ALIEN RADIX: The Shape of Things That Come

ALIEN RADIX: The Shape of Things That Come
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Tuesday, December 24, 2013

SATELLITES AND THE VIRTUAL PANOPTICON GOVERNMENT
by Ufonalyzer October, 2009; Re-published 12/24/13

12/24/13: I wrote this over 4 years ago. Due to the recent revelations supplied by Edward Snowden, it has become relevant to our present status here in the USA. This article's emphasis on the use of satellites and its downplay of the use of drones is probably incorrect, but the statements about government surveillance are 100% accurate. Here it is again for your reading pleasure, unedited.

As of the year 2000 about 8000 satellites had been launched since the 1957 beginning of the space age. About 560 were still up there operating as of that year [1] and now (as of 10/01/09) there are 900 operating [2]. What happened to the thousands of missing satellites? They went dead, became so obsolete as to become not used anymore, or fell back to earth.

Satellites can be categorized into many different groups, depending on what you may wish to discuss. They can be categorized by orbit (Low Earth Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit, Elliptical, Geosynchronous (includes Geostationary)); by controlling organization (military, civil, commercial, government); or by function (imaging {includes spy}, scientific, communications). Groups of satellites that fulfill a particular function are called constellations. Therefore, they can also be categorized by constellation name (e.g. GPS, Iridium, Globalstar). Of the 900, the US has 435 operating satellites of which 111 are military. The Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites are military. Russia has 90 and China has 53 total satellites in operation now [2].

Some satellites may be so secret that they have not even been found yet. There are many launch facilities around the world from which a secret satellite could be sent into space. Furthermore, multiple satellites can be deployed into space from the same launch. Satellites can also be launched from a missile attached to a flying airplane. The original proposal for the Iridium system of global portable phones recommended this as the favored launch method to keep costs in control. If America were to have a secret space fleet, satellites could be launched from our spaceships. After all, they already have been launched from the space shuttle. Thus, monitoring of the US’s favorite launch facilities would do no good to determine if another satellite were to join the 900.

It is very likely that the 111 US military satellite quantity is understated. There is an organization of hobbyists who track satellites which in 2006 was tracking about 140 black American satellites [3]. At about this time, the website for the Union of Concerned Scientists [2] stated that there were 95 US military satellites. Thus we must conclude that we have extra satellites up there doing things that we haven’t a clue about.

Many of the military satellites are up there for spying purposes. The most publicized of the spy satellites are the KH satellites, nicknamed KeyHole, which have been evolving steadily for decades. The original Keyhole satellites launched in 1960 had 3 foot resolution, in 1990 they were rumored to have 6” resolution, and the current KH-12 series launched from 1995 to 2005 is rumored to have 2 cm resolution. Just consider this: in 35 years the resolution of the Keyhole series went from 36 inches to 0.8 inches. It would be a good bet to believe that now in 2009 resolution is good enough to read license plates and do facial recognition by satellite. We may even have satellites that can read an open book from 400 miles! We will come back to this later.

Of course, more types of spying than just visual and infrared imaging are being done from these satellites. In 1999, cellular switch (the stationary piece of a cellular telephone system that the handheld cellphones “talk to”) manufacturers were mandated by the government to provide “hooks”, i.e. access capability, of both hardware and software as necessary to allow easy phone call monitoring of cellular conversations in the next generation of switch designs. This was before 9/11/2001. It would be naïve to assume that communications satellites were not similarly mandated, even though these satellites, like cellular switches, are commercially owned.

In this day and age, a country has to have spy capability to maintain control of the radical elements of the world who wish to destroy whatever democracy we have left. The law allows monitoring of phone calls when one end of the call is outside the US. The problem is that it is just as easy to monitor any call, not just the ones with a foreign termination, using existing technology. Thus, the government is prevented from listening in on US to US conversations by using a “Chinese firewall” to avoid breaking the law. (A Chinese firewall is a protocol only barrier; only written rules prevent breaching it. Any unethical person who wishes to breach the firewall to find something out or do something wrong can do so because the barrier is set up only by rules and ethics.) Past history has proven that the government just cannot resist the temptation to spy on its citizens if it has the physical and technical means to do so. It never has and never will obey the Chinese firewall, and that is a problem. Now consider the use of spy satellites. Now that we have satellites that can really zero in on a person, is there a protocol where use of such imaging satellites is permitted only for foreign spying? How long will it take for visual satellite spying on US cititzens to start to occur? Just something to consider. {Digression: 4 star general Michael Hayden was the director of the NSA and later was appointed by Bush to become the Director of the CIA. This lasted until Obama replaced him. This is the same Michael Hayden who vigorously defended the use of secret prisons and questionable interrogation methods on suspected terrorists. This is the same Michael Hayden who as director of NSA, his job prior to the CIA directorship, said in a national press conference on May 31, 2006, that he was 100% sure that the 4th Amendment did not have a prohibition against searches and seizures without probable cause. NSA’s main job is to eavesdrop on communications and it illegally does this on American to American communications all the time which it denies. It is unforgiveable that the head of an eavesdropping organization like the NSA would not know that “upon probable cause” is literally part of the 4th amendment. It was a disgusting and disgraceful display of ignorance and arrogance. He should have been fired soon after this revelation. Instead Bush appoints him to a more prestigious position about a year later, the Directorship of the CIA. Unbelievable! Why was this guy a 4 star general? Why was he rewarded with high positions? Yikes!}

It is the Ufonalyzer’s belief that our satellite technology contributed greatly to the success of the “surge” in Iraq. Bob Woodward, in his book “The War Within”, writes the following long passage:
“Beginning in about May 2006, the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence agencies launched a series of TOP SECRET operations that enabled them to locate, target, and kill key individuals in extremist groups such as al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. The operations, which were either Special Access Programs (SAP) or part of Special Compartmented Information (SCI), incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the U.S. government.
Senior military officers and officials at the White House have asked me not to publish the details or the code word names associated with these groundbreaking programs. They argue that publication of the names alone might lead to unraveling of state secrets that have been so beneficial in Iraq. Because disclosing the details of such operations could compromise their ongoing use, I have chosen not to include more here. But a number of authoritative sources say these covert activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it. Several said that 85 to 90 percent of the successful operations and “actionable intelligence” had come from these new sources, methods, and operations. Several others said that figure was exaggerated but acknowledged their significance. Once again, it was American innovation that provided and edge.”
 [4] Bold type added by this writer for emphasis.

What this says is that the troop increase in Iraq known as the surge was not wholly responsible for the turn around in that conflict. In fact, some people thought that it may have contributed only a small portion of the improvement. Now there is talk of doing the surge again, this time in Afghanistan so these secret programs would be reused if there is an Afghan surge. What were these secret programs that Mr. Woodward is referring to in this passage that were so effective? For sure, one of the the secret programs was the hiring of Blackwater by the CIA to conduct assassinations as reported August 19, 2009, in the New York Times. {Digression: Ironically, at this same moment in time, the CIA’s website states the following in its FAQ section:
“FAQ #9: The CIA has been accused of conducting assassinations and engaging in drug trafficking. What are the facts?
Answer: The CIA does neither. Executive order 12333 of 1981 explicitly prohibits the CIA from engaging, either directly or indirectly, in assassinations. Internal safeguards and the congressional oversight process assure compliance.” 
[5]} The font size and bold emphasis are the Ufonalyzer’s.

This is on the CIA website even as they admitted hiring Blackwater to perform assassinations. So much for the truth from the CIA. The Ufonalyzer is not against assassinating fanatical terrorists. He is against secrecy and lies.}

Woodward’s book implies that a combination of techniques was used as effective countermeasures against Al Qaeda. It mentions Special Access Programs which are almost always Black Budget highly technical developments. The hiring of assassins is NOT a highly technical development. They do the killing, but what did the locating and targeting? It is therefore highly likely that spy satellites were instrumental in locating and recognizing the targets to be assassinated. Drones could have been used also, but satellites would give far more coverage. This means that we know how to use these satellites against individual people and not just stationary targets.

Now, let’s take this one step further. In 1967, the Outer Space Treaty prohibited the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in space. Most people believe that there currently are no weapons in space, but this treaty did NOT forbid the deployment of conventional weapons. But what do you think would be the “jewel in the crown” of a future satellite weapon system? The Ufonalyzer believes that it would be a satellite which could be programmed with facial recognition software and which can assassinate a person from space with precision. It would be a sniper satellite. If that existed, there would be little need to hire a Blackwater or Wackenhut to do the job.

A totalitarian society with this kind of capability is a chilling thought. Now there are many countries where the state is supreme; it disallows any criticism of itself whatsoever, and freely uses torture and assassination of its own citizens to achieve its ends. Weapons like a laser assassination satellite would be a welcome addition to control the masses. The populace could become very paranoid, knowing that they could be struck down at any moment. Fashions might change where hats and facial hair become the norm, and glassene clothing to reflect away laser beams could be introduced.

In 1791, Jeremy Bentham conceived of a type of architecture which would allow a single person to watch over everyone else in the building. This concept would be of use in, say, a prison or a library. This type of architectural design is called a Panopticon. Everyone within it would realize they could be watched at any conceivable moment, and as a result would behave according to the rules. A totalitarian government would like to have a virtual panopticon, where any person knows that he/she is watchable and recordable into a monitored, central databank. Everyone in their country would realize that they had no privacy, and were subject to computerized eavesdropping of their phones and internet work by centralized supercomputers, and their outdoor activities via spy satellite. If they misbehaved, they could be taken out at any time on the street by a laser beam from above. What a horrible place that would be. To compensate, the government would have to supply “bread and circuses” as the Romans used to say. Free or cheap food and mindless entertainment would be served up as an opiate for the masses. This kind of society is within reach today—that’s the scary part. Elements of it are already in place, awaiting the tyrannical leader who will put it all together.

Fortunately, with regard to satellites being used as offensive weapons, there are some big drawbacks. Most satellite types these days are detectable mainly because their sightings are repeatable due to being in regular orbits. They are also easily detectable by radar. The US’s SPASUR system has been very effective in detecting satellites going over the US. Repetitive orbits allow predictive analysis on where they will be in the future. This makes them vulnerable. Both the US and China each have shot down one of their own defective satellites from the ground. They are not the ultimate weapon. A space fleet would not have the weaknesses of a satellite weapon. We know UFOs have cloaking capability, so it is likely our scientists are working on that too. If they are successful, all sorts of things will be given this capability, satellites among them. Until then, we must assume that space satellites remain easily detectable and therefore vulnerable. Please read Unfonalyzer’s writeup, “Does America Have a Secret Space Program?” to find out more about this possibility.

[1] http://www.aiaa.org/Aerospace/Article.cfm?issuetocid=122&ArchiveIssueID=17
[2]http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_weapons_and_global_security/space_weapons/technical_issues/ucs-satellite-database.html
[3] http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/spy.html
[4] “The War Within” by Bob Woodward, 2008, page 380
[5] https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/faqs/index.html