Jeffrey T. Richelson (ed.)
August 24, 2015
Washington, D.C., August 24, 2015. - “FBI spy plane zeroes in on Dearborn
area” was the headline in The Detroit News on August 5, 2015. The story,
which broke the news that the FBI had conducted at least seven surveillance
flights recently over downtown Detroit, also raised a broader issue. It
illustrated the fact that along with the controversy concerning electronic
surveillance activities focused on telephone and e-mail records of United
States citizens there exists a corresponding source of controversy - the use
of satellites and assorted aircraft (manned and unmanned) to collect imagery
and conduct aerial surveillance of civilian targets within the United
States.
Today, the National Security Archive posts over forty documents, many
appearing online for the first time, related to the domestic use of
overhead imagery and the controversy it has generated. Among those documents
are:
- Annual activity reports of the Civil Applications Committee, created in
1975 to provide a forum for interaction between the Intelligence Community
and civil agencies wanting information from “national systems” (Document 2,
Document 4, Document 6, Document 13, Document 16).
- Articles from a classified National Reconnaissance Office magazine
discussing the use of NRO imagery spacecraft to aid in disaster relief
(Document 9, Document 10, Document 23).
- Articles from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Pathfinder
magazine, which describe how the NGA uses overhead imagery to provide data
to assorted agencies with responsibilities in security operations and
planning for National Special Security Events (Document 12, Documents 20a,
20b, 20c, Document 26).
- Examples of imagery, obtained by the KH-9 spy camera, of two targets in
New York - the World Trade Center and Shea Stadium (Document 29).
- Detailed NGA, NORTHCOM, and Air Combat Command internal regulations
governing the collection, dissemination and use of domestic imagery
(Document 17, Document 19, Document 34).
- A description and assessments of the Customs and Border Protection
service’s use of drones (Document 24, Document 30, Document 35, Document
37).
Check out today’s posting at the National Security Archive -
No comments:
Post a Comment