Spy Chief Hints At Limits On Satellite Photos

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."

Comments

Restriction on restriction

[denoir]

They can try to restrict as much as they can, but the fact is that much of the satellite images used by for instance Google are from non-US commercial sources. The only thing they'll accomplish by a restriction is hurting US business. The images will still be available from European and Japanese satellites.

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.

Re:Restriction on restriction

[wirelessbuzzers]

They are already trying to ban picture taking by civilians at various locations (what is this fucking North Korea?) and the flyovers will be next :( Once upon a time, it was considered acceptable that some information was unavailable to the public. For instance, the layout of nuclear facilities, the locations and materiel of defensive bases, or the site layouts and security measures of critical but vulnerable civilian infrastructure (dams, nuclear plants, hazardous waste facilities, fuel refineries, chemical plants, etc). It used to be that taking high-resolution pictures of such installations, systematically mapping the civilian and military infrastructure, and giving them out to foreign governments was considered treason. This was true for years in the USA, Canada, and wherever else in addition to "fucking North Korea." It seems reasonable that this should continue to be true.

The general public has basically no need for this sort of information, but a hypothetical attacker does. There may not actually be many terrorists or spies in the US right now, but there's a decent chance that there are some, and in the past they've been very interested in this stuff. Maybe they can get it anyway, but let's make them at least risk exposure to do their reconnaissance, OK?

You can rant all you want about security through obscurity, but the real world isn't a cryptosystem. The attacker has less time to study your nuclear site security offline (at least, as long as photographing it is illegal). Furthermore, Kerckhoff's principle doesn't say that systems shouldn't be obscure, just that their security shouldn't depend on it. Obscurity is still a valid defense in depth.

Re:Restriction on restriction

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Once upon a time, it was considered acceptable that some information was unavailable to the public.

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.

The general public has basically no need for this sort of information, but a hypothetical attacker does.

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.

A Message from the Ministry of Truth

[r_jensen11]

Ingorance is Strength

War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Sincerely,
Winston Smith

torn between privascy and rigth to know

[uncreativ]

I really don't like the government telling us what information we have the right to have. (sigh) guess we've gone too far down the rabbit hole on that one.

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.

Don't Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird! It's a ...

[Doc Ruby]

There are already plenty of public places in the USA with posted signs prohibiting video/photos.

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:NGA not NGIA

[Simon Garlick]

nga plz.

What for?

[snowwrestler]

What is the strategic weakness exposed by satellite imagery, that is not exposed by the other myriad sources of information that are available? So you can see the top of the White House on Google Maps. So what, anyone can see it from the Washington Monument or the Hay Adams.

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:Reverse monopoly will stop that

[GnuDiff]

Imagined answers:

>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.