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News
Organizations File Suit Over Remote Sensing Imagery Restrictions
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The U.S. government and
commercial industry interests are squaring off in a battle over
who can have access to high-resolution pictures taken from space
by commercial satellites. The National Association of Broadcasters
and the Radio, Television News Directors Association, have filed
an objection with the U.S. government, saying that federal rules
violate the First Amendment. The “words of the policy directive
enables our government to shut [satellite firms] down under any
pretext," said Kathy Kirby, of Wiley, Rein & Fielding, a
Washington communications law firm. Advocates
for the remote-sensing industry complain there are too many
federal restrictions on what a company can or cannot do with
pictures from commercial satellites. For
example, it is unclear whether the U.S. government would restrict
remote-sensing images that are sold to U.S. firms by foreign
companies. Industry
advocates argue that the restrictions are too vague and fail to
define the conditions under which the U.S. government can exercise
‘shutter control’. "An eye in the sky is no different
than a camera anywhere on Earth," said Dan Dubno, a producer
at CBS News, "the U.S. government is restricting our right to
tell stories that Americans can hear about.” The debate will only get more complicated as
companies in France, India, Israel and the British Cayman Islands
launch high resolution imagery satellites.
By 2003 at least 11 companies from five countries are expected to
have remote-sensing satellites in orbit that are of “spy”
satellite quality.
In 1994, a presidential
directive was issued ordering U.S. satellites to stop taking
pictures in "periods when national security or international
obligations and/or foreign policies may be compromised." In
1997, the U.S. Congress passed legislation which said that U.S.
companies could not provide images of Israel that were more
detailed than those already available commercially from foreign
firms, Israel being the only country mentioned by name. Recently,
the White House released an inter-agency agreement that allowed
the U.S. Secretaries of State or Defense to restrict companies
from distributing and gathering images over any area deemed
important to U.S. national security.
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2000 SPACEandTECH
Digest SpaceandTech.com
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