NOAA Requires License For Photos of the Earth

Teancum writes "In an interesting show of the level of regulations private spacecraft designers have to go through, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has demanded that American participants of the Google Lunar X Prize obtain a license if their spacecraft are 'capable of actively or passively sensing the Earth's surface, including bodies of water, from space by making use of the properties of the electromagnetic waves emitted, reflected, or diffracted by the sensed objects.' What prompted NOAA to ask for this license came from a visit by the XPrize staff to the NOAA offices in Maryland. What is going to happen when 'space tourists' bring their private cameras along for the ride?"

Comments

Absurd!

[vivaoporto]

As if RIAA and MPAA weren't enough, now this NOAA: Who's come next, AAA?

Re:Absurd!

[brxndxn]

As if RIAA and MPAA weren't enough, now this NOAA: Who's come next, AAA?

That's why I'm in AA.

Re:Absurd!

[philspear]

What the heck is the NOAA going to do to stop me from taking pictures from my spaceship? Try and arrest me, I'm in space, bitches!!!

Notice from NOAA to Lunar X Prize Participants

[xmas2003]

Here's the letter from NOAA to the Lunar X participants that outlines how this is pursuent to the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992 - says it may take up to 120 days to obtain the license - think about that before you take your first picure! ;-)

In the meantime, you can use existing satellite photos to image your house and here's a cool way to get a nifty Earth view.

Re:Notice from NOAA to Lunar X Prize Participants

[Plazmid]

Well then, looks like the winner of the Lunar X Prize won't launch in the US, and probably won't start a business here either.

Re:Notice from NOAA to Lunar X Prize Participants

[ryanisflyboy]

Here is a link to the act itself:

http://geo.arc.nasa.gov/sge/landsat/15USCch82.html

It looks like the purpose is to protect the commercial interests of private space companies. If all the sudden people are launching rockets and giving away the data for free, that hurts space commerce. The goal here, again, is commercial. They want to create a commercial space enterprise. So while that sector is growing Uncle Sam is going to protect it.

Because they have a policy of being "nondiscriminatory" they have to either charge everyone, or charge no one.

However, one could argue that if your goal is non-commercial this wouldn't apply to you.

This policy probably had good intentions, but is now very out of date.

Re:Notice from NOAA to Lunar X Prize Participants

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It looks like the purpose is to protect the commercial interests of private space companies. If all the sudden people are launching rockets and giving away the data for free, that hurts space commerce. ... This policy probably had good intentions, but is now very out of date.

Saying "if other people make money doing X, we're going to pass a law preventing you from doing X for free" never has good intentions. It can only be a favor to existing commercial interests in return for their lining politicians' pockets.

Re:Notice from NOAA to Lunar X Prize Participants

[jcwayne]

I, for one, never welcomed our road to hell paving overlords.

Re:Notice from NOAA to Lunar X Prize Participants

[yndrd1984]

Saying "if other people make money doing X, we're going to pass a law preventing you from doing X for free" never has good intentions.

Of course it does! Outlawing designated drivers forces people to use taxis, which helps the economy. Only allowing only professional movers to take furniture in and out of houses prevents injuries to out-of-shape people. And of course, making every babysitter get registered as a state-certified child care provider would reduce the risk of harm to the children, and would also keep for-profit day cares in business, which means more jobs.

See, nothing but good intentions!

Re:Notice from NOAA to Lunar X Prize Participants

[Logic and Reason]

What's scary is that I can't tell if you're serious.

Re:Notice from NOAA to Lunar X Prize Participants

[k33l0r]

I'd call that a broken window fallacy.

Re:Notice from NOAA to Lunar X Prize Participants

[tricorn]

Actually, the interest seems to be in PROMOTING it by making it available and regulating it so it is not a free-for-all, not "protecting it" it the way you're saying. There certainly needs to be SOME regulation, you don't want people sending up satellites in any-old-orbit, transmitting on any-old-frequency, shining laser lights down at your favorite observatory, or whatever...

Without such regulations, you'd be in a situation where they'd probably simply prohibit all such activities. Regulations like this are designed to PERMIT things to happen, while retaining enough control that it isn't chaotic. I didn't see any reference in the regulations to a fee for such a license.

The regulations in this part are intended to:
(1) Preserve the national security of the United States;
(2) Observe the foreign policies and international obligations of the United States;
(3) Advance and protect U.S. national security and foreign policy interests by maintaining U.S. leadership in remote sensing space activities, and by sustaining and enhancing the U.S. remote sensing industry;
(4) Promote the broad use of remote sensing data, their information products and applications;
(5) Ensure that unenhanced data collected by licensed private remote sensing space systems concerning the territory of any country are made available to the government of that country upon its request, as soon as such data are available and on reasonable commercial terms and conditions as appropriate;
(6) Ensure that remotely sensed data are widely available for civil and scientific research, particularly environmental and global change research; and
(7) Maintain a permanent comprehensive U.S. government archive of global land remote sensing data for long-term monitoring and study of the changing global environment.

As for the space tourist taking along a camera, that's not "remote sensing".

Wow

[jrwr00]

Um, Wow i didnt think you could copyright THE EARTH.. What next? The Moon!

Re:Wow

[dattaway]

Um, Wow i didnt think you could copyright THE EARTH.. What next? The Moon!

I'm sorry, but the Moon is a registered trademark according to the USPTO. Seriously. 9482 entries with "Moon"

Re:Wow

[sumdumass]

Actually, almost all countries with a space program have a similar rule/law. They want to know who is taking images of potentially secrete spots like military bases or missile silos and what they will be used for. Almost all commercial satellites had to go through this too. The 1992 law is just the recent carnation of it. The previous act which was in 1984 or so maintained that the government owned all private satellites with these capabilities and held the potential to censor images. Before the 1984 act, there wasn't to many commercial satellites with this capability.

This is actually part of the import/export controls on technology (ITAR). Any company under US jurisdiction wanting to mess with a satellite or anything going into space has to deal with it. It isn't hard to do but it does require time and a little amount of effort. The reason NOAA contacted participants of the Google Xprize program is because they didn't seem to be aware of it. But any launch authorization will require a statement to these capabilities and if present, a permit of any part of the company is connected to US jurisdiction.

I imagine as private space flight and tourism becomes more available, the laws will be changed someone to make it a: more apparent and b: to accommodate new demands from these flights and their passengers.

What will happen?

[The Man]

Well, in order to understand what will happen with this sort of thing, one first needs to understand why so many banks are headquartered in Bermuda, Macao, Jersey, and Guernsey and why shipping companies are so often headquartered in the Marshall Islands. Once you understand that, you'll know the outcome of US policy on private space travel.

Re:What will happen?

[urcreepyneighbor]

If Cuba ever gets its act together, it could become the hub of private space.

Naming rights

[Enderandrew]

That's the Budweiser Moon© now, they paid for the naming rights.

Secrecy to the nth absurd

[twatter]

The Space sensing act of when??

Is the US government the only entity that can image the planet from orbit?

What, are they scared I might take a photo of the aliens in Area51?

And what if I'm snapping away at Africa? Australia?

Do I go to jail or what??

Ridiculous.

Re:Secrecy to the nth absurd

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not ridiculous at all.
when you think about it, taking a photo of the earth from space isn't (conceptually) any different from walking into a store a stealing a CD.

And this

[Bananatree3]

Here's the direct language of the bill

It's a privacy thing.

[Shaitan Apistos]

I can totally understand this, If my Florida was flapping in the breeze I wouldn't want people taking snapshots either.

This is actually for real

[Steve1952]

This is actually for real. See:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c102:1:./temp/~c1029W3AOE:e25773:

SEC. 202. CONDITIONS FOR OPERATION.

(a) LICENSE REQUIRED FOR OPERATION- No person who is subject to the jurisdiction or control of the United States may, directly or through any subsidiary or affiliate, operate any private remote sensing space system without a license pursuant to section 201.

(b) LICENSING REQUIREMENTS- Any license issued pursuant to this title shall specify that the licensee shall comply with all of the requirements of this Act and shall--

(1) operate the system in such manner as to preserve the national security of the United States and to observe the international obligations of the United States in accordance with section 506;

(2) make available to the government of any country (including the United States) unenhanced data collected by the system concerning the territory under the jurisdiction of such government as soon as such data are available and on reasonable terms and conditions;

(3) make unenhanced data designated by the Secretary in the license pursuant to section 201(e) available in accordance with section 501;

(4) upon termination of operations under the license, make disposition of any satellites in space in a manner satisfactory to the President;

(5) furnish the Secretary with complete orbit and data collection characteristics of the system, and inform the Secretary immediately of any deviation; and

(6) notify the Secretary of any agreement the licensee intends to enter with a foreign nation, entity, or consortium involving foreign nations or entities.

Re:This is actually for real

[baby_robots]

It seems like it would be hard to enforce jurisdiction in space when we don't even have jurisdiction 10 miles off our coastline.

Close your eyes!

[Anonymous Coward]

That would seem to include eyesight. I guess everyone will need to fly blind.

And people wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of the world is nowadays inclined to treat american laws with a huge "fuck you".

Seriously, the russians (already doing it) and - god help us all - the british (virgin) are the ones already strongly involved in private space tourism. America sucks so much these days.

Definition of 'land remote sensing'

[ribit]

Definition 5 from the regulations: "The term 'land remote sensing' means the collection of data which can be processed into imagery of surface features of the Earth from an unclassified satellite or satellites, other than an operational United States Government weather satellite." It appears to only apply to 'satellites'?

I say screw em

[CrazyJim1]

What are they gonna do, shoot down your satellites? Doubtful. They have NO AA.

In the Soviet States of America......

[budword]

All Soviet jokes aside, anyone notice how much the United States is resembling more and more the old school buffoons of the USSR ? It was illegal to possess accurate maps in the old USSR, to protect state secrets. Now we have the US claim you need a license to take a picture of the earth. It's just a 21st century version of screaming, "Papers Please". I for one, don't hail our old overlords.

NOAA is the good guys

[daemonburrito]

This is law, and is totally out of the control of NOAA.

I've done a lot of work with NOAA and NOAA datasets and this sort of thing happens a lot, because of businesses who believe that "the government should not be in the business of distributing data". Predictably, they lobby congress. FWIW, I've witnessed NOAA passively resist this bullshit as much as they can.

BTW, if you find this sort thing disgusting (as I do), stop going to weather.com and accu-weather. They are the worst offenders. Every couple of years they try to shut down NOAA ftp servers so they can be the gatekeepers of taxpayer-funded data (like maps).

This law, in particular, is a piece of a strategy that didn't work in the early 90s, thanks in large part to career people at NOAA. They got this law passed, but they weren't able to shut down the ftp servers.

Please don't blame the NOAA people. Blame the businesses like weather.com and accu-weather, and blame a bribable congress.

Planting the Flag in the New World

[Original Replica]

It seems like it would be hard to enforce jurisdiction in space

But that's really the whole point you see; extending government jurisdiction into space. Suppose Virgin Galactic builds a space hotel, is it an independent nation? A privately owned holding not subject to any man made laws? What about 100 years from now, I'm sure the governments of Earth would prefer to have control over Lunar He3 resources. To do that they need to start slowly establishing authority in space. Next, any space hotel will be declared to be under the control of the home nation of the corporation that builds/operates it. Then that nation just expands it's sphere of influence in the name of security,exploration and manifest destiny. Really it's just a land grab.

Re:Space is International territory

[Dredd13]

Space is by definition a international territory. As such the laws that NOAA sites don't apply in space (they do in the U.S but not in space).

True, but a US citizen/corporation can be punished (whether this is "morally right" or not I am not debating) for actions they take outside the country.

For example, if a US citizen travels to Cuba and spends money "in Cuban jurisdiction", the law forbidding the spending of money in Cuba is not "in effect" because the US doesn't run Cuba, but when the US citizen gets back on home soil, you can bet that los federales will want a word with them.

It's only a matter of time before Americans begin getting busted for "driving too fast" on the Autobahn, or "inhaling illicit materials" in Amsterdam.

But, if you're a US citizen, these are the laws you've allowed yourself to be subject to, stupid as they are.