domestic spying via satellite

Check out this article from the Washington Post (via Slashdot). The upshot: Homeland Security has plans to use overhead sensor imaging (read: satellite surveillance) for domestic purposes soon.

Chertoff said, "Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved." Wait. When -whose- concerns are resolved?  Mine? yours? Or someone writing an internal memo for the DOJ? How transparent will this process be?

Chertoff already commented to reps in congress that, "There is no basis to suggest that this process is in any way insufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans"

My point is this: our Fourth Amendment rights are, to some extent, circumscribed by our expectations about our privacy. (Katz v. United States and Kyllo) (in layman's terms: if you're trying to suppress evidence from a search you're arguing was unconstitutional, you have to show that you had both a subjective and legitimate expectation of privacy.)

So - it seems to me that if we, as citizens, publicly accept this type of encroachment on our privacy today; if we are aware of this concession and passively accept it.. we are giving up our rights for tomorrow. We are destroying our ability to claim that we had a reasonable expectation that the goverment wouldn't be spying on us via satellite.


(img credit mulley.net)