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Wie geht ein Angreifer vor, wenn er ein Land überfällt?
posted: 16 Aug 2007
Gerard Menuhin

Ziemlich zu Anfang besetzt er die Medien, um sie gleichzuschalten. Dann weiß er, dass nur Nachrichten in seinem Sinne verbreitet werden.

Es gibt in der ganzen westlichen Welt nur fünf große Medienkonzerne:

AOL Time Warner, NBC Universal, Bertelsmann, Murdoch (News Corp.), Viacom.

Die Beherrscher der öffentlichen Meinung

Wer sind die Verantwortlichen dieser Konzerne?
–
Richard D. Parsons, CEO AOL Time Warner (jetzt „Time Warner” genannt) und ein Protegé der Rockefeller-Familie. (Mathias Döpfner, CEO Axel Springer, ist im Vorstand der Time Warner.)
–
Robert Iger, CEO Disney, ABC
Sumner Redstone (Murray Rothstein), CEO Viacom, Paramount
Jeff Immelt, CEO General Electric NBC, (Jeff Zucker, CEO Universal Studios)
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman/Peter Chernin, President News Corp. Fox TV
Howard Stringer, CEO Sony Corp. (Columbia Pictures)
Leslie Moonves, Präsident des TV-Senders CBS Television, Großneffe des israelischen Staatsgründers David Ben Gurion
Edgar Bronfman jr., CEO von UMG, dem weltweit größten Musikunternehmen.

Diese Männer kontrollieren zusammen ABC, NBC, CBS, Turner Broadcasting System, CNN, MTV, Universal Studios, MCA Records, Geffen Records usw. usf.



Schauen wir, was heute Abend im Fernsehen läuft. Zehn Minuten Nachrichten für leicht abzulenkende / nicht belastbare Leute und, schon wieder, „Schindlers Liste“, die Serie „Holocaust“ oder ähnliches. Oder noch eine „Dokumentation“ zum Thema „Hitlers Wasauchimmer“ aus der Fabrikation des Guido Knopp. Also „News Lite“ mit Betonung auf Fußball und „Trend“, gefolgt von einem gewichtigen Melodrama oder Umerziehungskurs.

In Deutschland existieren nur zwei große Mediengruppen: Bertelsmann und Springer. Bertelsmann wird von der Freundin der Frau Merkel, ehemals Telefonistin und später Frau des Herrn Mohn, auch „Liz“ genannt, geführt. Springer von der ebenfalls Merkel nahestehenden „Friede“ Springer, früher Kindermädchen bei Axel Springer. Die Firma Springer ist bekannt dafür, dass jeder Arbeitnehmer fünf Unternehmensgrundsätze unterzeichnen muss, deren zweiter „die Unterstützung der Lebensrechte des israelischen Volkes“ fordert und deren dritter „die Unterstützung des transatlantischen Bündnisses und die Solidarität in der freiheitlichen Wertegemeinschaft mit den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika“ verlangt.

„Jeder Stadt ihr Blatt“ – damit ist es längst vorbei

Die bescheidenen Anfänge der beiden Medienmogulinnen erwähne ich übrigens nur, weil der Eindruck nahe liegt, dass ein ehrgeiziger, aber unaufgeklärter Mensch für eine Sache leichter zu gewinnen ist, als einer, der für eine führende Position nach traditionellen Prinzipien ausgebildet ist.

Es gibt in der heutigen Welt keine größere Macht als die, die von den Beherrschern der öffentlichen Meinung ausgeübt wird. Kein früherer König oder Papst, kein Eroberer oder Priester hatte je annähernd die Macht wie einige Dutzend Menschen, die die Massenmedien der Nachrichten und der Unterhaltung beherrschen. Diese Macht erreicht jedes Haus und formt den Verstand beinahe jeden Bürgers, sei er jung oder alt, reich oder arm, einfach oder kultiviert.

Wie die BILD-Zeitung ihren Unternehmensgrundsätzen nachkommt, habe ich gerade selbst hautnah erfahren: Nachdem ich am 6. Mai auf einer DVU-Veranstaltung gesprochen hatte, schlagzeilte BILD, dass ich dort „gegen Israel gehetzt“ hätte, obwohl ich kein einziges Wort über Israel verloren hatte. Also eine glatte Lüge. Aber es diente „der Sache“.

Und es geht munter weiter:

Dem der Finanzwelt nahestehenden Verlagshaus Dow Jones – Verleger des Wall Street Journal sowie mehrerer Aktienindizes – droht die Übernahme durch den Erzzionisten Murdoch. Zu befürchten ist eine Massenentlassung, gefolgt von einer Politisierung der Zeitung im üblichen Stil Murdochs.

Am 25. Mai übernahm das nunmehr zweitgrößte Schweizer Medienimperium Tamedia die Espace Media Groupe. Beide besitzen Zeitungen, Radio- und TV-Sender. Der Verwaltungsratspräsident der Tamedia heißt Pietro Supino, der Vorsitzende der Unternehmensleitung ist Martin Kall. Manche Kommentatoren bedauern, dass es jetzt nicht mehr die Vielfalt an Meinungen geben wird. Früher sagte man in der Schweiz: „Jeder Stadt ihr Blatt“. Damit ist es längst vorbei, da keine Zeitung es sich leisten kann, selbständig zu bleiben.

Aber da liegt nicht das Problem. Das Problem ist, dass alle diese Medien, wenn es um die wichtigen Themen geht, mit einer Stimme sprechen werden. Und diese Stimme wird bestimmt nicht von der Meinung der üblichen abweichen.

Auch die Meinungsäußerung im Internet gerät unter Druck

Im Internet hingegen gelingt es noch, manche kritischen Informationen zu verbreiten. Aber auch die Meinungsäußerung im Internet gerät zunehmend unter Druck. Internet-Suchmaschinen wie Google werden bzw. fühlen sich gezwungen, ihre Seiten zu überwachen und ihnen kontroversiell erscheinende Eintragungen mit der unbestimmten und unerklärten Begründung zu entfernen: „Aus Rechtsgründen hat Google 1 Ergebnis von dieser Seite entfernt. Weitere Informationen über diese Rechtsgründe finden Sie unter Chilling-Effects.org.“, wo weder Rechtsgründe genannt noch eine klare Erklärung gegeben werden.

Finkelstein meint in „Antisemitismus als politische Waffe“: „Die Kritik an den Printmedien geht für diejenigen, die sich dem Kampf gegen den neuen Antisemitismus verschrieben haben, mit Kritik am Internet einher. Das World Wide Web bereitet ihnen verständlicherweise Sorgen, wird es doch (noch) nicht von denen kontrolliert, die für eine wirklich verantwortungsvolle, ausgewogene Nahostberichterstattung sorgen können – Leute vom Format eines Conrad Black oder Rupert Murdoch.“

In der deutschen Fassung von Finkelsteins Buch fehlt aus unerklärten Gründen die Seite mit dem Satz von Abe Foxman, Direktor der ADL (Anti-Defamation League), in dem er erklärt: „ADL hat mit mehreren grossen Internetfirmen eng zusammengearbeitet, um klare Leitlinien zur Regulierung dessen festzusetzen und zu erzwingen, was auf ihren Seiten annehmbar und was unannehmbar ist.“ Weiter behauptet Foxman, die ADL hätte „Software entwickelt, um den Zugang zu Internetseiten zu sperren, die die ADL für hassfördernd hält.“

Parallelen in der Finanzwelt

So wie die wichtigen Medienunternehmen gleichgeschaltet wurden, läuft es gegenwärtig auch bei den einflussreichsten Posten der Finanzwelt. Sarkozy setzte Dominique Strauss-Kahn als europäischen Kandidaten für den Direktorenposten beim Internationalen Währungsfonds durch. Die französische Wirtschaftsministerin Christine Lagarde spricht bei der Diskussion über die Frage, ob auch in Zukunft die IWF-Führung einem Europäer und die Führung der Weltbank einem US-Amerikaner obliegen soll, von einem „Gleichgewicht“. Da muss man schmunzeln. Ein Gleichgewicht? Frankreich besetzt bereits drei internationale ökonomische Schlüsselstellen: Pascal Lamy bei der WTO, Jean-Claude Trichet bei der EZB und Jean Lemierre bei der Europäischen Bank für Wiederaufbau. Der Bush-Vertraute Robert Zoellick ist gerade zum Präsidenten der Weltbank gewählt worden. Jetzt bekommt offensichtlich Strauss-Kahn den IWF. Muss man die Reihenfolge oder die Verbindung der Entscheidungsträger deutlicher aufführen?
http://tinyurl.com/ytkgkw

THE CHALLENGE OF FEDERALISM
Iraq Set to Disintegrate, New Study Warns
August 15, 2007

It's no secret that Iraq is a politically, ethnically and religiously fractured country. But a new study released in Berlin on Wednesday argues that federalism remains the country's last, best hope. Otherwise, it may fall apart completely.

"Already today, the main priority is to prevent Iraq from breaking apart completely." That is the sober conclusion of a new study released Wednesday in Berlin on the situation in Iraq. Called "Iraq Between Federalism and Collapse," the study argues that there is little hope of a centralized power in Iraq and that the country's future depends on walking the fine line between decentralizing power and civil war.

The report, written by terror and Middle East expert Guido Steinberg under the auspices of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, says that a far-reaching decentralization is the country's only hope. And if it fails, the result could be devastating, including the possibility of full-scale civil war complete with foreign intervention.

"The basic assumption of this study," Steinberg writes, "is that a federalist solution will be the only possibility to maintain Iraq as a single country. The most important role of German and European policies should therefore be that of supporting steps toward a peaceful federalist solution."

That Iraq is threatening to break apart is, of course, nothing new. The Kurds in northern Iraq have established an autonomous Kurdish region. In the south of the country, the Shiites are interested in doing the same. Meanwhile, in the center of Iraq, violence remains part of everyday life as Shiite and Sunni extremist groups continue campaigns of car and suicide bombings.

Fractures, in other words, are not difficult to find. And the fractures are made all the worse by the fact that the groups involved rarely have the best interests of Iraq foremost in mind. In northern Iraq, the study points out, the two leading Kurdish political parties are demanding that the city and province Kirkuk be joined with the Kurdish dominated region -- a demand, Steinberg writes, that is likely to increase violence in the until now largely quiet north.

Indeed, the massive attack in the Kurdish area near the Syrian border on Tuesday seemed like proof that sectarian violence is rapidly spreading north. Four truck bombs exploded in villages killing at least 200 people. The bombs were likely detonated by Sunni groups angered by a Kurdish-speaking sect called the Yazidis. In April, a Yazidi woman was stoned to death for dating a Sunni Arab.

Elsewhere, the Sunnis are wary of attempts by the numerically superior Shiites to consolidate political power in the south and center of Iraq. And a large group of Shiites, Steinberg points out, are likewise against an autonomous Shiite region, meaning that there is a threat of an escalating intra-Shiite conflict as well.

he sectarian wrangling means, the study says, that the best solution -- that of a federalism free of ethnic and religious divisions -- has largely been rendered impossible. But even a federalism resting on the ethnic divisions that have been established seems challenging given the opposition from within the Shiite and Sunni factions to such a solution.

And that's not to mention the opposition of other countries in the region. "The discussion within Iraq is influenced to a large degree by the interests of neighboring countries," the report states. "Due to their potential to become involved, the Iraq federalists have to take their positions into account. And Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria all reject the ethnic-religious federalism model out of hand." Military intervention from Iraq's neighbors to protect their interests, particularly from Turkey in the north, is a very real possibility, the report warns.

The US has been pressuring parties on all sides of the discussions to come up with a compromise agreement and to solve a number of divisive issues, including the explosive discussion over sharing oil revenues among regions and groups. But the current Iraqi government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is struggling to make any headway at all, with 11 cabinet ministers recently having quit in protest.

All of which makes the immediate future in Iraq look bleak, Steinberg writes. The alternative to a successful federalism solution, he indicates, is chaos, more violence and a Shiite dictatorship. "Iraq is a failed state," the report concludes, "and will remain unstable for the foreseeable future."
http://tinyurl.com/ywujgk

Blog: ScienceBlogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data
Michael Asher (Blog)
August 9, 2007 11:49 AM

Years of bad data corrected; 1998 no longer the warmest year on record

My earlier column this week detailed the work of a volunteer team to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling. One of these people is Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.



These graphs were created by NASA's Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.

McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.

The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the U.S. global warming propaganda machine could be huge.

Then again -- maybe not. I strongly suspect this story will receive little to no attention from the mainstream media.
http://tinyurl.com/2c3b9y

Indian companies learn the Washington lobbying game
By Anand Giridharadas
Wednesday, August 15, 2007

MUMBAI: In the heat of the 2004 U.S. presidential race, John Kerry likened outsourcing to treason, Lou Dobbs harangued against it from his CNN anchor chair and the Indian outsourcing vendors were left scrambling.

Engineers to the core, their leaders fired back with data-packed PowerPoint presentations. Outsourcing is good for the economy, they said; it increases efficiency; it creates more jobs than it costs. But in the eyes of many Americans, those arguments proved no match for vivid tales of laid-off software engineers.

"Telling someone who loses their job in North Carolina or Jacksonville that this is good for the economy doesn't work," said Phiroz Vandrevala, an executive vice president at Tata Consultancy Services, one of the largest Indian vendors, who serves as an in-house Washington strategist for Tata and other Indian firms.

But if four years is a lifetime in Washington, it is an eternity in Bangalore. And as the 2008 U.S. election starts to sizzle, the Indian outsourcing firms have returned to win Washington over as veritable insiders, slicker and better connected than ever.

They have hired a former high official in the administration of President George W. Bush as a lobbyist. They are humanizing the issue by bringing Americans they have hired into meetings with politicians.

They work with research firms like the Brookings Institution to generate sympathetic research. They host cocktail hours on Capitol Hill. They have learned to play politics, urging members of Congress whose districts benefit from trade with India to support them on outsourcing.

And most strikingly, they have mastered the Washington art of waging proxy battles through local front organizations, which spare them from appearing to be foreigners with an agenda. They provide facts, figures and arguments to trade groups like the Information Technology Association of America and to Indian-American political groups. Then they watch as those groups arrange for seemingly neutral voices to champion their causes in the newspapers or before Congress.

"The moment Nasscom says something, it is a vested interest," said Lakshmi Narayanan, the chairman of Nasscom, a trade group that represents the Indian outsourcing industry. "In the last few months," he said, Nasscom decided "to provide the data, work behind the scenes, but really to be fronted by the local organizations."

The Indian companies are mounting this effort out of fear that the pressures of the U.S. presidential election, and of the Democratic primary especially, will induce candidates to lash out at the Indian vendors. Their business model is a perpetual lightning rod: the companies carve out tasks from their American clients and perform them more cheaply back in India or other low-cost locations.

The Indian vendors' main worries are the Democratic candidates Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, whose campaign has flirted with anti-outsourcing rhetoric, and John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, who is running an explicitly populist campaign. The Indian executives believe that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, also a Democrat, is more sympathetic to their cause, but they are concerned that she would be compelled to match the others' statements in a tight contest.

Meanwhile, new Democratic majorities in Congress have swept into office on a wave of anti-free-trade rhetoric. To the Indian firms, a recent attempt in Congress to crack down on skilled-worker visas underscored that a storm is gathering.

"People are trying to make it an issue again," said one Washington lobbyist who represents some of the Indian companies and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of company rules.

But if the anti-outsourcing movement rouses itself again, it will find itself jousting with a changed foe. The Indian vendors have in no way strayed from their belief that outsourcing benefits both India and the United States. But they have found smoother ways to get the point across.

Vandrevala, the Tata Consultancy official who also works for NASSCOM, described 2004 as "a fantastic learning experience."

Nasscom has hired as its chief Washington lobbyist Robert Blackwill, a former senior White House adviser and U.S. ambassador to India in the Bush administration. As the president of Barbour Griffith & Rogers International, an arm of one of the most powerful lobby shops in Washington, located three blocks from the White House, he is a heavy hitter on Capitol Hill.

In the past year, Blackwill, the unnamed Washington lobbyist and the Indian firms' own executives have, among them, met with members of the staffs of more than 100 U.S. representatives and senators, the Washington lobbyist said.

Executives from the Indian firms visiting the United States, including on a trip organized by Nasscom in May, have met with aides to all the major presidential hopefuls, including Clinton, Obama, the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, Vandrevala said. Several months ago, he said, Nasscom hosted an evening reception for members of the House of Representatives' India caucus that drew 40 to 50 people.

But the heart of the Indian vendors' new strategy appears to be to remove themselves from the limelight. Outsourcing is not about us, goes the new Indian mantra to lawmakers: it benefits living, breathing Americans, including ones in your district.

The Washington lobbyist said that a focus of the campaign was to collect data on Indian companies' investments in the United States, and then to lobby members of Congress from districts where those investments had created jobs.

Tata Consultancy Services, for example, may be funneling some San Francisco-area technology jobs to India. But it belongs to an Indian conglomerate, Tata Group, that recently acquired the Campton Place Hotel in San Francisco and thus has hundreds of U.S. workers on its payroll.

The Indians have also begun to use their own customers, which include the largest U.S. companies, as proxy soldiers. Both the vendors and the clients belong to trade groups like the Information Technology Association of America, which help to coordinate lobbying campaigns in which an American chief executive will write a newspaper article or make a statement to Congress that is in his or her own company's interest but also benefits the Indian vendor.

"We don't want to be seen as very active there, because it can seem that India is trying to poke its nose into the debate," said Kiran Karnik, the president of Nasscom. "We would prefer that the active effort of working the Hill is done by U.S. companies."

A successful example of getting a heavyweight to help their case, according to the Indian companies, was recent congressional testimony by Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, in which he called vigorously for expanding the H-1B skilled-worker visa program. While Microsoft does use the visas heavily, 8 of the 10 largest H-1B applicants in 2006 were outsourcing vendors with their major operations in India.

Indian-American political groups in the United States are also effective proxies. The U.S.-India Political Action Committee has defended outsourcing vendors, most of whose employees are in India, even though the group represents Indian-Americans living in America. In a profile of Clinton on the group's Web site, it notes admiringly that "even though she was against outsourcing at the beginning of her political career, she has since changed her position."

Narayanan, the Nasscom chairman, said: "Much of the difference between four years back and now is that many of the Indians who are influential, who are contributing, are in the technology industry. So clearly they are aligned with the cause."

In a sign of their changing approach, the Indian vendors are also imitating a tactic used against them in the last election: putting a human, and preferably American, face on the issue.

In meetings in Washington with members of Congress and with the presidential campaigns, the Indian companies are bringing in American employees they have hired locally. The employees typically serve as liaisons between the Indian firms' American clients and their back-office workers in India, but to the Indians, they illustrate that outsourcing can also create American jobs.

"Our opponents have been very good at spreading a lot of myths, and we have to counter that," said the Washington lobbyist. "And part of it is by putting an American face on it."
http://tinyurl.com/36n35e


India's efforts at lobbying in Washington DC are getting more aggressive and sophisticated.
Thu, 16 Aug 2007

Executives from the Indian firms visiting the United States, including on a trip organized by Nasscom in May, have met with aides to all the major presidential hopefuls, including Clinton, Obama, the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

What I found most interesting in the first article is the way Indian lobbyists are using home grown American organizations as proxies to push their agenda. Case in point:

And most strikingly, they have mastered the Washington art of waging proxy battles through local front organizations, which spare them from appearing to be foreigners with an agenda. They provide facts, figures and arguments to trade groups like the Information Technology Association of America and to Indian-American political groups.

Many of us were hoping the ITAA would fade away after Harris Miller left. Apparently that was wishful thinking.

Jobs aren't the only thing Indians are after, as this statement in the second article below illustrates.
Groups such as the United States India Political Action Committee played a major role in helping members of both houses of Congress understand that any vote against the nuclear deal would be perceived to be a vote against India, something that would not sit well with Indian-Americans.

The lobbying paid off for India big time. If you recall, Bush and Congress gave India nuclear technology in a trade for Indian mangos. Be sure to see these youtube videos -- the first one might get you in the mood for Indian mangos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liqMCE8zrvc
US goes gaga over Indian mangoes

Yummy! Yummy! But wait, but before you bite into one of those juicy mangos watch this video to find out about how they are irradiated:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgukFLIzOCw
Mangos that Glow in the Dark

All of that radiation stuff might upset your stomach, so be sure to watch this soothing video so that you can sleep tonight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thBefxorwrE
Mangoes from Goa

Robert Blackwill was a major factor in that lobbying effort. Blackwill is a former ambassador to India appointed by Bush. If you want to find out more about Blackwill's coziness with India, a good place to start is the article called: "I am honoured to be called a friend of India". To read more go to the following link:

http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/27bobdb.htm

Robert Blackwill has his own organization to lobby Congress. It's called the "Indian American Center for Political Awareness" (IACFPA). You can go to their half-finished website at:

http://www.iacfpa.org/

I couldn't find out much about IACFPA because the "about" page wasn't working. The "donations" page was up though, so at least their cash register is up and running.
Robert Blackwill has a bio on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) website. It figures Blackwill would be one of them, most free traders are. Read all about him at:

http://www.cfr.org/bios/6/robert_d_blackwill.html

The American middle class doesn't have anyone lobbying on their behalf to stop the outsourcing, H-1B giveaways, and destructive trade deals like the recent agreement to give India more nuclear technology. Under the circumstances I see no reason to be optimistic that Congress will resist the pressure being put on them by aggressive Indian lobbyists. Certainly nobody seems to think American voters will make a difference.

India's power brokers have the money and the willingness to spend it in order to promote their agenda and they have very powerful allies in our midst:

Indian-Americans' vision of India's future is generally in line with that of corporate America.

I don't think either one of them envision a middle class America that makes high salaries. Do you?
(yahoo.group)

US spy satellitles to be used on Americans
Raw Story | August 14, 2007
Nick Juliano

Local and federal agencies are to have vastly expanded access to information gathered from spy satellites in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reports.
Advertisement

Information from "some of the U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools" will soon be at the disposal of a wide array of law enforcement agencies at all levels of government, reports Robert Block in the Journal Wednesday. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell decided to increase access to the spy data earlier this year and asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to facilitate access to the spy data by civilian agencies and law enforcement.

Previously, access to only the most basic spy-sattelite data was limited to a handful of federal civilian agencies, such as NASA and the US Geological Survey, which used the images for scientific and environmental study.

The move to turn spy satellites on American citizens raises legal questions because the use of such data for law enforcement is "largely uncharted territory." Even the officials behind the move were unsure of its legal implications, the Journal reports.

"There is little if any policy, guidance or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and dissemination of domestic MASINT," noted a 2005 study from the US intelligence community, which recommended access to spy satellites. MASINT, or Measurement and Signatures Intelligence, is a particular kind of spy-satellite data that would become available to law enforcement for the first time.

According to defense experts, the Journal reports, 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.

"The full capabilities of these systems are unknown outside the intelligence community, because they are among the most closely held secrets in government," Block writes. "Some civil-liberties activists worry that without proper oversight, only those inside the National Application Office will know what is being monitored from space.

"You are talking about enormous power," Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology for the Center for Democracy and Technology told the paper. "Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating intrusive and omnipresent, it's also invisible. And that's what makes this so dangerous."

DHS intelligence chief Charles Allen "says the department is cognizant of the civil-rights and privacy concerns, which is why he plans to take time before providing law-enforcement agencies with access to the data. He says DHS will have a team of lawyers to review requests for access or use of the systems."
http://tinyurl.com/2v95x7