May 13 2006

From The Duh! Files

Published by at 10:31 am under All General Discussions,The Duh! Files

Drudge seems shocked to find out satellites are taking pictures of earth from space:

A little-known spy agency that analyzes imagery taken from the skies has been spending significantly more time watching U.S. soil.

In an era when other intelligence agencies try to hide those operations, the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, is proud of that domestic mission.

He said the work the agency did after hurricanes Rita and Katrina was the best he’d seen an intelligence agency do in his 42 years in the spy business.

“This was kind of a direct payback to the taxpayers for the investment made in this agency over the years, even though in its original design it was intended for foreign intelligence purposes,” Clapper said in a Thursday interview with The Associated Press.

Earth to Drudge – the weather channel is spying on us too! Ever notice those doppler radars scanning us all day. And what about those satellite images of our weather. Or how about these spies (USGS), and these and these and these and these and this one and this one and this one…

Welcome to the modern world folks. (sorry, forgot some: here and here).

4 responses so far

4 Responses to “From The Duh! Files”

  1. MerlinOS2 says:
    May 13, 2006 at 12:08 pm

    Yup and Google earth just throws a video camera up into the sky real high and hopes they don’t miss the catch on the way down

  2. crosspatch says:
    May 13, 2006 at 1:42 pm

    I knew it wouldn’t take long for them to come up with a poll that validates their reporting. From MSNBC today:

    May 13, 2006 – Has the Bush administration gone too far in expanding the powers of the President to fight terrorism? Yes, say a majority of Americans, following this week’s revelation that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone records of U.S. citizens since the September 11 terrorist attacks. According to the latest NEWSWEEK poll, 53 percent of Americans think the NSA’s surveillance program “goes too far in invading people’s privacy,” while 41 percent see it as a necessary tool to combat terrorism.

  3. ordi says:
    May 13, 2006 at 2:08 pm

    Shoot, it has been rumored for years that we can read the name off a golf ball from outerspace. So this is not surprising! Drudge needs to get out more.

  4. MerryJ1 says:
    May 13, 2006 at 5:32 pm

    I was shocked and amused when I received the June, 2004 issue of Reason Magazine. The cover page was black with a circular image of a bird’s eye view of my neighborhood. The caption underneath, bold lettering, said, “MERRY WHITNEY They Know Where You Are! The unsung benefits of a database nation.”

    The inside editor’s note from Nick Gillespie explained the “cover is an aerial shot of the address to which we mail your subscription. The ads on the back cover are also customized to you and your neighborhood…”

    His note also alluded to the percentage of college graduates sharing my zip code, the percentage of neighborhood children with working parents who were cared for by grandparents, and the comparative (average) ease or difficulty of obtaining credit cards or mortgages.

    The cover article touched on the vast amount of personal information readily available to marketing firms, nosy neighbors or, for that matter, serial killers with computer savvy and/or willingness to fork over subscription fees to Nexis-Lexis or other data services.

    Given my ‘druthers, I really think I’d rather trust my telephone-contact history with the NSA.