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Satellite Pics Going Dark?
isdale writes "Defense Tech reports the U.S. Gov't. is proposing to exempt satellite images from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The proposed exemption has already passed the Senate and awaits House/Senate conference committee this month. Not only does the exemption apply to Gov't. satellite images, but also any commercial satellite images the gov't buys and 'any... other product that is derived from such data.' That would include maps, reports, news footage, etc. This would heavily impact news gathering and probably the income of commercial satellite operators - who would only be able to sell to the U.S. Govt. And how big is the deficit already?" peter303 writes with a more optimistic story in USA Today " about building and launching a satellite for as little as $65K," as long as you can squeeze it into a 4 inch-cube.
Software like Xplanet be effected too? I hope not.
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
I'm sure there'll be plenty of commercial ones providing the data!
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It only seems to apply to images the government buys. Its like they legislating exclusivity agreements, as well as revoking FOIA on this data. If a company puts up a satellite that takes pictures and they dont sell the images to the govt, how would it affect them? I dont think it would.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Terraservier doesn't have satellite images, it has aerial photographs.
From the site: The committee recommends a provision that would exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), (section 552 of title 5, United States Code), data that are collected by land remote sensing and are prohibited from sale to customers other than the United States and its affiliated users under the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, (section 5601 et seq. of title 15, United States Code).. The exemption would also include any imagery and other product that is derived from such data. State and local laws mandating disclosure by a State or local government would be preempted. (Bold emphasis mine)
So this would appear to mean that only some subset of stuff, which is prohibited from sale currently, would be removed from FOIA.
What, exactly, this is I do not know, but it wouldn't surprise me if this means "When the military buys a commercial satellite pass over a suspected terrorist camp and forbids the satellite company from reselling the image (which seems reasonable, otherwise there would be a huge market in 'see what the DoD is taking pictures of' industry), no one can file a FOIA request to access that image".
I think that the story is misleading. Exempting satellite imagery from the FOIA does NOT mean that commercial companies couldn't sell the imagery to news agencies - you just wouldn't be able to make the government sort through and cough up all the unclassified satellite images that it has bought. I'm guessing that defensetech.org is one of those sites that makes wild paranoid predictions about the military.
This is a very specific class of satellite photo. Commercial photos sold to private users are still legal; so are government photos obtained via non-exclusive contracts. The submitter and article have the facts all wrong!
This would only prohibit the release of data that is already prohibited from sale to customers other than the US Government.
As it currently stands, commerical imagery operators are prohibited from selling certain data to anyone but the government. Third parties cannot buy this data. However, there is nothing to prohibit someone from filing a Freedom of Information request once the government buys it. This would close that loophole.
Good to know that they would want to take away technology access that allowed people to evacuate before the hurricanes in Florida. Un-fucking-real.
First line of the story: "You might be able to see the hurricanes heading for Florida. Maybe. But just about all other commercial satellite imagery could be put off-limits, if a new Senate bill goes through as planned."
Weather satellites are owned and operated by the government, not commerical operators. They will likely remain available. And yes, satellites provide information that land-based weather radar can not. (how many radar stations are there in the middle of the Atlantic?) Of course, the NASA is trying to kill TRMM, the only satellite-based weather radar, but that's another story.
Don't you remember what happened last time someone tried to file a FOI request? The Secret Service bullied him into cancelling it.
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They're purchasing exlusive rights over certain image areas to avoid having to classify the data output from all the commercial satellite operators.
Maybe you could argue that they should just go classify it anyways, but the result will be the same. The Government reserves the right to tell commercial image satellite operators where they can't take pictures, or can't sell the images they do take. This is not news. The mechanism by which that is enforced is just adjusting a bit.
Well sir, you got rated a troll for speaking what is quite possibly the truth. A huge number of people are in a collective state of denial and cannot even stand numbers for fear of for fear of disturbing their collective psychosis.
People file FOIA requests all the time, successfully. Just the most recent example off the top of my head was more Bush guard unit records, and there are many many more.
I believe the present government is too secretive, and I can't swear the Secret Service has never shown up at somebody's door to politely suggest cancelling a request, but the act is used all the time.
I work on the UA's Cubesat program. I'm the one who wrote the (minimal) operating program for our four cubesats. This program has been a lot of fun.
I'm not entirely sure what we'll find with our design, but as 10cm cubes go, ours isn't bad. It stores sensor information on a timed schedule and has two-way communication with our ground station, plus an autonomous beacon transmitting on a separate frequency.
I think the article was a little misleading about the usage of COTS parts in these things. For sure, we did not build our own microprocessor, but most of the work tying together components is custom designed stuff by students. Our controller board (with PIC microcontroller), our power board (with AA batteries and charge regulator), and the radio board were all student designed and built.
The components on those boards, such as the PIC, the radio, and the AD converters is, of course, COTS, but that's about it.
Launch will be "Real Soon Now". Can't wait... and I really hope it works!
Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"-Sam&Max
The only insightful sentance in the parent post is that there are way too many stupid people in the world. Among them are those who cannot distinguish between their first amendment rights & the FOIA.
... provides that any person has a right, enforceable in court, of access to federal agency records, except to the extent that such records (or portions thereof) are protected from disclosure by one of nine exemptions or by one of three special law enforcement record exclusions ... The basic purpose of [the] FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.
The First amendment states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The FOIA on the other hand:
The FOIA already includes exceptions for law enforcement & privacy issues. The current admin is trying to add Sat pictures to this list to avoid making Govt bought Sat pics available for the price of a FOIA query & thus helping potential terrorists. Anyone who needs the pics can still always go directly to SPOT & buy the pictures.
The 1st amendment & the FOIA have nothing whatsoever to do with each other.
Moderators, how is this Insightful?
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
That means that the gov't can create a blank spot on the map for regions where they have "special interests". These interests could be anything from military bases (think, Guantanimo) to war zones (insert obvious choices here) to public utilities (nuclear power plants) to national parks (oil drilling in ANWAR or logging in Yellowstone).
Also, I do not believe that the satellite owners will have the choice of not selling exclusive rights to the gov't. I think that the licenses that allow these companies to operate require them to grant this type of exclusive license to any data that the gov't wants. (I could be wrong on this, but I remember reading it somewhere.)
Terraserver already blanks the "good stuff." No Area 51 ;-)
Are a Cubesat's imaging elements rad-hard? No. Are the microcontrollers rad-hard? No. Is anything on a Cubesat rad-hard? Not bloody likely! That's how they manage to get the cost down to around $40K - rad-hard parts are expensive. You're a little closer on the batteries, and a lot closer on the testing. Plus there's a complete lack of economies of scale when you're building a one-off item, so parts tend to be more expensive. And you only have one unit to amortize the non-recurring engineering (aka design) costs across. That's mostly where the $40K cost comes from.
Just because it isn't classified doesn't mean the information should be posted on every corner. A lot of information is designated "for official use only", which is dependant upon the agency. It isn't classified, but it also isn't freely distributed.
There are specific legal guidelines regarding classified information. This includes how to classify it, how to store it, how to transport it, and when/how to destroy it. There is a lot of information that should be kept private, but doesn't meet the guidelines for classification.
A directory of all department employees, home phone, address, emergency contact, and home email is an example. This information is not classified. However, I do not know anyone that would want their employer making suck a directory public.
The other main issue regards the distribution of information. State police, fire, and other emergency officials do not have access to classified information at any level. Yet I can imagine information that the federal government may wish to distribute to them while not wanting to make it public knowledge.
Radar and satellite imagery aren't interchangeable when it comes to weather. Radar is used to detect precipitation, and suffers from a number of problems based on its use of radio emissions (masking, bending, line-of-sight, false returns, and so on). Satellite imagery is usually used to determine temperature, which in turn can be used to ascertain the presence of clouds and their height.
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