Some time next year, the DHS is going to determine how their spy satellites will be able to help federal and local law enforcement agencies in cases of criminal and civil law.

Until now, only a handful of federal civilian agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey, have had access to the most basic spy-satellite imagery, and only for the purpose of scientific and environmental study.

The decision was made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, who plans on using the information first on enhancing border security, then analyzing that data for other uses.

Access to the high-tech surveillance tools would, for the first time, allow Homeland Security and law-enforcement officials to see real-time, high-resolution images and data, which would allow them, for example, to identify smuggler staging areas, a gang safehouse, or possibly even a building being used by would-be terrorists to manufacture chemical weapons.

Access to the satellite surveillance will be controlled by a new Homeland Security branch — the National Applications Office — which will be up and running in October. Homeland Security officials say the new office will build on the efforts of its predecessor, the Civil Applications Committee. Under the direction of the Geological Survey, the Civil Applications Committee vets requests from civilian agencies wanting spy data for environmental or scientific study. The Geological Survey has been one of the biggest domestic users of spy-satellite information, to make topographic maps.

Of concern is the legalities of giving access to the satellite data to civil agencies and whether or not it would violate the Posse Comitatus Act.

Even the architects of the current move are unclear about the legal boundaries. A 2005 study commissioned by the U.S. intelligence community, which recommended granting access to the spy satellites for Homeland Security, noted: “There is little if any policy, guidance or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and dissemination of domestic MASINT.” …..According to defense experts, MASINT uses radar, lasers, infrared, electromagnetic data and other technologies to see through cloud cover, forest canopies and even concrete to create images or gather data.

“You are talking about enormous power,” said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group advocating privacy rights in the digital age. “Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating intrusive and omnipresent, it’s also invisible. And that’s what makes this so dangerous.”

If you don’t want abuses of this system, then you need to make it transparent and available, at will, to American citizens.  In reality, local law enforcement agencies would not be able to sift through the mountains of data collected from the satellites.  However, many geeks in the world would set up websites tracking illegal border crossings and checking up on the government to see how well they respond to natural disasters.

Using the data for tracking people coming in and out of the country via the borders is a good idea.  I’m not sold on using it for tracking Jimbo growing pot in his back field.  Use a helicopter for that.  It’s already legal without a warrant.  We also don’t have a great track record with the Department of Homeland Security actually addressing privacy issues.

Oversight of the department’s use of the overhead imagery data would come from officials in the Department of Homeland Security and from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and would consist of reviews by agency inspectors general, lawyers and privacy officers. “We can give total assurance” that Americans’ civil liberties will be protected, Allen said. “Americans shouldn’t have any concerns about it.”

But civil liberties groups quickly condemned the move, which Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a nonprofit activist group, likened to “Big Brother in the sky.” “They want to turn these enormous spy capabilities, built to be used against overseas enemies, onto Americans,” Martin said. “They are laying the bricks one at a time for a police state.”

Forget about laying the bricks for a police state, they’re more than halfway finished.  Fight it now before it’s too late.