I wonder what the criteria are for screening clients for this type of data?

December 4, 2000 9:17 AM

I wonder what the criteria are for screening clients for this type of data? "The Ikonos high-resolution satellite technology is ideally suited to meet the current and future high-resolution needs of the Turkish Government," said Ed Irvin, director of commercial remote sensing programs for Lockheed Martin.
posted by rushmc (2 comments total)

Satellites like Ikonos are the proverbial two-edged sword for the intelligence community. They can provide remote sensing information to governments that don't have their own spy satellites, which may or may not be a good thing. On the other hand, since the information they collect is available to the public, we're now able to see things the public never had access to before.
posted by Aaaugh! at 11:39 AM on December 4, 2000

Don't forget, rush, that Turkey may be a largely Muslim nation, but it has a secular democracy and is a member of NATO and thus a friendly ally.

One of the issues in the whole China-missiletech brouhaha was that the Clinton administration was attempting to deal with the fact that this technology is available from non-Western sources. The goal was to move satellite licensing under the Commerce Department, but it became a cause celebre and remains under the purview of State.
posted by dhartung at 1:28 PM on December 4, 2000