Paranoid, much? - The Gormogons

In this WSJ article, Ms. Gorman discusses the plan by the current administration to kill an initiative started by President Bush to make use of government “spy” satellite data for domestic use. Let me first get my gripe out: the author’s title is misleading. The White House isn’t abandoning a spy-satellite program it is abandoning a spy-satellite usage policy program. Maybe a minor nit and maybe the WSJ didn’t have room for the extra words.

The main goal of the program was to expand the availability of classified satellite imagery to federal, state and local officials to assist with emergency response, homeland security and other limited usages. Democrat legislators argued (dating back for 2 years since the start of the program) that it would lead to domestic spying.

Instead, these officials with paltry budgets will have to request this data (or similar declassified or unclassified data) from the DHS. At the size of the federal government that we’re heading for, I wouldn’t be holding my breath if I were posing such a request. Fundamentally, the federal government has a difficulat time communicating with other parts of the government, let alone state or local officials. With the added overhead of the DHS “gatekeeper” to this data, the response times for the frontliners will increase.

It is too bad that the Obama Administration and the current Congress is taking this tact. This is useful data, and if well organized and made available in an approprriate way, could really help support border patrols, police, fire and rescue efforts.

But, of course, the President doesn’t really know what the NGA is and I doubt many on the hill get what the real potential here could be.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.