Included in a recent story on DHS-sponsored gadgets is something about the National Applications Office, “a clearinghouse for expanded output of imagery to police, border security and other law enforcement outfits”. Despite the reservations of the House of Representatives, this could have a huge trickle-down affect on sparking innovation in private industry (i.e. the non-defense contractor portion of private industry– the web-based mapping companies that are currently driving innovation). The DHS should consider opening up their geospatial data to more than just police departments and state police, but this is moving in the right direction.
Tech wonders on homeland security horizon
In other surveillance developments, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is defending a plan to make broader use of eyes in the sky that, until now, have mostly fed military and scientific needs.“The use of geospatial information from military intelligence satellites may turn out to be a valuable tool in protecting the homeland,” Democrats on the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee wrote to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff this month.
But they voiced privacy and civil liberties concerns about the scheduled Oct. 1 launch of the National Applications Office, a clearinghouse for expanded output of imagery to police, border security and other law enforcement outfits.
“We are so concerned that, as the departments authorizing committee, we are calling for a moratorium on the program until the many constitutional, legal and organizational questions it raises are answered,” Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and colleagues wrote on Sept. 6.