The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S.

The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials.

[...]

Access to the high-tech surveillance tools would, for the first time, allow Homeland Security and law-enforcement officials to see real-time, high-resolution images and data, which would allow them, for example, to identify smuggler staging areas, a gang safehouse, or possibly even a building being used by would-be terrorists to manufacture chemical weapons.

[...] Plans to provide DHS with significantly expanded access have been on the drawing board for over two years. The idea was first talked about as a possibility by the Central Intelligence Agency after 9/11 as a way to help better secure the country. "It is an idea whose time has arrived," says Charles Allen, the DHS's chief intelligence officer, who will be in charge of the new program.

DHS officials say the program has been granted a budget by Congress and has the approval of the relevant committees in both chambers.

[...] Access to the satellite surveillance will be controlled by a new Homeland Security branch -- the National Applications Office -- which will be up and running in October.

[...]

Unlike electronic eavesdropping, which is subject to legislative and some judicial control, this use of spy satellites is largely uncharted territory. Although the courts have permitted warrantless aerial searches of private property by law-enforcement aircraft, there are no cases involving the use of satellite technology.

In recent years, some military experts have questioned whether domestic use of such satellites would violate the Posse Comitatus Act. The act bars the military from engaging in law-enforcement activity inside the U.S., and the satellites were predominantly built for and owned by the Defense Department.

According to Pentagon officials, the government has in the past been able to supply information from spy satellites to federal law-enforcement agencies, but that was done on a case-by-case basis and only with special permission from the president.

Even the architects of the current move are unclear about the legal boundaries. A 2005 study commissioned by the U.S. intelligence community, which recommended granting access to the spy satellites for Homeland Security, noted: "There is little if any policy, guidance or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and dissemination of domestic MASINT." MASINT stands for Measurement and Signatures Intelligence, a particular kind of information collected by spy satellites which would for the first time become available to civilian agencies.

According to defense experts, 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.

[...] let me assure you that some of these satellites most assuredly can read heat/infrared inside buildings. That capacity goes back to the Seventies; I well recall reading William Burrows' Deep Black in manuscript when I was at Avon back circa 1987 (unsuccessfully; my boss was unconvinced it was a paperback, which wasn't an entirely unfair judgment), and which became the declassified bible on intel satellite capabilities for a bunch of years, though it's now out of print and out of date, last I looked.

But just a little googling would confirm this
capability, I assure you. It's as basic to cutting
through clouds, after all, as is radar capability.

The main limitation on satellites these days is time over station: not so much resolution (though obviously there are limits -- but we really are vague on what those are, unless "we" have major clearance) or spectrum.

[...] These electronic cameras provide real-time transmission of images to ground stations via Milstar relay satellites. The IMPROVED CRYSTAL sensors operate in visible and near infrared light, as well as thermal infrared to detect heat sources. These sensors probably incorporate low-light-level image intensifiers to provide night-time images. The KH-12's have an infrared capability superior to that of the IMPROVED CRYSTAL, with the advantage in infrared primarily for camouflage detection, for looking at buried structures, for looking at differential thermal inertia in the target area, for trying to determine which factories are operating and which factories are not.

[...] A periscope-like rotating mirror reflects images onto the primary mirror, enabling the KH-12 to take pictures at very high angles of obliquity, imaging objects hundreds of kilometers away from its flight path.

[...] They are known in the spy trade as “Keyhole-class” satellites. And they have a resolution of 5 to 6 inches, meaning they can distinguish an object that small, but no smaller, on the ground. Two other satellites are radar-imaging, built by Lockheed Martin in Watertown, Colo. Their resolution is about 3 feet.

[...] Using initially a Cray supercomputer and now smaller computers, NIMA analysts create 3-D animations — called “envisions” — for policymakers so they can understand problems faced by peacekeepers or soldiers before they make decisions on deployment.

Similar animations were shown to pilots at preflight briefings in 1995 to help them prepare for bombing runs over Bosnia. Multiple route plans have been animated so the pilots know the advantages and disadvantages of each.

And the simulations can be just as useful in the battles against terrorism and narcotics. The CIA has pulled together street-by-street urban landscapes that are used to prepare intelligence officers and agents for missions to “denied areas” like South Beirut before they arrive on scene. With some newly acquired technology, those officers and agents can use a joystick to take a virtual “stroll” through such an area long before they arrive.

[...]

Pike says that NIMA now maintains an imaging archive that can be accessed via the closest server.

“Until the past few years, the imagery, even though the downlink was digital, had to be converted to film — because physically, the intelligence community didn’t have the bandwidth to move it,” says Pike. “During Desert Storm, an airplane had to fly the pictures to Saudi.”

Now, he notes, there is enough bandwidth to sent these multi-gigabyte images to wherever they are needed.

These 3-D capabilities can even help intelligence analysts determine what a terrorist or drug lord’s intentions might be. For example, if analysts know that a suspected terrorist has rented an eighth-floor apartment in a particular building, they can order a 3-D re-creation of that neighborhood. By “flying” through the neighborhood 80 feet above the ground and freezing the view in front of the suspect’s apartment, the analysts see what the suspect sees — and perhaps gets a good view of what’s being targeted.

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And the analysts are not limited to satellite imagery. They can add information gathered from other sources to create a more complete 3-D image.

Here are three examples: a CIA agent covertly takes photographs of a “denied area,” like south Beirut. Those photos can be added to the 3-D animation of the neighborhood, created mainly from satellite imagery, yielding a more realistic look for the CIA officer or commando who will follow him.

In the second example, a CIA agent obtains technical data, but not a photograph, on China’s new F-10. When the Chinese roll out a mock-up of the F-10 and a Keyhole satellite snaps its picture, the analyst can take a look at the imagery and then add in the technical data to create a better, fuller and more compelling view for policymakers and military intelligence officers.

Finally, an analyst can combine unclassified, low-resolution, multispectral imagery of North Korea’s nuclear reactor — the kind that shows heat and ultraviolet emissions — with classified high-resolution Keyhole imagery of the same reactor. The commercially available low-resolution imagery can sense a rise in heat — and thus the operational tempo at the reactor — while the high-resolution imagery can watch for the movement of fuel rods or other equipment at the reactor.

“We have become very good at fusing imagery from visible light and radar imaging satellites with imagery from multispectral satellites, which are unclassified,” says Richelson.

Richelson notes that each has its strengths. For example, the classified radar-imaging satellites — initially code-named “Lacrosse” — can see through clouds and at night and to some extent can even see underground. The recent discovery of the ruins of ancient Arabian cities provides the best unclassified example of radar-imaging capability.

Radar images can also be digitally rearranged to create the perspective of seeing the target from all sides, an immense value in the analysis of foreign weapons systems and military installations.

Satellites that have infrared cameras, like the unclassified Landsat, can better detect targets that are camouflaged.

“So, multispectral or hyperspectral imagery can be combined with visible light imagery to detect things that each alone can’t detect,” Richelson said.

MODELING OBJECTS

Another, newer capability of imagery analysis involves “modeling” — creating 3-D computerized models of buildings, ships, planes and other objects, then combining them to obtain further information. One recent example involved manipulating an image of a North Korean freighter to obtain the ship’s internal dimensions, cargo-loading capabilities and maximum load. Then the analyst modeled an image of a North Korean Scud missile. By adding details on the ship’s history and North Korean sales of missiles to other nations, the analyst produced a 3-D model that could help determine how many missiles were loaded on a freighter headed for Iran.

The CIA can now use artificial intelligence along with modeling to match a known building to an unknown location. The analyst and computer scientist can take a covertly obtained blueprint, create a digital model of the facility, then “ask” a computer to scan the available imagery and find the completed facility.

The key to understanding all these advances is knowing the real value of digital imagery: the capacity to manipulate, model and combine.

The Bush administration has approved a plan to expand domestic access to some of the most powerful tools of 21st-century spycraft, giving law enforcement officials and others the ability to view data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors that can see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground bunkers.

A program approved by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security will allow broader domestic use of secret overhead imagery beginning as early as this fall, with the expectation that state and local law enforcement officials will eventually be able to tap into technology once largely restricted to foreign surveillance.

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Other nonvisual capabilities can be provided by aircraft-based sensors, which include ground-penetrating radar and highly sensitive detectors that can sense electromagnetic activity, radioactivity or traces of chemicals, military experts said. Such radar can be used to find objects hidden in buildings or bunkers.

[...] The two officials have been coordinating for months, as recommended in a 2005 study headed by Keith Hall, then the director of the National Reconnaissance Office.

Hall's group cited an "urgent need" for expanding sharing of remote sensing data to domestic groups other than scientific researchers. "Opportunities to better protect the nation are being missed," the report said.

[...] Under the new program, the DHS will create a subordinate agency to be known as the National Applications Office. The new office, which has gained the backing of congressional intelligence and appropriations committees, is responsible for coordinating requests for access to intelligence by civilian agencies.

[...] "We can give total assurance" that Americans' civil liberties will be protected, Allen said. "Americans shouldn't have any concerns about it."

[...] A few years ago I interviewed for a software engineering job at Lawrence Livermore national lab. The job description was quite vague, but reading between the lines it sounded like they wanted people to write software to analyze satellite imagery looking at nuclear sites.

That seemed strange since there are other agencies in the government that had that expertise, but I shrugged it off and submitted a resume.

A few weeks later they flew me in for an interview and finally explained what they were doing. They had to set up an adaptive optics camera assembly and put it in a helicopter. As a demo, they flew over San Francisco and employed their special camera and processing software to track vehicles. The demo involved tracking all vehicles in a 10 km by 10 km square, with plans to scale the system up to a 30 km by 30 km square.

It turns out that the software needed to process that data in real time is rather simple to write given a modern graphics card. And of course, once you can track vehicles, you can track individuals since vehicles tend to leave or return to people's houses, which can be easily identified by mapping street addresses to GIS coordinates.

I saw a video of their demo and it was very impressive. And it wasn't completely evil; they got very quiet when I asked certain types of questions, but my hunch was that they had expensive nuclear detectors that could only be used at a few points in a city. Put the detectors along highways and combine it with this system and you gain the ability to track the origin and destination of vehicles carrying nuclear material. Not a risk that worries me personally, but something that various government folk are overly concerned with.

Anyway, this option is much, much cheaper than satellite work.