Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [63]
At 5-meter (15 feet) resolution, clarity improves dramatically. North Island and San Diego International Airport are visible, as are rows of boats in the marinas and wakes of boats in the bay. Taller buildings in downtown San Diego can be seen at upper center. Shadows indicate this image was taken in mid- to late morning.
At 4-meter resolution (12 feet), individual buildings and streets can be seen, along with each boat m the mannas. At the bottom, a cruise ship is docked at the terminal. Individual cars can be seen in the parking lot above the piers.
At 1-meter (39 inch) resolution, each building stands out. Individual cars are seen in parking lots and streets. Railroad tracks are visible on a diagonal at the top right, as are paths and small groups of trees in the Embarcadero Marine Park, just below the marina at the upper right. Photos courtesy of Space Imaging, Inc.
THE NEED FOR PHOTO INTERPRETERS
Two incidents underscore the difficulty of interpreting even not-so-subtle images A convincing sign of planned Soviet missile deployments in Cuba in 1962 was an image of a peculiar road pattern called “the Star of David” because of its resemblance to that religious symbol. To the untrained eye it looked like an odd road interchange, but trained U.S. photo interpreters recognized it as a pattern they had seen before—in Soviet missile fields Without explaining the image, and perhaps without showing photos of Soviet missile fields, interpreters could have faced ridicule from policy makers
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Cuba was sending expeditionary forces to various parts of the Third World, newly constructed baseball fields indicated their arrival. To understand the significance of these fields, policy makers need to know that Cuban troops play baseball for recreation. Interpreters would have to supply supporting analysis, perhaps a note explaining how serious Cubans take baseball, to avoid being dismissed out of hand New fields, in this case, could have meant large troop concentrations
An ancillary effect of the purchase of commercial imagery was to circumvent the shutter control issue. The United States can impose shutter control over commercial satellites operated by U.S. companies for reasons of national security. Concerns arose that civil liberties groups or the news media would mount a legal challenge to an assertion of shutter control, the outcome of which was uncertain. By simply purchasing the imagery, NIMA avoided the entire issue. (The French Ministry of Defense banned the sale of SPOT images of the Afghan war zone. The French commercial satellite SPOT has a 10-meter resolution.)
Increased use of commercial imagery to support intelligence has become official U.S. intelligence policy. In June 2002, DCI Tenet ordered that commercial imagery would be “the primary source of data for government mapping,” with government satellites to be used for this purpose only in “exceptional circumstances.” Tenet had two goals: to reserve higher resolution satellites for collection tasks more demanding than map making and to provide a base for a continuing U.S. commercial satellite capability. This policy was expanded in April 2003, when President George W. Bush signed a directive stating that the United States would rely on commercial imagery “to the maximum practical extent” for a wider range of requirements: “military, intelligence, foreign policy, homeland security and civil uses.” Again, U.S. government systems are to be reserved for the more demanding collection tasks.
In addition to shutter control, the U.S. government reserves the right to limit collection and dissemination of commercial imagery. (The secretary of commerce regulates and licenses the U.S. commercial imagery industry. The secretaries of state and defense determine policy with regard to protecting national security and foreign policy concerns.)