From The Soviets To You

The Bush administration is redirecting anti-Soviet satellites to spy on Americans. All for the sake of security, of course. The Baltimore Sun notices:

Spy satellites have served benign civilian purposes for decades, including mapmaking, conducting environmental studies and assessing damage after natural disasters. The administration has decided to broadly expand satellite use, however, to include not only security functions but to assist federal, state, local and tribal authorities in the enforcement of criminal and civil laws.

Effectively, there is no limit on the use of this high-tech equipment, which includes visual and nonvisual capabilities that can sense electromagnetic activity, radioactivity and chemical traces.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Congress has signed off on this expanded use of spy satellites and provided funding for it to begin this fall. An aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed the committee was aware of the program and was monitoring it. Yet, there appears to have been no plan to make it public until The Wall Street Journal broke the story last week.

I've learned these past few years that just because some people are paranoid doesn't mean the Bush administration isn't capable of almost anything.