Does satellite spying allow surveillence without 'fingerprints'?

[shance]

Im curious as to how this works in contrast to actual wiretapping? It seems from what I have gathered here at DU, satellite spying could allow widespread spying without any level of evidence or accountability?

Is this in fact the case?

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. Monitoring comunications or video?

I don't know much about monitoring communications, but ss far as imaging is concerned, the satellites that have the really high resolution imaging (say 10 cm), are in low Earth orbit and can only over a given spot for a few seconds each orbit. That's good if you want to check a specific location in high resolution every few months or weeks, but really isn't practical for keeping tabs on individual subversives. Each of these birds probably costs around a billion.

[Solon]

2. I'm sure the satellites cost at least several million...

As far as monitoring communications, if the parties doing the communicating had an expectation of privacy, like in a phone call, then whether it was bounced off of a satellite or two matters little. Same laws apply to that as it does to private mail to and from civilians(as an example). The only exceptions to the fourth amendment are in cases where there are no expectations for privacy, as in publishing letters publicly, running a public blog or web page, or broadcasting messages over radio. Using encryption, even on publicly accessible mediums, on the other hand, requires a warrant to crack I believe.

As far as visual spying using satellites, especially on individuals. That is damn near impossible to practically do. First, satellites have a very limited point of view from which to observe the surface of the Earth, namely only being able to see straight down. And second, you would need hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of satellites to observe a single subject from on high. Satellites CANNOT stop over a particular subject, except for those in geo-synchronous orbits, and they are MUCH further away and require more powerful cameras than satellites in lower orbits.

[ThomWV]

3. Yes

Any communications can be intercepted without leaving a fingerprint.

[shance]

6. So, the request for a warrant would be the evidence of a requested tap

n/t

[politicat]

4. From what I picked up from the book, Chatter, yes.

Basically, the process is that it pulls a copy of the signal sent via microwave - and since 99.99999% of the signal goes where it's supposed to go, there's no effective degradation of the signal. It's like the fact that your neighbor one house closer to the radio station having his radio tuned to the same as yours doesn't mean that your radio signal is degraded. They're not actually listening to specific calls, but monitoring all of the network traffic carried on a certain frequency. (The difference between following a car with a specific license plate because you think it might be involved in a hit and run, and writing down all of the license plates you see in a day because any of them could be involved in a hit and run. The first would probably be called stalking. The last is just crazy because the signal to noise ratio is so extreme.)

The book I read about SIGINT (okay, listened to, while driving to Indiana and back) was called Chatter, by Patrick Radden Keefe, and is here: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=dK8oCX8B72&isbn=1400060346&itm=1

I am not a signals intelligence expert. Hell, I'm barely even moderately knowledgeable. I'm just quoting the book and drawing analogies.

The thing is, once something is broadcast, according to these spy types, the user loses the assurance that it's private because it has been broadcast (even though detecting the broadcast is incredibly difficult.) It's one of the reasons I'm becoming a fan of VoIP phones and have gone back to writing letters -- why should I make it easy?

[shance]

5. Wow. Like electronic voting we have a potential crime without a trail?

More abuse of technology taking place.

[shance]

7. kick

n/t