Domestic assets are also threatened by the proliferation of remotely sensed imagery. Should imagery of reservoirs, nuclear plants, or other critical infrastructure fall into the wrong hands, the U.S. might be more susceptible to an effective terrorist attack at home. The potential terrorist threats posed by dissemination of this information are evidenced by a number of post-September 11 U.S. government actions: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which had provided to the public detailed information such as longitude and latitude coordinates of 103 nuclear plants, engineering schematics of the plants, and aerial photographs, shut down its entire website in October 2001; the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission removed thousands of documents from its Internet site, including "detailed information on hydropower plants, natural gas and oil pipelines ... and other critical infrastructure"; the U.S. Geological Survey's Associate Director for Water ordered 335 federal depository libraries across the country to destroy all copies of a CD-ROM that "provided information about water sources, such as dams and reservoirs, including maps of their locations." As the war on terror is fought on both domestic and foreign soil, the issue becomes whether certain remotely sensed images so compromise U.S. security interests that they should be kept off the market, and if so, given the global proliferation of remote sensing technology, how this can best be accomplished.

---

Prober, Raphael. "Shutter Control: Confronting Tomorrow's Technology with Yesterday's Regulations." Journal of Law and Politics. Vol. 19 (Spring 2003): 203-251. [ 5 quotes ] [ page 217-8 ]