Critics say mysterious new U.S. spy program endangers national security

[seemslikeadream]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Congress' new blueprint for intelligence spending includes a mysterious and expensive spy program that drew extraordinary criticism from leading Democrats, with one saying the highly classified project is a threat to national security.

In an unusual rebuke, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, complained Wednesday the spy project is "totally unjustified and very, very wasteful and dangerous to the national security." He called the program "stunningly expensive."

Rockefeller and three other Democratic senators - Richard Durbin of Illinois, Carl Levin of Michigan and Ron Wyden of Oregon - refused to sign the congressional compromise negotiated by others in the House of Representatives and Senate that provides for future U.S. intelligence activities.

The compromise noted the four senators believe the mystery program is unnecessary and its cost unjustified and "they believe that the funds for this item should be expended on other intelligence programs that will make a surer and greater contribution to national security."

Each senator - and more than two-dozen current and former U.S. officials - declined to further describe or identify the disputed program, citing its classified nature. Thirteen other senators on the intelligence committee and all their counterparts in the House approved the compromise.

more
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2004/12/08/773931-ap.html

Lawmaker: Spy Project Threatens Security

...

Sending even defensive satellite weapons into orbit could start an arms race in space, warned John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, who has studied anti-satellite weapons for more than three decades. Pike said other countries would inevitably demand proof that any weapons were only defensive.

"It would present just absolutely insurmountable verification problems because we are not going to let anybody look at our spy satellites," Pike said. "It is just not going to happen."

Rockefeller's description of the spy project as a "major funding acquisition program" suggests a price tag in the range of billions of dollars, intelligence experts said. But even expensive imagery or eavesdropping satellites - so long as they're unarmed - are rarely criticized as a danger to U.S. security, they noted.

"From the price, it's almost certainly a satellite program," said James Bamford, author of two books about the National Security Agency. "In the intelligence community, it's so hard to get a handle on what's going on, particularly with the satellite programs."

Another expert agreed. "It's hard to think of most any satellite program, at least the standard ones, as dangerous to national security," said Jeffrey T. Richelson, who wrote a highly regarded book about CIA technology in 2001.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/27-12082004-413828.html

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. Waste money? The GOP? No way. That is good money going

to Amerikkkan workers.

Whooops.

What do you mean there ain't no Amerikan workers any more? Where did they go?

[intheflow]

2. Except the outsourced parts. n/t

[genieroze]

20. They have to move to India. eom

[Supersedeas]

3. Mystery Billions at the behest of the Executive...spending your dollars

where are the fiscal conservatives???

[wordout]

4. does it causes fire to fall from heaven in full view of men?

like, george pushes a button,a laser zeroes in on someones national RFID card and BzAAAPP!

i bet these guys are afraid of hackers accessing whatever system and using the technology against the imperialists, hence, the "national security" concerns

[Stinky The Clown]

5. It is a hush-hush rush-rush program ... must be done by mid January

It is a special satellite with a beamer thingie that will allow Chimpus Khan to appear to levitate off the Capitol steps during his coronation. Rove thinks that if they can pull off this stunt the landing on the carrier will fade from memory and King Khan will ascend by acclamation to the rank of High Supreme Deity on Earth For Life.

Its a must-do program.

Why did these four damned Dems vote against it? Have they no shame?

[alfredo]

16. No, he will descend from the clouds on a beam of light.

His armor gleaming like God's own knight.

[NYC]

6. Who profits?

Whose pockets are being lined?

That's what justifies the expenditure.

[bobthedrummer]

7. Amnesty International issued a report about women "bearing the brunt of

war" which was summarized by the BBC. This female victimization is influenced by our US War President aka George W. Bush imo.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/4077581.stm

[seemslikeadream]

8. ‘Space Pearl Harbor’

The rare criticisms of a highly secretive project in such a public forum intrigued outside intelligence experts, who said the program was almost certainly a spy satellite system, perhaps with technology to destroy potential attackers. They cited tantalizing hints in Rockefeller’s remarks, such as the program’s enormous expense and its alleged danger to national security.

A U.S. panel in 2001 described American defense and spy satellites as frighteningly vulnerable, saying technology to launch attacks in space was widely available internationally. The study, by a commission whose members included Donald H. Rumsfeld before his appointment as defense secretary for President Bush, concluded that the United States was “an attractive candidate for a Space Pearl Harbor.”

Sending even defensive satellite weapons into orbit could start an arms race in space, warned John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, who has studied anti-satellite weapons for more than three decades. Pike said other countries would inevitably demand proof that any weapons were only defensive.

more
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6682352/

[Bhaisahab]

9. Are they referrng to PROMIS... I wonder...

[DeepModem Mom]

10. kick

[Jose Diablo]

11. Well, I am ready for them

With my Reynolds Aluminum tinfoil hat.

They can do their worst, and my foil lined baseball cap will reflect and otherwise stop all the microwaves.

As for the satellites, should I concentrate on something to render the infrared detectors useless? Wouldn't a bright laser focused through suitable optics aimed at the satellites be interesting. I wonder if it could burn-out the CCD sensors in the satellite, thus 'blinding' the satellite?

[DeepModem Mom]

12. kick

[mmonk]

13. Don't you just love secrecy?

Us peasants, the people, who were supposed to be the government are by no mistake, now RULED. The constitution and the Bill of Rights are DEAD. Why do I stay here?

[Rose Siding]

14. The LAT is carrying this too

Key Democrat Calls Spy Bill's Mystery Program a National Security Threat

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-mystery9dec09,0,5588220.story?coll=la-news-a_section

[seemslikeadream]

15. Chinese Threat to American Leadership in Space

“Deny Space to others”: the last chance to stop China

...

As the situation currently stands, it is clear that the expression “to assure our continued access to space and deny the space to others if necessary” - recurrent, with little variations, in the US military plans - is specifically directed towards China. The Pentagon believes that China has the same intention towards the ousting the United States from Space, and considers its polemic declarations about the “rumoured” US plans of space weaponization - expressed in front of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space - as the weapon to diplomatically damage and slow down the action of the USA, while actively working in secret towards the same objective. According to Larry Wortzel, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, the introduction by the Chinese of a draft treaty devised to act against the US's intent to develop space weapons is misleading (“…because they’re developing their own space-based weapons...”), having no other purpose than to diplomatically damage the USA and thus delay their Theater Missile Defense plan, while China continues with its own plans. According to Richard Fisher of The Jamestown Foundation, the People's Liberation Army is aware that the “control of space” concept - as theorized by the US military - is an objective that China must achieve: “China needs to be able to deny to the United States access and use of space, as they themselves exploit space to support their own forces”.

Several factors, therefore, let one foresee that the impact of the Space challenge between the USA and China will exceed previous expectations about the strategical-military use of Space (spy satellites) and the race to install weapons, both offensively and defensively (concepts that are difficult to distinguish from each other, particularly in regard to the US military ultimate objective to “deny Space to others, if necessary”, suggesting that the offensive dimension will prevail against the defensive one).

While we may not know much about the character of Chinese space policy (with the exception of the declarations of condemnation of any space weaponization plan -but the real intentions of China can be deduced from its will to expel the USA from its own area of infuence), we do know more about China's progress in Space. Meanwhile, it can be asserted definitively that the US is determined to maintain by all means possible (including denying the rest of the world access to Space) their own space leadership, the key to the “Full Spectrum Dominance” and the fundamental presupposition of the unipolar-imperialistic “New American Century”.

The relation between the space dimension and the imperialistic dimension (with “Manifest Destiny” echos) of the USA, is sealed by the conclusions of a book written in 1996 by arms experts George and Meredith Friedman: “Just as by the year 1500 it was apparent that the European experience of power would be its domination of the global seas, it does not take much to see that the American experience of power will rest on the domination of space. Just as Europe expanded war and its power to the global oceans, the United States is expanding war and its power into space and to the planets. Just as Europe shaped the world for a half a millennium so too the United States will shape the world for at least that length of time” - by dominating Space.

http://globalpolitician.com/articles.asp?ID=225

[Octafish]

17. Ya really think it's 'satellites?'

When Jay Rockefeller says its cost "endangers the national security," it's gotta be worse -- as in "much, much worse."

Lawmaker vows efforts to kill 'wasteful' mystery spy project

TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, December 9, 2004

EXCERPT...

But Rockefeller backed off his remarks that the spy project was a danger to national security. His spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi, said the senator believes spending huge amounts of money on the project was dangerous. Rockefeller has called the mystery program "stunningly expensive."

The rare criticism of a highly secretive project led to a flurry of speculation inside Washington about details of the program. Outside intelligence experts said references to its enormous budget suggested a price tag in the billions of dollars, usually reserved for spy satellite systems.

Rockefeller and the other Democrats -- Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois, Carl Levin of Michigan and Ron Wyden of Oregon -- all refused to sign the congressional compromise negotiated by others in the House and Senate that included approval for the project.

Wyden said the Bush administration asked for the disputed project, which he said enjoyed strong support among members of the House Intelligence Committee. The Senate panel has voted unanimously the past two years to kill the program, he said.

The project was no longer necessary because of changed capabilities of U.S. enemies, Wyden said, adding that other U.S. intelligence programs can perform the same function for less money and risk. He said senators were concerned about how the government contract was awarded. Auditors believe the program will exceed its proposed budgets "by enormous amounts of money," Wyden said.

SOURCE...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/12/09/national1959EST0787.DTL



"I would say 'Death Ray 2007' sounds about right."

[DeadManInc]

18. spy programs

hard to believe we have to pay for shit that we cannot know about. Only in Amerika.

[Octafish]

21. NAZIs don't like letting the people knowing know what was going on.

Then, there's good reason to.

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html



"A hearty welcome to Democratic Underground, DeadManInc!

[Nordic]

19. So when is James Bond gonna finally save the world from GWB?

That's what I want to know.

[seemslikeadream]

22. What is America's top-secret spy program?

...

'Prowler' at work
The United States has long been interested in such offensive programs, launching an experimental and highly classified satellite called "Prowler" on the space shuttle Atlantis November 1990.

Prowler stealthily maneuvered close to Russian and presumably other nations’ communications satellites in high Earth orbit, 24,000 miles (38,400 kilometers) up. These satellites are ideal targets. They are at much higher altitudes, and thus difficult to track visually. Most of the key military satellites are in this orbit — relay satellites that transmit imagery uplinked from spy satellites, military communications satellites and electronic eavesdropping satellites that target terrestrial microwave communications.

Prowler gathered all manner of data on the high-Earth-orbit satellites: their size, measurements, radar signature, mass and the frequencies on which they relay their data. Now experts suggest that the United States may be trying to use, or has already succeeded in using, that stealth technology to "negate" an adversary's satellite communications.

A satellite using such technology would not have to jam the other satellite's signals, strictly speaking. Knowing how its communications systems were configured, the satellite could simply step in front of it and block its signals. In fact, one expert said Prowler did just that in tests using U.S. communications satellites, without being detected.
more
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6687654/

[jackelope72]

23. What really boils my potatoes about this...

is that the dissenters mentioned in the article seem to be more upset about the amount of money that the program would cost than they are about the violations of civil liberties.

Damn, guys, does it always have to be about the green?

[seemslikeadream]

24. Some lawmakers call classified program overpriced, inadequate

...

Opponents of the new program, however, argue that the satellite is no longer a good match against today's adversaries: terrorists seeking small quantities of illicit weapons, or countries such as North Korea and Iran, which are believed to have placed their nuclear weapons programs underground and inside buildings specifically to avoid detection from spy satellites and aircraft.

The National Reconnaissance Office and the CIA declined to comment. Lockheed Martin Corp., which sources said is the lead contractor on the project, issued a statement saying, "As a matter of policy we do not discuss what we may or may not be doing in regards to classified programs."

Escalating costs
The satellite in question would be the third and final version in a series of spacecraft funded under a classified program once known as Misty, officials said.

Concerned about the latest satellite's relevancy and escalating costs, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has twice tried to kill it, according to knowledgeable officials. The program has been strongly supported, however, by Senate and House appropriations committees, by the House intelligence committee, which was chaired by Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) until he recently became CIA director, and by his predecessor, George J. Tenet.

"With the amount of money we're talking about here, you could build a whole new CIA," said one official, who, like others, talked about the program and the debate on the condition of anonymity because of the project's sensitivity.
more
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6695514/

[salin]

25. Read on Rozen's blog - war and piece

that the controversy may be about the "spy satellites" having the capability of firing (in coming missles?)

hmmm - are they trying to get more "Star Wars" (aka missle defense) funding through yet another back door?

[seemslikeadream]

26. Inside The New Spy Bill

Monday, Dec. 20, 2004
The 600-page Intelligence-Reform Bill that congress passed last week is the most sweeping overhaul of the U.S. spy community since World War II. President Bush, who plans to sign the bill soon, was at first lukewarm about it, and conservative House Republicans almost derailed it. But congressional holdouts bowed to pressure from the Sept. 11 victims' families, who demanded the system be fixed. How will it work? Here are answers to five crucial questions.

Who will be the new Director of National Intelligence (DNI) that the bill establishes? CIA Director Porter Goss was the obvious choice. But the former Florida Congressman's first 2 1/2 months of righting the troubled agency have been bumpy, with five senior CIA officials quitting. Goss isn't out of the running, but because he would face a confirmation battle from Democrats worried that he's too political, the White House is considering others, such as 9/11 commission chairman Thomas Kean, former Senator Sam Nunn and ex — Navy Secretary John Lehman.

How powerful will the director be? Republican Senator Susan Collins describes the DNI as the "quarterback," controlling most of the $40 billion spent annually on intelligence, setting priorities among the 15 spy agencies and forcing them to share secrets. So that the director would remain neutral and not become bogged down in operational details, Congress didn't give the DNI control over spying at the CIA and other agencies. But without operational control, the director may be less useful to the President and therefore have less access to him. It will take a close friend of Bush's or someone "very aggressive" in the post to overcome that, warns Winston Wiley, a former CIA official.

Will the bill stop terrorists at the border? It requires 10,000 more border-patrol guards and 4,000 more immigration and customs agents over five years. It also orders improvements in air-cargo and cruise-ship security. But the measures are "meaningless without the dollars to back them up," says Democratic Representative David Obey. So far, Congress has been stingy about paying for them.

more
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101041220-1006645,00.html

[w4rma]

27. Why the heck when a Dem criticizes something so broadly, the other Dems

in Congress totally ignore that Dem and still vote for it? They are ignoring Rockefeller and Byrd on MAJOR issues. Just flat out ignoring them.

Why can't Dems IN CONGRESS respect one another's opinion instead of ignoring one another? They all seem oblivious to one another while the Repugs all march in total lock step. They ignore one another like they ignore their base.