Congressman Al Green Defends Citizens' Rights to Privacy from Spy Satellites

(Washington, DC)--Today, Congressman Al Green (TX-09) participated in a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing entitled “Turning Spy Satellites on the Homeland:  the Privacy and Civil Liberties Implications of the National Applications Office.” Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Bennie Thompson (MS-02) held this hearing in response to media information that was released, last week, about a new Department of Homeland Security plan to be implemented next month.  On August 22, 2007, Chairman Thompson sent a letter to Secretary Chertoff, noting that neither he nor Committee staff had been briefed about the NAO and expressing displeasure over the Department’s failures to include the Chief Privacy Officer and the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the NAO’s development until very recently; and to vet the NAO program with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

Beginning in October, the Department of Homeland Security will open a new office called the National Applications Office (NAO) that will be the conduit for all requests for domestic use of spy satellite information – including information destined for emergency response, border control and, eventually, law enforcement agencies.  Previously, 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 nation’s most basic spy-satellite imagery for the purpose of scientific and environmental study.  The Department’s new NAO will provide domestic customers with unprecedented access to high-resolution, real-time satellite photos for homeland/national security purposes.  Unlike electronic eavesdropping, which is subject to legislative and some judicial control, this use of spy satellites is largely uncharted territory.

“This country was founded, in part, because of the unfettered access that the King’s men had to our property and to our papers.  It was that unfettered access that caused people to venture across the ocean and establish a system that would give them the kind of privacy that we still enjoy today,” Congressman Al Green said.  “If we allow unfettered access by way of satellite imagery, we really do not know where it will end.  We must ask ourselves ‘do we have the kind of checks and balances that the constitution envisions, not the kind that the Executive Branch envisions?’

“We just found out that under the auspices of the Executive Branch and in the name of national security, the FBI was able to perform unconstitutional surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow, Coretta Scott King, for a time after his death,” continued Congressman Green. The Constitution envisions the Judiciary as being a part of something as invasive as what we can do with these satellites.”