Spy Chief Hints At Limits On Satellite Photos 309
An anonymous reader writes "Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, says that the increasing availability of commercial satellite photos may require the government to restrict distribution. 'I could certainly foresee circumstances in which we would not want imagery to be openly disseminated of a sensitive site of any type, whether it is here or overseas,' he said. This would include imagery on Web sites such as Google Earth, because the companies that supply the photos get help from the NGIA with launches." I had never heard of this particular intelligence agency. During the early months of the invasion of Afghanistan they bought up all satellite imagery over that country, worldwide, in a tactic later dubbed "checkbook shutter control."
Restriction on restriction (Score:5, Insightful)
More realistic is that they have to learn to live with the fact that satellite images are available to the general public and adjust their strategy accordingly.
on control of information... (Score:4, Insightful)
Reminds me of the old saying, "Beware of he who would restrict you from information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
A Message from the Ministry of Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Sincerely,
Winston Smith
You americans are living in intelligence hell (Score:4, Insightful)
nsa, fema, homeland security (what the fuck is that), cia, fbi, this new thing in the article now, count as much as you can im sure there are more.
i started to often think which rules your country - congress, senate and president, or these "service" organizations.
torn between privascy and rigth to know (Score:5, Insightful)
I also really don't like the idea of companies making imagery of my property available to whomever wants it. My business is my business and is not for sale. I guess preventing that from happening is futile as well.
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:5, Insightful)
They *bought* all the imagery.
You can restrict information in many ways you know.
-nB
Re:You americans are living in intelligence hell (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, it's not the NGA that would have to 'adjust their strategy.' It's the many facilities, run by everyone from the DoE to DoS to DoD to state and municipal entities, all of which would have to adapt to it.
Don't Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a ... (Score:5, Insightful)
These restrictions are clear violations of the Constitution, which creates no power for our government to prevent our recording public places. Not to mention absolutely unamerican in attitude.
There's so much accumulated destruction of America to fix now that it'll take generations to even catch up to where we could be, not to mention all the new problems accumulating while we're catching up. If we can even reverse momentum at all.
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:5, Insightful)
90% of whats gone wrong in the last six years is almost entirely due to a acute arrogance mixed with bad case of ignorance on the part of the people in the Bush administration. That's a really dangerous cocktail.
Russia, China, the E.U., Japan and India all have respectable capabilities to build and launch satellites, and more are joining the club. When the Space Shuttle is scraped there is probably going to be a very long window in which Russia and China will be able to put men in to orbit and the U.S. wont. The U.S. tries to bottle up satellite imagery I'm sure Russia or China will fill the void just to poke a finger in the eye of the U.S.
To me this just sounds like another round of post 9/11 fear mongering.
The U.S. seriously needs to wake up to the fact that the biggest threat to its National security is its massive trade and budget deficits, broken education system, energy dependence on parts of the world it can no long control, and a plunging dollar because no one has confidence in the U.S. anymore.
If the U.S. were spending money on those issues instead of on an out of control defense industrial complex:
A. It would be a lot more prosperous and secure
B. The rest of the world would hate the U.S. a lot less and have fewer reasons to want to attack it
The best defense program the U.S. could invest in right now is a serious effort to improve car mileage ASAP and then to develop clean, renewable and affordable energy sources.
oh really... (Score:5, Insightful)
During the early months of the invasion of Afghanistan they bought up all satellite imagery over that country, worldwide
Did they buy everything Russia has*? How? Is it really credible that Russia would enter into some kind of clandestine NDA over this material? And what would it mean if they did? We can assume that the US government has more money than $GOD to execute its evil. But what would be the motive here? To prevent before-and-after comparisons? Did they buy up all Iraq's too?
* - There must be a substantial archive of Afghan intelligence somewhere in Russia, as a legacy of the 9-year war. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:2, Insightful)
The best defense would be getting rid of the elements
that are inside the US that are actively trying to
damage the US.
The current admin does everything, seriously, everything
wrong, which creates long term damage.
You can predict what their response will be to any
situation: whatever will create damage will be the choice.
The list is long. Katrina is a good example.
Other people have satellites (Score:1, Insightful)
What for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Important strategic installations are already satellite-proofed because of the Russians. The rest doesn't matter because there are so many other ways to find out the same information.
This is just like the time a National Geographic photographer was denied permission to photograph a bridge becuase of security concerns. He pointed out that if someone wants to know where the bridge is, they can read a map. If they want to see it they can drive over it as many time as they want. It didn't sway them and in fact he was told if he went up in the helicopter he would be shot down. Morons.
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course the interiors of "public" buildings that are actually classified/restricted (including offices requiring appointments), and new plans still closed to public access, should not be photographed without proper authorization.
That's why we spend so much time and money building public buildings: they control access to their interiors.
This situation seems like a basic reality, while trying to stop photography of public exteriors is a basic fantasy. Part of the simcurity that pretends to protect us but keeps us scared into obedience by merely obscuring both how vulnerable and how safe we actually are.
Re:You americans are living in intelligence hell (Score:5, Insightful)
Fatherland was taken.
Re:on control of information... (Score:2, Insightful)
You didn't have unlimited access to satelite photography in the past, how is restricting said information in any way going to make them the masters of you. Governments have had this information for years and citizens did not.
Censorship is also a loaded word here too. They are not censoring your freedom of speech nor anything which you have inherit rights to. You, as a human being, do not have an inherit right to any bit of information that might exist on the face of the earth and it is silly for people to claim that restriction of information of any kind is censorship. It simply is not.
Stop wasting your days away on conspiracy theories. They're dumb and counter-productive. I'm not saying governments are always right but people have been overreaching as of late, wanting everything - immediately - for free. I think this says more a reflection of the selfish behavior of our generation than anything about our governments.
Re:Don't Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a (Score:2, Insightful)
Reverse monopoly will stop that (Score:3, Insightful)
NGA successfully restricted aero data (Score:4, Insightful)
FWIW, this is also the agency that successfully pulled Dafif, a huge database of periodically updated worldwide aeronautical information historically available for free to the public, off the public Internet. Here's a brief story [navaid.com] about it and where you used to be able to get it [164.214.2.62]. So in a sense this sort of statement is very much in character; this guy is probably "just doing his job". He is a DoD employee, after all.
Now, they will probably have a much tougher time pwning all the satellite images, especially in future, because they aren't the sole provider of such images. The right answer is probably competition, i.e., for more commercial providers to get satellites up... makes it that much harder for any one agent (or agency) to corner the market, anyway. And TFA seems to suggest that that is indeed happening.
It does sort of seem like a basic drawback of so-called open-source intelligence [wikipedia.org] (which has nothing to do with "open source" per se) that everyone else pretty much has the ability to get at it too, if they look hard enough. Perhaps the complaint is that now they don't have to look very hard at all.
Re:Restricting information (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, by this argument the Saudi terrorists were perfectly justified in attacking the WTC.
This is the Bush justification of murder. I want you to do this, and if you don't, you are a legitimate target. You are either for us or against us! We have bigger guns!
Have you worked out yet why the world is against you?
Re:Reverse monopoly will stop that (Score:1, Insightful)
Ever want to launch a satellite from US soil again? Great, we'll talk then. Ever want to do business with a US company again? So, about those images... Your engineers need a security clearance? Interesting. You have an office in $random_country_we_are_invading, right next to the Chinese embassy, and want our Marines to help get your people out? How about that?
Re:You americans are living in intelligence hell (Score:3, Insightful)
You have a war president (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Reverse monopoly will stop that (Score:5, Insightful)
>Ever want to launch a satellite from US soil again?
Nah, thanks, Russian/Chinese soil works just as well for us.
>Ever want to do business with a US company again?
We prefer selling to the EU, Russia, Africa and god knows who else. Actually, it is the US companies that want to do business with us. If they can't - too bad for them.
>You have an office in $random_country_we_are_invading
Why should we? The US is stretched to deal with Iraq itself as it is, pretty good bet they can't spread their forces to the rest of the world as well. Egypt sounds nice at this time of year, or maybe Greece. Then again Russia has always been a favourite, and they don't care about satellite imagery for businesses as long as their military gets their copy of Pentagon for wall posters.
More like Censorship via Copyright. (Score:3, Insightful)
More like Censorship via Copyright right? Isn't this play on the rise? By private individuals as well as governments?
all the best,
drew
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=zotzbro [youtube.com]
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:5, Insightful)
Once upon a time, it was considered that governments would use official secrets only to protect genuinely sensitive information.
That time has passed. Western governments have been caught with their pants down, repeatedly, abusing their privilege of withholding information from the public for political reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with safeguarding the security of the nation and its people.
Perhaps, but (a) you were talking about detailed information relating to critical infrastructure, which is pretty close to being a straw man in a discussion about satellite imagery that clearly has many potential uses for the average person and probably doesn't show more than three big buildings in an L-shape, and (b) this question is really a matter of principle and not of specifics: should the presumption be that information must be released to the people by the people's government, or that the government may withhold information at will from the people?
My views on this one are pretty clear now: no political administration should be allowed to keep any information away from the public, without a clear national security reason for doing so, as determined by an impartial official observer not directly connected with or accountable to the administration of the day.
If you don't understand why the balance of power must be this way to protect the people, take a look at my sig, and then read a good book on 20th century history with that in mind.
Re:Don't Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are out doing something in your fields, anybody can observe you.
If you are in your house, what you do is private.
In between -- things get murky. Anybody can walk up to your front door an knock of course, but the area in the immediate vicinity of your house, call the curtilage, has an intermediate level of protection. People can't poke around it with impunity to find things out about you. They can't stand in the bushes outside your window to hear voices drift out.
Technology makes this convenient distinction tougher to maintain. In Florida v. Riley, a Pasco County deputy used a helicopter to spot marijuana plants growing in a greenhouse that the defendant had screened from the road. The trial court accepted the defendant's motion to suppress, resulting in a flip-flopping cascade of reversals that ended with the Supreme Court ruling that since the officer had a perfect right to fly over the defendant's home in a helicopter, any observations he made were admissible.
On the other hand, in Kyllo v. US (2001), the SC held that the use of thermal imagery to detect marijuana cultivation inside the defendant's home amounted to a fourth amendment search. However, the decision did not set clear guidance on this issue, other than a sense that this use of sensory enhancement technology doesn't pass a kind of "sniff test".
So, arguably observation of curtilage areas from a favorable vantage point is allowable, but the use of sensory enhancement technology to obtain information that would otherwise have to be obtained by intruding onto the defendant's home or curtilage is not allowable. Extreme magnification and high resolution sensors in space might well count as sensory enhancement.
In Dow v. US (1986), the SC ruled on a case that bears on this; Dow sued the EPA because the EPA used aerial imagery to inspect a Dow plant when Dow officials had denied them entry for an inspection. The SC allowed the use of aerial imagery, but offered a number of possible justifications of this; it is not clear what combination of these justifications are necessary or sufficient. These justifications include: The imagery was taken from navigable airspace; EPA has statutory authority to investigate and enforce regulations; the EPA was not violating state laws regarding trade secrets; the areas between buildings in an industrial plant more resemble "open fields" than curtilage (i.e. it doesn't tell anybody about what is going on inside buildings as much as the overall activity on the site); it was not using any technology that was not available to the general public.
Overall, I think this leaves the issue of satellite imagery -- excuse me -- up in the air. Is it a technology available to the general public? Does the degree of technological sensory enhancement matter (as possibly implied by Kyllo)? Does the ubiquity and unobtrusiveness of observation make a difference?
My sense is that the state of commercially available satellite imagery sets the expectation of privacy an individual has. Up until recently a person could expect his property to be photographed from space maybe once or twice a year at resolutions of about 10 meters/pixel. However, it is now possible to obtain on demand imagery in the 0.7 meter/pixel range -- about as good or a better than most aerial photo surveys. In fact this resolution is so good, the company which provides this service doesn't have any examples in their imagery gallery (http://www.satimagingcorp.com/gallery-quickbird.
Re:Restriction on restriction (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually agree with this statement. Personally, I am a curious person, and I like to look stuff up purely for the sake of looking, but I'm also intelligent enough to understand that in some cases the need for security outweighs "curiousity". Such as the example given in TFA about the US paying to restrict satellite images of Afganistan during the conflict there. If doing this saves the lives of US soldiers, it doesn't bother me that I can't check out military camps in Afganistan from satellite pictures.
If I fire up Google Earth tomorrow and find that the Pentagon, Camp Pendleton, etc... are greyed out, I'm not going to lose sleep over it or decry the "loss of my rights and freedom".
For another example, while the location of Camp David is not exactly completely classified, the US government doesn't go out of its way to advertise, and in fact keeps that info pretty close to the vest. However, if you know where to look, which I do, and zoom in close enough in Google Earth, you'll see that there it is, not just visible, but plainly marked with a POI flag and labeled "Camp David". Personally, I feel this is undermining a reasonable security measure just a little too much.
Re:Reverse monopoly will stop that (Score:3, Insightful)
They really don't even have to go that far.
"Thank you for your business. As you chose not to comply with our request you are now in violation of our existing contract, which shall be terminated immediately. Also be advised that you will be removed from the GSA's approved vendor list, meaning that no governmental agency will be permitted to contract for services from you. In other words, we hope that the millions of dollars you have gotten from us have been invested well as you will see no more. Have a nice day."
Re:Don't Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a (Score:3, Insightful)
I certainly don't think government censorship, even specifically banning photography of public places, is "uniquely American". I've been engaged in the US end of the "droit de regard" debate for well over a decade, though I can cite French examples.
Complaints by Americans about unamerican activity of our government (and its people) are not "ignorant". They are the American way: part of the process of petitioning the government for redress of grievances, as well as free expression and any number of other rights we explicitly protect according to our Constitution. You want to talk about ignorance, look to your comment about the Constitution needing a "right to use their camera", when government powers exist only so far as the Constitution explicitly creates them (and the states don't prohibit them).
It's like you live in the fake America in the Rush Limbo show, where no American ever leaves their hick town, except to go to Disneyworld. Naturally a free, informed American exercising my full rights and demanding my government protect them frustrates you. There are plenty of other countries where that's the way they do it, but not in my America.