also invisible. And that's what makes this
so dangerous."
Anyone for any reason may be watched at all times (through walls) with no
way to know it, but a June 2001 (before 9/11) Supreme Court decision offers
hope. In Kyllo v. United States, the Court ruled for petitioner 5 to 4 (with
Scalia and Thomas in the majority). It voided a conviction based on police
use of thermal imaging to detect heat in his triplex to determine if an
illegal drug was being grown, in this case marijuana.
The Court held: "Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in
general public use, to explore details of a private home that would
previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance
is a Fourth Amendment 'search," and is presumptively unreasonable without a
warrant....To withdraw protection of this minimum expectation would be to
permit police technology to erode the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth
Amendment" protecting against "unreasonable searches and seizures."
In 1981, Ronald Reagan seemed to agree in Executive Order 12333 on United
States Intelligence Activities. It bars the intelligence community from most
forms of home eavesdropping while providing wide latitude to all government
agencies to "provide the President and the National Security Council with
the necessary information (needed to) conduct....foreign, defense and
economic policy (and protect US) national interests from foreign security
threats. (Collecting this information is to be done, however,) consistent
with the Constitution and applicable law...."
That was then, and this is now. It's hard imagining congressional concern or
DHS meaning that NAO will "prioritize the protection of privacy and civil
liberties" and citing the Reagan Executive Order and the 1974 Privacy Act.
That law mandates that no government agency "shall disclose any record (or)
system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another
agency, except pursuant to a written request, or with the prior written
consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains." The Privacy act
requires the US government to maintain an administrative and physical
security system to prevent the unauthorized release of personal records.
Post-9/11, the Patriot Act ended that protection, so DHS is shameless saying
NAO must comply with civil liberties and privacy laws and be subject to
"oversight by the DHS Inspector General, Chief Privacy Officer, and the
Officer for Civil Rights and Liberties" plus additional oversight. No longer
post-9/11 when the national security state got repressive new tools to erode
the constitution, ignore democratic principles, and give the President
unrestricted powers in the name of national security. NAO is the latest one
watching us as our "Big Brother in the Sky." Orwell would be proud.
Real ID Act Update - Another Intrusive Police State Tool
The Read ID Act of 2005 required states to meet federal ID standards by May,
2008. That's now changed because 29 states passed or introduced laws that
refuse to comply. They call the Act costly to administer, a bureaucratic
nightmare, and New Hampshire said it's "repugnant" and violates the state
and US Constitutions.
The federal law mandates that every US citizen and legal resident have a
national ID card that in most cases is a driver's license meeting federal
standards. It requires it to contain an individual's personal information
and makes one mandatory to open a bank account, board an airplane, be able
to vote, get a job, enter a federal building, or conduct virtually all
essential business requiring identification.
States balked, and that doomed the original version. On January 11, changes
were unveiled when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued binding
new rules. Under them, states have until 2011 to comply (instead of 2008),
until 2014 to issue "tamper-proof licenses" to drivers born after 1964, and
until 2017 for those born before this date. DHS said the original law would
cost states $14 billion. The new regulations with an extended phase-in cuts
the amount to around $3.9 billion or $8 per license.
These numbers may be bogus, however, the true costs may be far higher, and
that's why the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) is
lobbying for Real ID's passage. Its members include high-tech card makers
like Digimarc and Northrup Grumman and data brokers like Choicepoint and
LexisNexis that profit by selling personal information to advertisers and
the government.
Under new DHS rules, licenses must include a digital photo taken at the
beginning of the application process and a filament or other security device
to prevent counterfeiting. They must also have three layers of security that
states can select from a DHS menu. In addition, states must begin checking
license applicants' Social Security and immigration status over the next
year.
As of now, a controversial radio frequency identification (RFID) technology
microchip isn't required. It may come later, however, and here's the
problem. It'll let cardholder movements and activities be tracked
everywhere, at all times - in other words, a police state dream along with
other pervasive spying tools.
Even worse would be mandating human RFID chip implants. It's not planned so
far (but not ruled out), and three states (California, Wisconsin and North
Dakota) preemptively banned the practice without recipients' consent.
Think it can't happen? Consider a January 13 article in the London
Independent headlined "Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs.' " The article
states that civil rights groups and probation officers are furious that
"hi-tech 'satellite'.... machine-readable (microchip) tagging (is) planned
(for thousands of offenders) to create more space in jails." Unlike ankle
bracelets now sometimes used, tiny RFID chips would be surgically implanted
for monitoring the way they're currently used for dogs, cats, cattle and
luggage. They're more reliable, it's believed, as current devices can be
tampered with or removed.
Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), was
quoted saying: "We have looked at....the practicalities and the ethics (and
we concluded) its time has come." The UK currently has the largest prison
population per capita in western Europe. It sounds like authorities plan to
expand it using fewer cells. It also sounds like a scheme to tag everyone
after testing them first on prisoners. And consider the possibilities. RFID
technology is advancing, and one company plans deeper implants that can
vibrate, emit electroshocks, broadcast a message to the implantee, and/or be
a hidden microphone to transmit conversations. It's not science fiction, and
what's planned for the UK will likely come to America. In fact, it's already
here.
In 2004, the FDA approved a grain-of-rice sized, antenna-containing VeriChip
for human implantation that allows vital information to be read when a
person's body is scanned. The company states on its web site that it's "the
world's first and only patented, FDA-cleared, human-implantable RFID
microchip....with skin-sensing capabilities." Reportedly, about 2000 test
subjects now have them, but it may signal mandatory implantation ahead.
Consider for whom for starters - prisoners, military personnel and possibly
anyone seeking employment. After them, maybe everyone in a brave new global
surveillance world.
It gets worse. Katherine Albrecht authored a report called "Microchip-Cancer
Report - Microchip-Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review
of the Literature 1990-2006." After reading it, Dr. Robert Benezra, Director
Cancer Biology, Genetics Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
said: "There's no way in the world, having read this information, that I
would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family
members. Given the preliminary animal data, it looks to me that there's
definitely cause for concern."
Albrecht's report evaluated 11 previously published toxicology and pathology
studies. In six of them, up to 10.2% of rats and mice developed malignant
tumors (typically sarcomas) where microchips were implanted. Two others
reported the same findings for dogs. These tumors spread fast and "often led
to the death of the afflicted animals. In many cases, the tumors
metastasized and spread to other parts of the animals. The implants were
unequivocally identified as the cause of the cancers."
Report reviews, conclusions and recommendations were to immediately stop
further human implantations, inform people with them of the dangers, offer a
microchip removal procedure, and reverse all animal microchipping mandates.
Debate Ahead on New DHS ID Rules
DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said new ID rules require states to verify
each cardholder's personal information (including a person's legal status in
the country) by matching it against federal Social Security and passport
databases and/or comparable state ones.
States have time to adjust, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy
wasted no time saying he'll recommend legislation to ban Real ID drivers'
license provisions because "so many Americans oppose" them. They're
intrusive, burdensome, and federal databases are full of false or
out-of-date information that's hard to disprove, but unless it is Americans
will be denied their legal right to a driver's license.
The ACLU also strongly opposes Real ID because it violates privacy, lets
government agencies share data, and its "tortured remains" represent an
"utterly unworkable" system that will "irreparably damage the fabric of
American life." An ACLU January 11 press release further states that DHS
"dumped the problems of the statute on future presidents like a rotting
corpse left on (its) steps (and) whoever is president in 2018." Congress
must "recognize the situation and take action." The Real ID Act and new DHS
rules must be "repealed and replaced with a clean, simple, and vigorous new
driver's license security law that does not create a national ID" or violate
Americans' privacy.
Futuristic Hi-Tech Profiling
On January 14, Computerworld online revealed more cause for concern in an
article called "Big Brother Really is Watching." It's about DHS "bankrolling
futuristic profiling technology...." for its Project Hostile Intent. It, in
turn, is part of a broader initiative called the Future Attribute Screening
Technologies Mobile Module. It's to be a self-contained, automated screening
system that's portable and easy to implement, and DHS hopes to test it at
airports in 2010 and deploy it (if it works) by 2012 at airports, border
checkpoints, other points of entry and other security-related areas.
Here's the problem. If developed (reliable or not), these devices will use
video, audio, laser and infrared sensors to feed real-time data into a
computer using "specially developed algorithms" to identify "suspicious
people." It would work (in theory) by interpreting gestures, facial
expressions and speech variations as well as measure body temperature, heart
and respiration rate, blood pressure, skin moisture, and other physiological
characteristics.
The idea would be detect deception and identify suspicious people for
aggressive interrogation, searches and even arrest. But consider what's
coming. If developed, the technology may be used anywhere by government or
the private sector for airport or other checkpoint security, buildings, job
interviews, employee screening, buying insurance or conducting any other
type essential business.
Aside from Fourth Amendment issues, here's the problem according to Bruce
Schneier, chief technology officer at security consultant BT Counterpane:
"It's a good idea fraught with difficulties....don't hold your breath" it
will work, and a better idea is to focus on detecting suspicious objects.
Schneier further compares the technology to lie detectors that rely on "fake
technology" and only work in films. They're used because people want them
although it's acknowledged, even when well-administered, their median
accuracy percentage is 50% at best.
This technology is worse, it may never be reliable, but may be deployed
anyway in the age of "terror." Something to consider next time we blink
going through airport security, and ACLU Technology and Liberty Project
director Barry Steinhardt states the concern: "We are not going to catch any
terrorists (with it), but a lot of innocent people, especially racial and
ethnic minorities, are going to be trapped in a web of suspicion." Even so,
DHS spent billions on this and other screening tools post-9/11. Expect lots
more ahead, and here's the bottom line:
As things now stand, Washington, post-9/11, suspended constitutional
protections in the name of national security and suppressed our civil
liberties for our own good. This article reviewed their newest tools and
wonders what's next. This writer called it Police State America in December
that won't change with a new White House occupant in 2009 unless organized
resistance stops it. Complacency is unthinkable, and unless we act, we'll
deserve Aleksandr Herzen's curse of another era - to be the "disease," not
the "doctors."
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson