MEDIA USE OF SATELLITES (WALL ST. JOURNAL - 2 JULY 86)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90B01390R000100070018-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 6, 2012
• Sequence Number: 18
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/06: CIA-RDP90B01390R000100070018-3
CONFIDENTIAL
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UDAC 86-017
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
THROUGH: Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
Director, Intelligence Community Staff
Deputy Director, Intelligence Community Staff
Director, CCISCMS
FROM:
Chief, Unauthorized Disclosures Analysis Center
SUBJECT: Media Use of Satellites (Wall St. Journal - 2 July 86)
Attached, for your information,is a Wall Street Journal story describing
possible future use of commercial surveillance satellites by the news media.
It predicts serious conflicts between national security interests and freedom
of the press. The article suggests the media, through use of news satellites,
could "blow the cover on covert US activities around the world."
Attachment
CONFIDENTIAL
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/06 : CIA-RDP90B01390R000100070018-3
?-81-00L0001-00n106?1,0806dCll-V10 90/1 /ZL.O eSe3i3i .104 panaiddv Ado Paz!l!ueS - 4-led u! PeWsseloaCI
SS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1986
POLITICS AND POLICY
Satellites May Give Journalists Powerful Tool,
Lead to Showdown on National Security Issue
By LAU= McGunar
Staff Reporter of Taut Mau. glum. JOURNAL
WASHINGTON?For the press, it's the
ultimate telephoto lens. For governments.
It may be the ultimate headache in control-
ling information.
Commercial space surveillance, once
used almost exclusively by farmers, urban
planners and geologists, has begun giving
Journalists entree into inaccessible and re-
stricted areas. With remote-sensing tech-
nology improving ralndlY, analysts say.
news organizations in years to come are
certain to step up their use of "space-
cams" to reach (ar-flung spots and to un-
earth state secrets.
Media Eye in the Sky
The journalistic advantages of using
these civilian satellites are obvious. In
many instances. Including the Falklands
War and the U.S. invasion of Grenada, the
press Was forced to rely heavily on official
mermen account& But scoops from
space also raise a hest of thorny ques-
tions?and the specter of a collision be-
tween national security interests and the
First Amendment. "There is no question."
says Rep. George Brown, (D., Calif.), a
member of the House space science sub.
Committee and the Select Committee on
Intelligence, "that you would run up
against some very serious problems very
quickly."
Two commercial reconnaissance satel-
lite systems already orbit the globe?the
new. French SPOT satellite, and the older
The Two Satellites
SPOT LANDSAT
Reselution Objects larger Objects larger
than 30 feet than 100 feet
Prices for
Images $165 to $2.55o $50 to $3,300
Coverage 1,30013,000
square miles square miles
Special Printable lens. More spectral
features stereoscopic bands for
image agricultural.
geologic um
Launched Feb. 21.1006 July ZS, 1972
Orbit Polar. 493 mi. Polar, 438 mi.
from earth from earth
American standby. Landsat?and both
made a big splash this spring by supplying
the first news pictures of the Chernobyl nu-
clear disaster. Many analysts predict that
It's just a matter of time before the media
launch their own eye in the sky. ?
"It's bound to happen." asserts Hans-'
field Turner, director of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency during the Carter Adminis-
tration.
John McWethy. who covers national se-
curity issues for ABC News, agrees.
"Sooner or later." be says. "a conglomer-
ate of U.S. news organizations will try to
put up its own satellite."
In the meantime, the media is relying
more heavily on existing satellites, which
use sensors to measure the sun's reflec-
tions on the earth and then transmit the
Images to earth-receiving stations. ABC
News has used Landsat pictures for a num-
ber of stories In the past two years. Includ-
ing one on the closed Soviet city of Mur-
mansk. The 14-year-old satellite system.
which was built and operated by the U.S.
government, gradually is being turned
over to a private company, Earth Observa-
tion Satellite Co.. jointly owned by Hughes
Aircraft Co. and RCA Corp. and based in
Landover. Md.
National Security Implications
More exciting from the news media's
standpoint is Systeme Probatoire d'Obser-
vation de la Terre (SPOT), a satellite
owned by government and private Inter-
ests in France. Belgium and Sweden.
Launched in February, it can detect im-
ages as small as half the size of a tennis
court?a quantum leap over Landsat. By
using SPOT, Mr. McWethy says, "we will
be able to monitor military-force buildups
at sea, on the ground, anywhere in the
world with great precision." The implice,
dons for national security, he adds. are
"horrendous."
Paul Stares, a research associate at the
Brookings Institution who specializes in the
military aspects of space, calls the poten-
tial impact of an increased media presence
In space "absolutely mind-boggling."
Eventually, he notes, news organizations
could corrobate or refute information put
out by governments, peek in on activities
behind the Iron Curtain and possibly "blow
the cover on covert U.S. activities around
the world."
What if. for example, a satellite news
photograph revealed a military buildup on
one side or the other of the iran-Iraq bor-
der? Or threw cold water on a White House
charge that the Soviets were installing
missiles in Nicaragua? Or showed a U.S.
fleet assembling off the coast of Libya? "It
will be one more way," says David Martin,
who covers the Pentagon for CBS News,
"for the cat to get out of the bag."
Such developments, to be sure, are
down the road. Building and launching a
"mediasat" would cost hundreds of mil-
lions of dollars and take several years;'
there aren't any plans on the drawing
boards.
Satellites Have Drawbacks
Using SPOT and Landsat, meanwhile,
has its own drawbacks, from the media's
viewpoint. Both systems produced Cherno-
byl pictures just hours after the images
were recorded, but the companies say they
don't plan such quick turnaround often be-
cause it holds up other work. The normal
turnaround is several weeks?enough for
almost any story to cool off. Moreover,
even with SPOT's superior resolution, it is
often hard for the untrained eye to know
what the pictures show. "You have to be
told what you are looking at," says Mr.
Martin, who expresses some skepticism
about using satellites as a news tool.
"They look like abstract art."
Nevertheless, the intelligence commu-
nity already is quietly fretting about jour-
nalistic snooping from space, although offi-
cials at the Pentagon and the Central Intel-
ligence Agency refuse to discuss it publicly
In any detail. CIA director William Casey,
In an April speech to the American Society
of Newspaper Editors, voiced some con-
cern, but said he expected the media
would eventually lofts satellite and added,
"We try to live with it and we do what we
can to protect our interests."
For their part, the news media are
working to try to ensure that the same
free-press principles that apply on earth
also apply in space. Anyone in the U.S,
who wants to build and launch a satellite
must get licenses from the government.
and a media task force organized by the
Radio-Television News Directors Associa-
tion wants to make sure that such licenses
can be denied only in the case of a clear
danger to U.S. security. Members of the
task force include the American Society of
Newspaper Editors. the National Associa-
tion of Broadcasters and the American
Newspaper Publishers Association.
"We want to be free to take pictures
whenever and wherever we can," says
Mark Brender, head of the task force and
an assignment editor for ABC News, Mr.
Brenda: who is exploring the economic
feasibility of the media launching. their::'.
own satellite, notes that if U.S. regnisting4.!
of domestic satellites proves to be too ceer- .
ova,- news organizations always have the ?
option of going abroad..for their satellite.
pictures, or for the satellites themselves.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/06: CIA-RDP90B01390R000100070018-3
CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: Media Use of Satellites (Wall St. Journal - 2 July 1986)
Prepared by: C/UDAC
Distribution:
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D/OCA, w/att
1 - D/PAO, w/att
1 - D/Security/CIA, w/att
1 - NIO/FDIA, w/att
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CONFIDENTIAL
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/06: CIA-RDP90B01390R000100070018-3 .