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The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into whether Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden leaked details about a secret "black ops" CIA satellite program last December in a move that may have seriously compromised national security, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin said on Saturday. "The CIA made a request to the Justice Department to investigate and possibly bring criminal charges against these three [senators]," Babbin told WABC Radio host Monica Crowley. "My information is that investigation is ongoing." Rockefeller is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Durbin is the No....

Seven “Dwarf” CIA Super mainframe computers and CIA spy satellites are down. CIA MAINFRAME SUPER-COMPUTERS DOWN – SPY SATELLITES OFFLINE

Most U.S. reconnaissance craft are purpose-built monoliths that operate in geostationary orbit, about 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) above Earth. Though these singletons are extremely capable, they're expensive, typically costing $1 billion or more to build, launch and operate. And it takes a decade or so to develop each one, said Paul "Rusty" Thomas, of the Tactical Technology Office at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The nation's current spy satellites, therefore, aren't terribly responsive to new technologies and new developments, and they represent "big, fat, juicy targets" to adversaries, Thomas said last week during a presentation with NASA's...

Climate Change: We can't stop terrorists from boarding planes with explosive undies, but the CIA has assets sufficient to monitor Arctic ice and look for signs of global warming? Is al-Qaida recruiting polar bears? One wouldn't think that the increasing polar bear population and the increasing rate of recidivism of former Guantanamo detainees released into the wild were related, but they are. At the urging of Al Gore, the administration is signing on to a plan to task vital intelligence assets to protect not the people of the United States, but the environment. The program, shot down by President Bush,...

.....The ICC documents obtained by TIME show a significant portion of this new investigation is based on data from the Satellite Sentinel Project, a network of private spy satellites and analysts organized by George Clooney in partnership with John Prendergast's Enough Project. The satellites have been snapping pictures of northern Sudan since December of last year. "We are the antigenocide paparazzi," Clooney told TIME then.

The U.S. Air Force is moving rapidly in developing and testing smaller reconnaissance and communications satellites. These birds weigh a ton or less (down to 100 kg/220 pounds). The smallest ones have limited usefulness and endurance. But when you get to half a ton or more, you have a very useful bird. It is believed these smaller satellites will be needed to replace wartime losses. Usually, the U.S. has four KH-11s and four Lacrosse radar satellites in orbit, plus several smaller, and more secret birds. Often, these satellites last longer than their design life of eight years (some have gone...

Within a year—give or take a few months—the shuttles will no longer be roaring through Florida skies. The program will shut down, the orbiters will go to museums, and pundits and bloggers will jump all over each other to pontificate on the meaning of the shuttle program. Most will declare it a mistake, some will call it a disaster. Eventually the historians will get to it, holding symposia and writing books about the program. Some of them will look at the shuttle’s early origins, when it was slated to be all things to all people: cheap, reliable, responsive. They will...

Japan has successfully launched another optical (picture taking) spy satellite. This one joins two other optical birds and one radar satellite. This most recent satellite launch cost $109 million. The satellite cost quite a bit more. In early 2007, Japan lost the use of one of its two radar satellites. The "No. 1 radar satellite", which went into orbit in March 2003, was supposed to last for five years. But the bird has been having electrical problems, and had to be written off. Nearly three years ago, Japan launched its fourth spy satellite into orbit, using a Japanese made rocket....

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair should sign by Dec. 1 a document laying out new responsibilities for the National Reconnaissance Office, builder and operator of America’s spy satellites. This will set in motion the first substantial changes to the NRO charter since 1965, four years after then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara created the NRO and drafted its charter. The NRO is led by former Air Force Gen. Bruce Carlson, The new document, called a statement of principles, lays out eight core ideas meant to guide the NRO, according to a source familiar with the document....

South Korea may buy four spy satellites over the next decade to monitor North Korea, the defence ministry said Wednesday. "Our ministry has been considering it but no decision has been made yet on who will be involved and details have yet to be fixed," a spokesman told AFP. He was commenting on a media report that said the ministry would forge technological cooperation with countries including Germany to secure the satellites. South Korean newspaper Dong-A Ilbo, quoting what it said was an internal ministry document, reported that the military plans to spend 600-700 billion won (514-600 million dollars) by...

The US government has endorsed a plan to build a new generation of spy satellites, although funding to boost the Pentagon's imaging capacity still needs congressional approval. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said Tuesday that his agency and the Department of Defense had finalized a plan to modernize the fleet of US observation satellites. "Imagery is a core component of our national security that supports our troops, foreign policy, homeland security and the needs of our intelligence community," Blair said in a statement. He said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which oversees all US spy...

JUNE 4--One of the plotters behind the alleged scheme to explode gas pipelines at John F. Kennedy airport directed his co-conspirators to use Google Earth to obtain detailed aerial photos of the targeted facility. In a federal criminal complaint, an excerpt from which you'll find below, one of the accused, Abdul Kadir, reportedly told cohorts to use the popular satellite software after he determined that surveillance video shot by the men was "not sufficiently detailed for operational purposes." Kadir, a Guyanese citizen and former member of that country's parliament, made the Google suggestion during a February meeting with an alleged...

U.S. Spy satellites have been called into service to help federal emergency officials cope with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, officials said on Wednesday. The little-known National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes satellite images for the espionage community and combat troops, has provided scores of images of hard-hit areas, including New Orleans, before and after the storm struck. The agency said one of its main aims is to survey damage to regional transportation for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which can then use the data to organize relief efforts. FEMA officials could not be reached for comment. "NGA can determine...

Russia to launch spy satellites for Iran By Vladimir Radyuhin MOSCOW, FEB. 2. Russia will launch two spy and one telecommunications satellites for Iran in what may be a sign of strengthening strategic tie-up between the two countries. The Russian military space forces this year will place two Iranian remote earth-probe (reconnaissance) satellites to geo-stationary orbits, a Russian business daily reported today. The satellites, Italian-built Mesbah and indigenous Sinah-1 will be lifted by the Russian Kosmos-3M booster from the Russian military space port, Plisetsk, in the second quarter of 2005, the Kommersant daily reported. Russia will also build and launch...

PARIS — A European rocket roared into space from a pad in South America on Saturday, placing into orbit a surveillance satellite billed as giving France's military new abilities to spy worldwide. The unmanned craft lifted off smoothly from a launch center in Kourou, French Guiana, at 1:36 p.m. — the third and last launch of an Ariane-5 rocket this year, Arianespace said. The satellite and six smaller scientific ones were placed into orbit about an hour after liftoff. It was the first time in 11 years that an Ariane rocket carried as many as seven satellites on a single...

A budget fight in the United States Congress, played out in closed-door meetings and cryptic exchanges on the Senate floor, has revealed the existence of a previously top secret "stealth satellite" programme, designed to create a new generation of American spy satellites that cannot be detected from the ground. The programme's existence has been known only to officials with the highest security clearances and senior senators and congressmen who sit on the committees that oversee intelligence budgets. It might have stayed secret a while longer, except for the growing vehemence of the policy debate among congressmen and senators over the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress' new blueprint for U.S. intelligence spending includes a mysterious and expensive spy program that drew extraordinary criticism from leading Democrats, with one saying the highly classified project is a threat to national security. In an unusual rebuke, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, complained Wednesday that the spy project was "totally unjustified and very, very wasteful and dangerous to the national security." He called the program "stunningly expensive."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Justice Department (news - web sites) has been asked to investigate the leak of details of a secret spy program which media reports say would involve spending $9.5 billion to build stealth spy satellites, government sources said on Tuesday. The sources said a U.S. intelligence agency had referred the issue to the department, but did not identify the agency. The National Reconnaissance Office, which builds spy satellites, declined to comment. The Washington Post said on Saturday the classified program was for a new generation of spy satellites designed to orbit undetected. It cited U.S. officials as...

BETHESDA, Md. - In the name of homeland security, America's spy imagery agency is keeping a close eye, close to home. It's watching America. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, about 100 employees of a little-known branch of the Defense Department called the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency _ and some of the country's most sophisticated aerial imaging equipment _ have focused on observing what's going on in the United States. Their work brushes up against the fine line between protecting the public and performing illegal government spying on Americans. Roughly twice a month, the agency is called upon to help with the...

SEOUL, South Korea, Mar 28, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- North Korea warned that Japan's launch of spy satellites on Friday could trigger an arms race in Northeast Asia, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. "Japan will be held fully responsible for causing a new arms race in Northeast Asia," said a spokesman of North Korea's Foreign Ministry. He was quoted by the North's KCNA news agency, which was monitored by Yonhap. The spokesman also said Japan no longer has the right to demand that North Korea stop launching its "satellites." In 1998, North Korea launched a rocket...