Concerns with DHS Domestic Spy Platform Remain for Homeland Security Committee Leaders
Monday, April 07, 2008
(WASHINGTON) – Today, Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment Chair Jane Harman (D-CA), and Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight Chairman Chris P. Carney (D-PA) sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff detailing their concerns over the progress of the Department’s National Applications Office (NAO).
The letter details the Members’ dissatisfaction with the lack of not only a legal framework and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the NAO but also adequate assurances from the Department that the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties issues involved with turning spy satellites on the homeland have been comprehensively resolved. In September 2007, Chairman Thompson, Chair Harman, and Chairman Carney requested that the NAO be put on hold until their concerns had been addressed. Now, over seven months later – and despite a commitment from the Department that the overdue documents would be provided in due course – many of the same concerns have yet to be satisfactorily addressed. DHS nevertheless plans to operationalize the NAO in the very near future.
The NAO is a planned element within the Department of Homeland Security first publicized in August 2007. The office is described as the government’s gatekeeper for all requests to access spy satellite imagery for domestic purposes, including homeland security, law enforcement, intelligence, and geospatial. See link below for a PDF version of the letter
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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Please contact Dena Graziano or Adam Comis at (202) 225-9978
