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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/lendman01172008.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/lendman01172008.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>January 17,
2008<br><br>
<br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><b>Total
Surveillance<br><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Institutionalized Spying on
Americans</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><b>By
STEPHEN LENDMAN<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">T</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>his 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.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">The National
Applications Office (NAO) <br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>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."<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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." <br><br>
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. <br><br>
ISG members included:<br><br></font>
<dl>
<dd><font size=3>Keith Hall, Chairman
<dd>Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton<br>
<dd>Edward G. Anderson
<dd>LTG US Army (Ret)
<dd>Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton<br>
<dd>Thomas W. Conroy
<dd>Vice President
<dd>National Security Programs
<dd>Northrop Grumman/TASC<br>
<dd>Patrick M. Hughes
<dd>LTG US Army (Ret)
<dd>Vice President, Homeland Security
<dd>L-3 Communications<br>
<dd>Kevin O'Connell
<dd>Director of Defense Group Incorporated (DGI)
<dd>Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis (CIRA)<br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>Jeff Baxter
<dd>Independent Defense Consultant with DOD and industry
<dd>ties<br>
<dd>Dr. Paul Gilman
<dd>Director
<dd>Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies
<dd>Oak Ridge National Laboratory
<dd>US Department of Energy<br>
<dd>Kemp Lear
<dd>Associate
<dd>Booz Allen Hamilton, and<br>
<dd>Joseph D. Whitley, Esq
<dd>Alston & Bird LLP, Government Investigations and
<dd>Compliance Group, former Acting Associate Attorney
<dd>General in GHW Bush administration, and former General
<dd>Counsel for DHS under GW Bush<br><br>
</dl>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."<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
The Journal explained that key objectives under new guidelines will
be:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>-- border security, <br>
<dd>-- securing critical infrastructure and helping emergency responders
after natural disasters, <br>
<dd>-- working with criminal and civil federal, state, and local law
enforcement agencies, and <br>
<dd>-- 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. <br><br>
</dl>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."<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.
<br><br>
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)." <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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." <br><br>
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.
<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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...."<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Real ID Act Update -
Another Intrusive Police State Tool<br><br>
</font><font size=3>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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."
<br><br>
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.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Debate Ahead on New
DHS ID Rules<br><br>
</font><font size=3>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Futuristic Hi-Tech
Profiling<br><br>
</font><font size=3>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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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:<br><br>
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."<br><br>
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
<a href="mailto:lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.">
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. </a><br><br>
<br><br>
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