新的国内卫星监视系统
计划为国土安全的部门发射一个新的卫星监视系统的在国会山庄受到新批判。 上星期，秘书迈克尔Chertoff说卫星监视系统很快准备去。 但现在 华尔街日报 除非部门做更多表达保密性关心，报告民主人士威胁关闭节目。 卫星节目被设计提供联邦，政府和地方官员以对间谍卫星成像的广泛的通入对协助紧急响应和其他国内安全需要。 但评论家言布什政府未创造法律保障保证节目不会为国内暗中侦察使用。 - 现在民主
保密性恐惧威胁卫星节目
民主人士袭击 监视系统; 问题与宪章
女士 Keehner said the office hadn’t been launched, but that DHS “continues to take preparatory steps so that we can stand up to the NAO once the congressional requirements have been met.”
The clash is the latest in a series of conflicts between Democrats on Capitol Hill and the administration over privacy issues stemming from intelligence and national-security programs.
As recently as last week, Mr. Chertoff said the program would soon be ready to go. “We’ve fully addressed anybody’s concerns,” he said. The department has already begun to post job openings; one of the first people they are seeking to hire for the satellite program is a lawyer.
The plan ran into resistance on Capitol Hill shortly after it was announced in August, as lawmakers asked for a legal framework and details of how the program would operate to ensure Americans’ privacy. Homeland officials promised not to begin the program until they answered lawmakers’ concerns.
For months, the department worked on a document it called the new program’s charter. That document got hung up within the administration last winter because agencies, including the Director of National Intelligence, expressed concerns that it did not untangle legal issues such as how to ensure that state and local privacy guidelines were followed. Plans to provide imagery from the satellite program to state and local law-enforcement officials have been put on hold until legal and privacy issues are resolved. (See the charter.)
The charter creates a working group to handle policy and legal issues and lists which privacy-related laws will govern the work of the new spy satellite office. It also clarifies that the satellites won’t be used to intercept communications.
Democratic lawmakers said the charter doesn’t address the requirements they have written into law. Congress said it wouldn’t provide money in 2008 for the program until the department certified that it adhered to privacy laws and the Government Accountability Office reviewed it. Homeland Security hasn’t yet sent GAO a certification for review.
Rep. Thompson, along with Democratic Reps. Jane Harman of California and Christopher P. Carney of Pennsylvania, wrote to Mr. Chertoff to ask he stop further work until he addresses their concerns. “We are disappointed by [the department’s] continuing pattern of putting the cart before the horse,” they wrote.
Rep. Thompson said he wants to see, in writing, how existing laws will be applied to safeguard civil liberties and privacy. The charter describes at what points in the process lawyers will evaluate the legality of a request for data from the office, but it doesn’t explain how they will make their determinations.
Rep. Harold Rogers of Kentucky, the top Republican on the subcommittee that doles out the Homeland Security department’s money, called the spy satellite program “an important tool for domestic counterterrorism operations” and said he will work to ensure the department will meet congressional requirements.
Homeland Security’s inspector general concluded in a report released last week that the department needs to revise its assessment of the new office’s impact on privacy and civil liberties before launching the spy-satellite program. The department said it has done that.
See More:Big Brother Technology USA NewsHave Your Say: New Domestic Satellite Surveillance System
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 5:14 am and is filed under Science & Technology News, Surveillance, Civil Liberties & Human Rights News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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