Big Brother is Tracking You

[Dave Monroe]

The New York Times
Sunday, May 18, 2003
Big Brother Is Tracking You. Without a Warrant.
By JAMES BAMFORD

The sky was nearly cloudless on Aug. 19, 1960, when
Capt. Harold E. Mitchell took off from Hawaii in his
stubby C-119 Flying Boxcar. A short time later, in the
blackness of space, an orbiting satellite ejected a
small film capsule that tumbled earthward protected by
a heat shield. When it reached the lower atmosphere, a
parachute deployed, and it began a slow descent over
the South Pacific. Then, like an outfielder catching a
pop fly, Captain Mitchell snagged the falling object —
on his third try — in a trapeze-like contraption on
the nose of his plane. 

In that instant, satellite espionage was born. Inside
the capsule were thousands of images of Soviet
territory never before seen by American intelligence.

Forty-three years later, satellite imagery similar to
that collected by the Central Intelligence Agency is
available to anyone with a credit card. From detailed
shots of India's nuclear sites, to high-resolution
pictures of a neighbor's backyard, reconnaissance
satellite images have become as easy to obtain as a
novel from Amazon.com. In fact, much of them are free
for the taking from the Internet.

Last week, in an effort to increase satellite
intelligence coverage of high-priority targets,
President Bush ordered spy agencies to begin buying as
much imagery as possible from private companies. The
reason was quality and quantity. The close-up
resolution of today's commercial imaging satellites is
comparable to that of the spy world, and their numbers
are constantly growing. 

But the high quality and wide availability of such
imagery is also raising questions. For more than four
decades, American intelligence has aimed its cameras
almost exclusively on foreign targets. But now the
lenses are also being trained on American citizens. 

Minutes after someone began shooting passengers at Los
Angeles International Airport last July Fourth, for
example, law enforcement agencies began receiving
close-up images of the airport and the exact
coordinates where the attack took place. The pictures
came from the federal National Imagery and Mapping
Agency, which is responsible for analyzing spy
satellite images. Its imagery was also used at the
Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City to assist the Secret
Service and F.B.I. in security. 

But as cameras take ever-closer aim at domestic
targets, the legal, political and ethical issues
remain unresolved. "Our whole posture as to how we
respond to this is still a work in progress," said
James Clapper, director of the mapping agency, in an
interview last year with Signal Magazine. 

In the meantime, satellite imagery abilities are
growing exponentially. In addition to the expanded use
of commercial satellites, which can be used for both
foreign and domestic surveillance, plans are under way
to increase the number of spy satellites. Under a
program known as Future Imagery Architecture, the
intelligence agencies plan to launch nearly a dozen
imagery satellites to replace the four or five
currently in orbit. Although smaller than their
predecessors, these models, because of their increased
numbers, will allow more continuous coverage of
targets. 

Given enough commercial and spy satellites,
supplemented by aircraft and a ground system to marry
it all together, the intelligence community might one
day achieve the ultimate in coverage: constant,
real-time surveillance of the planet. 

But even without such coverage, imaging and other
satellite technologies are already colliding with
privacy concerns. Consider the constellation of
global-positioning satellites that provide precise
tracking information to hand-held receivers. Many
people use them to pinpoint their locations while
driving, boating or hiking. The president of Colombia,
Álvaro Uribe, keeps one on him at all times in case he
is kidnapped or is the target of an assassination
attempt. 

But the sheriff of Spokane County, Washington, found
another use for a G.P.S. receiver. Hoping to discover
where a suspected murderer hid his victim, one of his
deputies planted a satellite tracking device on the
suspect's car. The suspect unwittingly led the sheriff
directly to the victim's grave.

Allowing the police to plant such devices on suspects
without a warrant troubles many. "Do we really want
the ability to track everybody all the time, without
any suspicion, or without probable cause?" asked a
lawyer, Doug Klunder, in The Seattle
Post-Intelligencer last week. "How close are we to Big
Brother?" On Tuesday, the Washington Supreme Court
will hear arguments on whether a warrant should be
required to secretly track a person's movements using
a G.P.S. device. 

Legal testing of this kind will almost certainly
continue. As surely and steadily as satellite
technology has migrated from the military to the
marketplace, so too will its uses be challenged in
court.

Two years ago, the police use of thermal imaging — a
similarly intrusive technology — came before the
United States Supreme Court. The technology detects
patterns of heat coming from inside buildings. Under
the right conditions, a highly sophisticated device
may "see" the heat signatures of the people in a house
and track their movements. 

The police occasionally use the technology to locate
marijuana inside by spotting the heat from the
high-intensity lamps used to grow it. The Supreme
Court decided that a warrant was required.

To take any other position, Justice Antonin Scalia
said, "would leave the homeowner at the mercy of
advancing technology — including imaging technology
that could discern all human activity in the home." 

In the home, Justice Scalia added, "all details are
intimate details, because the entire area is held safe
from prying government eyes."

James Bamford is the author of "Body of Secrets:
Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency"
(Anchor, 2002).

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/weekinreview/18BAMF.html

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com