Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced this afternoon that she will kill a controversial Bush administration program to expand the use of spy satellites by domestic law enforcement and other agencies.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. (Photo: AP)

    Napolitano said she acted after state and local law enforcement officials said that access to secret overhead imagery was not a priority.

    Former president George W. Bush's top intelligence and homeland security officials authorized a program to expand sharing of remote-sensing data to domestic agencies in May 2007. But since plans to create a National Applications Office were reported that August by the Wall Street Journal, congressional Democrats barred funding for what they said could become a new platform for domestic surveillance that would raise privacy and civil liberties concerns.

    This month, House Democrats expressed surprise that President Obama included funding for the program in the Homeland Security Department's classified 2010 budget annex, and they threatened to kill the office themselves.

    "The Secretary's decision is an endorsement of this Committee's long-held position on the NAO," said Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee in an e-mailed statement.

    The federal government has long permitted domestic use of intelligence imagery for certain scientific uses, such as creating topographic maps or monitoring volcanoes. The Interior Department has limited authority to access satellite data from large public events or natural disasters, for example.

    Bush officials said the NAO could give domestic security and emergency management agencies new tools to deal with a range of problems, from securing the border to protecting land and sea ports against terrorism. In addition to tasking military satellites equipped with high-resolution sensors that can see through clouds or even penetrate buildings and bunkers, the program would serve as a clearinghouse for state and local agencies seeking access to intelligence community products, they said. Bush officials said the office would not intercept communications.

    "There's no political divide here," said Charlie Allen, DHS chief intelligence officer from 2005 until January, noting that the NAO initiative was recommended in a 2005 study by a blue-ribbon intelligence panel.

    "I have concerns we're not fully utilizing legal and lawfully authorized capabilities of the U.S. government, capabilities for which U.S. taxpayers paid over decades hundreds of billions of dollars," said Allen, now with the Chertoff Group, a consulting firm started by former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff. "It's a tremendously valuable capability that should not go away," Allen said.

    However, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), head of a homeland security subcommittee on intelligence, said the previous administration failed to develop an adequate legal framework or operating procedures to regulate the use of some of the world's most powerful spy technology, now largely restricted to foreign surveillance.

    This month, Harman and Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) introduced bills to bar funding and close the office. "Law enforcement officials haven't asked for the additional capability, and major law enforcement organizations do not believe it is necessary," Harman said.

    In a June 21 letter to Napolitano, police chiefs from the nation's 56 largest cities and counties said DHS should focus domestic intelligence efforts on integrating local police-led "fusion" centers and creating a national suspicious activity reporting system.

    "In our view, the NAO is not an issue of urgency," wrote Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, president of the Major Chiefs Association. "We believe that at this time, it is these efforts that should be the priority versus the establishment of the NAO."

www.truthout.org/062409L