Re: That's why they call them Smart

[Ken K <kenkagawa@hotmail.com>]

"UNCOVERING KILLINGS
Hinderstein said that in addition to eyewitness accounts and interviews on 
the ground, satellite photos would be a critical tool in uncovering mass 
killings.

"Satellite imagery is an arrow in our quiver," she said. "There can now be 
some accountability to the statements and conclusions that governments and 
international institutions were making that in the past the public could not 
have independent judgment on."

There are also constraints in the use of satellite images. The U.S. 
government has the authority to shut down a satellite system if it feels 
that national security or foreign obligations may be compromised.

The United States has never invoked that provision, dubbed shutter control. 
But during the 2001 war in Afghanistan, the government spent about $9 
million to buy all of Space Imaging's satellite time and images of 
Afghanistan and Pakistan during a two-month period.

Mapping agency spokeswoman Joan Mears said the agency had a limited database 
on that area and needed to build one fast for Operation Enduring Freedom. 
But critics led by the Radio-Television News Directors Association, which 
represents major broadcast networks, blasted the move, calling it "checkbook 
shutter control."

"It was censorship by other means," said Dan Dubno, a CBS-TV news producer 
and chairman of the association's committee on satellite imaging issues.

The association has been pushing the government to junk its policy and apply 
accepted rules that bar prior restraint on the media.

Dubno said U.S. military authorities have assured the media that there will 
be no attempts to suppress satellite images in a potential war in Iraq, 
which should allow for better news coverage.

"An independent camera in international air space will give the world the 
ability to understand what's going on," he said. "It's harder to cover up a 
genocide. It's harder to cover up a refugee crisis. It's harder to cover up 
storage of chemical or biological weapons. The more eyes that can look at 
the Earth, the safe and the saner a world we'll have." "

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/03/17/BU251323.DTL

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