PHOTO SATELLITES FOR MEDIA WORRY INTELLIGENCE BRASS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B00443R002004470058-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 58
• Publication Date: August 11, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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EXECUTIVE SEC TARIAT
ROUTING SUP
Compt
X15 Aug 86
Date
Remarks To 5: Please provide response to DCI
question.
STAT
STAT
Executive Secretary
12 Aug 86
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Office of Current Pr' )duction and. Ana13 1c.I
CIA Operations Center
News Bulletin: The Washington Times, Page 1A
86- 3665
11 August 1986 STAT
Item go. 2
Photo satellites for media
worry intelligence brass.
By Warren Strobel
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Allen W. Dulles, one of a handful of government of-
ficials who got to see the photographs brought back by
the first U-2 spyplanes in the 1950s, was astonished by
what the U-2's cameras could recognize from 68,000 feet
- and above.
"I was able;' the first director of the Central Intel-
ligence Agency boasted in an interview, "to get a look at
every blade of grass in the Soviet Union"
Nearly 30 years and one Soviet nuclear accident later,
every field - albeit not every blade of grass - is becom-
ing familiar to a group whose mention would have sur-
prised anyone connected to the intelligence agencies or
the government in the days when spies-in-the-sky were
first developed: the nation's newsgathering organiza-
tions.
Now it's not spy planes the editors want, but satellites.
Spurred by the 1984 commercialization of the U.S.
LANDSAT satellite system and the February launch of
France's SPOT imaging satellite, reporters and editors
are looking with increasing seriousness at the prospect
of gathering news from space.
National security issues, not technology, stand in their
way.
What had been vague stirrings were galvanized in
early May when the Soviet's Chernobyl nuclear power
plant began to melt down.
In what might well be remembered as a watershed in
the history of news satellites, newspapers and networks
barred from the Ukraine eagerly snapped up pictures
of the smoldering reactor from first LANDSAT and then
more detailed images from SPOT
The news media comes along and says, 'We need to
see Chernobyl and we can't see it, " said David S. Julyan.
vice president of sales and marketing for SPOT Image
Corp. "And we say, 'Great, we'll show it to you."'
At a recent hearing of a House science and technology
subcommittee, conservative Rep. Robert Walker articu-
lated what many reporters and editors have been
thinking.
"You really do change the nature of news gathering in
the world;' the Pennsylvannia Republican said. "You lit-
erally could cover riots in South Africa using remote
sensing technology. And if the South African govern-
ment didn't like it, so what?"
But the implications of private satellites with remote-
sensing capabilities - a catch-all term for sensors that
view the earth from space - broadcasting detailed im-
ages to millions of American homes were not lost on the
intelligence community.
A former CIA official who viewed SPOT's Chernobyl
pictures said, according to one source, he was "not used
to seeing pictures like that outside the agency"
As the circle of information reserved for Defense
Department officials and political leaders grows
smaller, the prospect of an electronic reporter orbiting
the globe could spark a battle among giants.
- -- --- "There are strong barriers and vested interests that.
in my opinion, have to be accommodated somehow," said
STAT
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Frederick B. Henderson III, pres-
ident of the GEOSAT committee,
which promotes commercial use of
remote-sensing technology.
"All those things ultimately will
have to be ruled on by the courts" he
said.
Some see a "MEDIASAT" as a
threat; others, as the greatest ad-
vance in reporting technology since
the typewriter.
"For me as a news gatherer, the
logical next step is to put a camera
into space" said Mark Breeder, an
ABC News assignment editor and
chairman of the Radio-'Iblevsion
News Directors Association's Media
in Space Committee.
Mr. Brender is spearheading an
effort to modify two 1984 laws which
regulate private satellite launches.
"'Ib me, it's plain as day that sys-
tems like this will be operating in the
public's interest around the world:'
he said. "The'Model T' technology is
floating over our heads right now -
SPOT and LANDSAT"
ABC News alone has broadcast
satellite pictures of Chernobyl, New
York harbor, Libyan airfields and So-
viet naval bases near Murmansk.
Last Monday night, CBS and ABC
aired SPOT images showing new ac-
tivity at a nuclear test facility in the
Soviet Union, which has a unilateral
moratorium on nuclear weapons
testing.
"Can the media get into arms con-
trol verification?"asks Mr. Brender.
SPOT and EOSAT, the joint ven-
ture that runs the two-satellite
LANDSAT system for the U.S. gov-
ernment, both adhere to a principle
of space law accepted by most West-
ern nations. Called "open skies:' it
generally allows one nation to take
pictures of another from space.
"We will provide any image of
anything in the world to anybody
who asks for it and can pay the com-
mercial rate:' Mr. Julyan said.
Such statements raise the specter
of a news broadcast, perhaps of
troops massing along the Iran-Iraq
border, aiding one side or the other.
Said Mr. Brender: "I don't care
who it helps. It's news"
That worties Stansfield Turner, a
retired admiral and former CIA di-
rector.
"It certainly would if it was the
US. lining up for the attack" Adm.
Turner said. "We certainly don't
want the American media leading to
the death of American soldiers or
the defeat of the American army."
Mr. TLrner advocates establishing
an 'open skies agency' that would
filter declassified intelligence satel-
lite photographs to the public.
B? he conceded that a media-
owr. satellite is virtually inevita-
ble - a judgment echoed by dozens
of individuals in academia, industry,
the news media and government.
"Oh, I don't think there's anything
we can do about it," CIA Director
William Casey told the American So-
ciety of Newspaper Editors in April.
"I expect that large news organiza-
tions will have one of those satellites
themselves one of these days"
The real question may not be
whether a media satellite exists, but
bow well it "sees"
Remote-sensing satellites do not
take photographs, but measure elec-
tromagnetic energy emanating or
reflected from the Earth,.handing
over the digitalized data to comput-
ers which form a "picture"
A satellite that can distinguish
fine details of a jet fighter sitting on
a runway poses more of a national
security quandary than one that can
merely see the U.S. Capitol. .
At a meeting three years ago to
discuss LANDSAT's commercializa-
tion, Defense Department officials
said any commercial satellite which
could distinguish objects less than
10 meters square would not receive
a license because of "national secu-
rity concerns' according to Mr.
Henderson, who attended the meet-
ing.
A secret presidential directive re-
portedly authorizes a 10-meter limit
for civilian remote-sensing satel-
lites, although Mr. Julyan and
EOSAT President Chuck Williams
deny knowledge of it.
Currently, sensors on the LAND-
SAT satellite can recognize any
object 30 meters square. SPOT, or-
biting 517 miles above the earth, has
a 10-meter resolution in black-and-
white and a 20-meter resolution in
color
by contrast, the resolution .,f
military reconaissance satellite sen-
sors, although classified, is reputed
to be in the inches.
"It's not so much a question of spy
satellite for hire as it is of taking
today's technology and using it to ex-
pand public knowledge of the entire
globe:' said Mr. Julyan. "And I don't
have any problem with that.
Ironically, it is two 1984 laws
aimed at commercializing the
remote-sensing and space launch in-
dustries that could restrict what
type of system the media - or any-
one else - puts into orbit.
The Land Remote-Sensing Com-
mercialization Act of 1984 and the
Commercial Space Launch Act al-
low the commerce and
transportation secretaries, respec-
tively, to withhold satellite and space
launch licenses on the grounds of
national security - a term that is
undefined in the legislation.
Mr. Brender calls them "some
amazing prohibitions that just reek
with prior restraint"
"The Supreme Court has made it
clear that the First Amendment pro-
report 1 +ews, but also its right to
gather the news;' spokesmen for the
radio-TV news directors and other
news organizations wrote in a letter
to the Commerce Department's Na-
tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-
ministration.
A similar letter - both were de-
signed to influence the torturous
federal tole-making process - was
sent to the 'D ansportation Depart-
ment. That department has modi-
fied its rules somewhat; NOAA has
yet to respond.
"The question really seems to be
one of when you are talking about
First Amendment rights and when
you are talking about access to par-
ticular equipment or installations:'
said NOAA lawyer John Milholland.
"lb what extent does denial of a li-
cense or restriction of a license ...
in effect amount to restriction of the
press?"
"If there are national security
concerns, that has to be primary"
said Rep. Bill Nelson, Florida Demo-
crat. Mr. Nelson's House Science
and Thchnology space subcommit-
tee is considering holding fall hear-
ings on the subject.
In the meantime, Mr. Julyan pre-
dicts - and hopes - that media use
of his systems will continue to grow.
"I very purposely look for tomor-
row's news stories that have remote-
sensing applications and program
the ( satellite's] computer" to retrieve
an image, he said. "If the Great Salt
Lake floods to the point it becomes a
news item, we will have ready, not
that day's shot, but an image"
But Mr. Julyan concedes that
SPOT - which can view every point
on the earth each three and a half
days - was not designed with news
deadlines and events like Chernobyl
in mind.
"We.jumped on it and diverted all
of our resources to acquiring, pro-
cessing and distributing that image:'
he said. "It really requires an event
of the Chernobyl type to do that.
A MEDIASAT system, estimated
to cost as much as $300 million,
would need faster processing of im-
ages and the ability to get to a given
location more rapidly.
"The design would be different,
the constraints on the system would
be different," said Carl F Schueler, a
former engineer at the Hughes Air-
craft Coss Space Sensors lab, which
designed LANDSAT's sensors.
"If they're willing to put up
enough satellites, pay enough
money, you could in principle get
global coverage "he said.
"There have been some initial ex-
ploratory discussions" about buil-
ding satellite sensors for the media,
said Aram Mika, manager of the
Hughes lab.
And there is one final concern.
"There is this Orwellian business
about remote sensing:' said GEO-
SAT's Mr. Henderson. "There's al-
ways that fear in all of us.... Would
you like somebody monitoring
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"This is a real technology of free-
dom. But some will look at it as a
technology of terror," Mr. Brender
said. "I would hope the public would
view this as the next logical frontier
for journalism to cross ... an en-
tirely new source of information for
their good"
Mr. Brender's is concerned less
with public acceptance than with
whether freedom of the press will go
into space - aboard a sensor-
carrying satellite or aboard the shut-
tle if the stalled journalist-in-space
program is revived.
"In an environment where there
is no law," he said, "precedence is
everything."
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