Artist/Astronomer Exhibits Photos Of Spy Satellites

daemonburrito writes "Trevor Paglen, the photographer and co-author of 'Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights' and 'I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have To Be Destroyed By Me,' has an exhibit showing in Berkeley of 189 photos of secret US satellites (exhibit page here). Wired says, 'In taking these photos, Paglen is trying to draw a metaphorical connection between modern government secrecy and the doctrine of the Catholic Church in Galileo's time.'"

Comments

Heathen!

[zapakh]

Everyone knows that the celestial spy satellites are perfect spheres! This "telescope" is a tool of the devil.

Cool...

[ductonius]

That's a pretty neat exhibi$ #_(%#^3 NO CARRIER

Re:Cool...

[jasonmicron]

You really need to ditch that old modem. Broadband is where it's at!

wow...

[bsDaemon]

Blame the CIA and the Catholic Church in one fell swoop? Now if that isn't a match made for UCB, then I don't know what is.

Doesn't Exist.

[scubamage]

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Censorship?

[mkiwi]

Why did this article get tagged "censorship?" I don't see anyone in the government trying to censor this exhibit.

Re:Censorship?

[uab21]

I believe it was tagged "censorship", not because this exhibit is being censored, but because the existence of the satellites themselves is denied. He is lifting the 'veil of censorship' to show that, yes they do. The government is not yanking his photos, but they are replying "I don't know what you are talking about" when asked about the subject of each picture.

Re:Censorship?

[TrekkieGod]

I believe it was tagged "censorship", not because this exhibit is being censored, but because the existence of the satellites themselves is denied. He is lifting the 'veil of censorship' to show that, yes they do.

No, he is lifting the veil of secrecy. There's a big difference between secrecy and censorship.

Secrecy is a very important aspect of national security, and I wouldn't want to see it go away. That said, I want checks and balances to ensure that only things pertaining to national security are kept secret, and every other aspect of the government is kept transparent. I also want to make sure there are checks and balances to prevent a violation of citizens rights lumped in under national security secrets (like wiretaps of american citizens), and I want checks and balances to prevent a violation in inalienable human rights (like secret prisons) with the same premise as an excuse, but I sure have no problem with secret spy satellites. In fact, if I were an amateur astronomer who discovered said satellites, I would be morally against publicizing that information. I know other countries can look at the sky just as easily as I can, but I don't want to do their legwork for them. That said, if the astronomer in question doesn't have a problem with publicizing the information, I would have a problem with the government trying to shut him up. That would be censorship, not just secrecy. It's one of those "I disagree with what you're saying, but I will defend your right to say it" things.

In the case of Trevor Paglin, the article indicates that he knew where and when to find the satellites by looking at a database compiled by amateur astronomers. As far as I'm concerned, that doesn't classify as a "secret" anymore, other than the actual capabilities of the satellites. Therefore, I don't have a moral objection to it. In fact, I applaud all of his other work, which brings attention to those secret prisons I so despise.

Re:Censorship?

[prestonmichaelh]

I still don't really see why not admitting the satellites exist is censorship. What do we expect them to do? Publish when, where, and how each one will be launched, where it is in orbit, and what its function is? Obviously you can't hide a satellite, just like you can't fully hide any military base, but you can conceal the purpose so you don't if it is a laser from sky that can kill a person instantly, or just a decoy satellite that just beeps like sputnik. If you put enough of them up and assume that an enemy has a limited first strike capability (i.e. they can't shoot down all your satellites at once), then you increase your odds that your important ones might remain in case you get attacked (since they won't know exactly which ones to target and will just have to take educated guesses).

I am very opposed to the illegal wire taps, the constant invasion of privacy, and many other things that the government does, but I do think, in some cases, it is okay for the government to have secrets and for them to say "we can't talk about that" or "we don't know what you are talking about". Obviously finding that line, and making sure that a system of checks and balances stays in place so that things don't go to far is hard to do (we are screwing it up right now).

Re:Censorship?

[TrekkieGod]

That's a reasonable goal, but unfortunately it's impossible to achieve. Here's the problem: censors can't be accountable to the public, because by definition the details of exactly what was censored must be kept secret.

Realistically, you are correct (although I still object to your terminology. They're not "censors," they're people sworn to secrecy. They only become censors when they attempt to stop the free speech of those who were not sworn to keep the secrets but found out anyway). What I described was an ideal situation. Even if the goal is unreachable, if we all strive to achieve it, we can keep ourselves from straying too far from it.

What we have to our advantage is that there are a lot of people involved in all levels of government in order to make it work. Somebody who believes in a responsible government is bound to be included in every secret project, and when they do, they will be morally obliged to become whistle-blowers and leak the information.

The problem isn't that the "trusted committee" isn't accountable to the public, it's that these days the public just doesn't care. The secrets that threaten public control of the government do invariably get leaked. We know about the wiretaps. We know about the secret prisons. We know about the torture. The problem is that a lot of the public believes this behavior is acceptable. Instead of thanking the whistle-blowers who brought this to our attention, some people go as far as calling them traitors.

The bottom line, unfortunately, is that censorship, including the suppression of information for national security purposes, is incompatible with public control of the government.

You're right. Complete transparency of the government is incompatible with the ability to keep secrets. The alternative of keeping no secrets at all is to live with a foreign threat to our public control of the government. The fact that we're straying so far from what you called my "reasonable goal" is an inherent deficiency of a government under public control. When the public doesn't care, they fail to hold their government accountable, even when they do know about the secrets. However, the alternative to public control of the government is even worse. In the end, I prefer to strive to keep the balance. I accept that the government has to keep secrets even knowing that this interferes with the transparency I want from my government, and I accept to live in a democracy even knowing idiots get to vote.

news?

[Kohath]

I don't understand. What's newsworthy about this? Guy takes photos and displays them. He is not censored. No censorship was alleged.

He wants to make a statement about the parallel between himself being censored and something from 500 years ago. But he wasn't censored and there's really no parallel.

And this would be news if something had actually happened. Are we supposed to be pretend outraged at the imagined censorship that didn't happen? How is that different than the usual pretense to outrage that some folks engage in all the time?

Re:news?

[Thomas M Hughes]

My understanding was the exhibit was not about censorship. It was about looking at things that should not exist, and questioning the reasons why the establishment denies their existence. This can range from the moons of Jupiter or to satellites designed to spy on domestic affairs. His interest is not in the silencing, but in the denial.

Re:news?

[Archangel Michael]

Real censorship is truly chilling. Only it is called POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

Anything deemed "offensive" is removed, redacted, covered up, or otherwise stiffled. There are plenty of people who have, are having and will try to have others silenced for saying something that "offended" someone somewhere or another.

Why doesn't Tim Robbins actually speak against the REAL censorship attempts, rather than the nebulous versions he seems to see everywhere?

Re:news?

[Dutch Gun]

Real censorship is truly chilling. Only it is called POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. Political correctness is as unsightly to me as it is to many, but calling it "real censorship" is a bit of a stretch. In most countries with a guaranteed freedom of expression, you don't have a threat of imprisonment or worse hanging over your head. What's the worst that would happen if you said something politically incorrect? The consequences likely range from your co-workers and friends looking at you funny to actually losing your job in extreme cases (no, I'm not trivializing that). And nowadays, it's not all that hard to create a pseudonym on the 'net and spout off about anything you want to.
.
Call me crazy, but I'd rather put up with a societally-imposed politically correctness than a government-imposed suppression of my actual right to free speech. I think some of those that constantly cry censorship and oppression might have a different impression if they lived under a truly oppressive regime (insert Bush joke here for +funny/+insightful). I liken it to middle-class suburban kids who actually think they have it rough growing up. It's simply that they lack a broader perspective to appreciate how good they actually have it relative to most others, and unfortunately, many of those kids grow up into similarly-minded adults.
.
Also, why do my paragraphs munge together unless I put a character between them? I'm posting in text mode...

Re:news?

[Original Replica]

how loudly and how often they scream about censorship, the very act of which disproves their claims.

That would only hold true if they where screaming about complete censorship. For example, we know that at least 30,000 National Security Letters are issued every year since 2003, but we have no real idea what they are about because they all come attached to gag orders. So we know that the NSLs exist, but the content is censored, so oversight and accountability is impossible. In the case of the spy satellite photos, we know that they cost millions, if not billions of dollars, and that they exist, but that's it. Again no oversight, and no accountability.

It seems to me that there is was a great deal of oversight, balance, and accountability built into the early constitution because those things are one of the things that enables a truly democratic/representative government, as opposed to a democratic shell over a oligarchic government that holds the true power. That accountability has steadily eroded since the dawn of the Cold War and thus so has belief in our government. I'm not saying that voting does nothing, but I am saying that there a lot of very powerful, very well funded segments of our government that are untouchable (even indirectly) by the voting public. That is not government for the people, by the people; that is government in spite of the people. That is what the Left and the true Conservatives are complaining about when they bitch about government secrets.

Re:news?

[Archangel Michael]

you don't have a threat of imprisonment or worse hanging over your head No, you just lose your job for using the "N" word. No, you just lose your job for having a bible on your desk. Hell, you can lose your job for saying "Nappy Headed Ho's"

Censorship is censorship. It doesn't matter the "punishment" for it.

What's the worst that would happen if you said something politically incorrect? Why should ANYTHING happen? If I call someone a Retard or whatever, as insensitive as that may be, why should anything happen to me? Because someone's feelings were hurt? Golly Gee, that hurts my feelings. But my feelings don't matter, because I'm not a protected class. Golly Gee, that hurts my feelings again.

to actually losing your job in extreme cases (no, I'm not trivializing that) But you are. You're saying that just because it isn't Jail or Death it isn't censorship. Sorry, but it is.

Call me crazy, but I'd rather put up with a societally-imposed politically correctness than a government-imposed suppression of my actual right to free speech. When courts are used to suppress politically incorrect speech, it is no longer society, but rather government that is doing it. Every lawsuit used to suppress speech is using the government power to do it.

The problem is society does use government to suppress politically incorrect speech. So I see no difference between the two.

Re:Hmmm...

[ehiris]

It's clear that the CIA is working with Slashdot to cover up secret spy satellites that can penetrate tin foil.

Re:Guess someone or something ...

[lena_10326]

Saves them from having to use (and thus make public) that super laser which mr. Paglen claims to have a picture of, hehe

How did they get the sharks into space?

yawn!

[Anonymous Coward]

just another young'n who probably didn't know crap about politics prior to the patriot act is now trying to make it seem like we've gone from and open and free society to a modernized nazi germany in 7 years.

i just love the people who were never interested in politics now ranting on like they're experts and telling us how much worse things have gotten. if anything, the government is finally coming clean about what they were already doing for decades.

Re:Wait... I'm confused.

[lena_10326]

Is the US government trying to connect with the catholic church and claim the Earth is flat?

The Earth is flat. It's space that's curved.

Re:exhibit page offline

[sm62704]

After trying for the last... oh, a while, I finally gave in and clicked the link to the Wired Story in the hope that I'd see some of these pictures.

And they are censored - by the guy's stupid cheapassed telescope, long exposure times, etc! They sure are some impressive... um, streaks?

I think the Berkeley (hey I spelt it rite) server stopped working out of embarrassment. Now instead of wondering how Berkely got slashdotted, I'm wondering how the story got on slashdot at all (which I guess is still asking why it got slashdotted)

For once when I saw someone's subject line "nothing to see here" he wasn't kidding!

US Satellites?

[nonsequitor]

How does he know it is the US controlling a given satellite? I wonder if any DoD guys looked at the exhibit and said "Hey! That's not one of ours."

Re:Conspiracy Theory =/= Science

[meringuoid]

This fruitloop thinks he discovered 189 secret, artificial satellites in orbit? How does NASA plan its launches around them? How are commercial and GPS satellites launched without hitting them? How does Russia work on the ISS without noticing them? How is Europe going to get those Galileo sats up there with these "secret" ones flying around?

The USAF has its own launch capability; they buy the same rockets from the same contractors NASA does. Sometimes NASA launches these things themselves; the Shuttle has carried secret satellites from time to time. It's hard to hide a launch, but you can keep the nature of its payload a secret. So, you can identify Mystery Satellite #121 by radar and by telescope, but determining whose it is (the Russians certainly have their own and I'd be surprised if the French don't) and what it is capable of is another matter. And if you're not watching it 24 hours a day, it can manoeuvre onto a different orbit when you're not looking.

So revealing that he's found 189 satellites and publishing his photographs doesn't reveal much the government wants kept secret. Every serious rival nation already knows where these things are. If however someone published that 'Satellite #117 is a Model X SuperScryer made by Lockheed in 2002, operating in infrared frequency x with maximum angular resolution y, resolving objects on the ground to z centimetres, using the following highly classified technologies...' - now that would upset people.

And 189 isn't so large a number. It's not like Star Wars out there, with crowds of vehicles zipping past each other. Space is big, and empty, and spysats are not such big things. They orbit very low, the better to get a close look at the Earth's surface, while communications and GPS satellites are far above, to have line of sight to much wider areas. Collisions are very unlikely, and all concerned maintain an extremely careful radar watch on all orbits intersecting any manned vehicle.

Metaphorical?!

[kellyb9]

Wired says, 'In taking these photos, Paglen is trying to draw a metaphorical connection between modern government secrecy and the doctrine of the Catholic Church in Galileo's time.'" That's funny... I thought he was trying to draw a literal connection between himself and Guantanamo Bay.

That was...

[CBob]

Pointless. Some genius w/a camera takes pics of satellite tracks. Living in a semi-rural area, I can track eye visible satellites w/a bit of patience. I was hoping for something along the lines of a 16" (or larger) telescope getting pics like are seen often on http://www.spaceweather.com/ they even have a "simple" tracking program. http://www.heavens-above.com/ is a neat tool/toy as well. And if you REALLY wanted to know wtf that codename for that blob of light stood for , hit http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/index.html there's a search function. At one point, there was even one of the UFO "tracking sites" that had some interesting blurry shots of what were prob someone's elint arrays.

Two words : Hate Speech

[Shivetya]

Two more words: Hate Crimes

Sorry but the government has already acted. Instead of just being tried for a crime of aggression someone can be tried for what others think the perpetrator was thinking before and during the crime. There have been numerous cases in the press where a criminal case fell apart only to be followed with a "Hate Crime" trial that succeeded because the accusation is all so nebulous. Political Correctness run amok.

The courts already have been twisted into thought control. Yet it is nearly always biased in its application. There is no black and white in the definition of hate speech or hate crimes. Words used by one group become criminal while another group can use them with impunity. That is the very real world we live in today. Unfortunately too many people willingly accept this because they don't have the courage to stand up those who truly profess hate and instead want to wield the club of government to do it for them. Worse, they want to use that threat of government to manipulate and control the system.

The press is in it deep, consistently engaging in the same practice selectively changing context of stories to make the portrayal more offensive than it ever was. We are constantly bombarded by guilt, twisted phrases used to imply any opposing thought is not only wrong but criminal so.

Re:it didn't end well for galileo

[mdmkolbe]

Giordano Bruno was condemned because of his Theological beliefs. Galileo was just making scientifically unsound (and later proven false) claims.

Galileo was right that the Earth goes around the Sun, but he also wrongly insisted that it's orbit was circular (thus either introducing errors or necessitating the same epicycles that the geocentric model needed) and that tides were caused by the Earth's orbit and not the Moon. Further while his observations about the moons of Jupiter were insightful, he also mistook Saturn's rings for moons thus impugning the reliability of his Jupiter observations.

Galileo got a lot of things right, but he went about it in a very unscientific way (e.g. he wasn't critical enough of his own findings) that led to him also getting a lot of things wrong. Making mistakes is okay, but Galileo's wouldn't revise them when other academics pointed out their flaws. This eventually made enemies for him in the academic world which is eventually is what did him in.

Galileo did a number of great things. Just keep in mind that the version taught today is a censored one sided version of the story.