Amateurs Identify U.S. Spy Satellite Behind President Trump's Tweet
Source: NPR
September 2, 20199:04 AM ET
GEOFF BRUMFIEL
. . .
Hanham says she is amazed a satellite can provide such clear imagery. Spy satellites must peer down through earth's atmosphere, which is a bit like trying to look at objects in the bottom of a swimming pool. They also must snap their pictures while whizzing across the sky. Both effects can blur the fine details in images.
"I'm now scratching my head and curious about how they account for the effects of the atmosphere and motion of the objects," she says.
And she says she thinks she's not alone. Others will be trying to use the image to learn more about how USA 224 works. "I imagine adversaries are going to take a look at this image and reverse-engineer it to figure out how the sensor itself works and what kind of post-production techniques they're using," she says.
Hanham questions whether Trump's tweet zinging the Iranians was worth the information this image provides to other nations, but she adds: "It's his decision as the president."
Read more: satellite-behind-president-trumps-tweet?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=space
jpak
(41,757 posts)Enough already
mountain grammy
(26,620 posts)mysteryowl
(7,383 posts)Kid Berwyn
(14,897 posts)Public channel to Moscow, Pyongyang and all points Manchurian.
MBS
(9,688 posts)William Seger
(10,778 posts)usaf-vet
(6,181 posts)He has given away (sold?) more tradecraft secrets than we can imagine.
mitch96
(13,895 posts)And Putin laughs as his lackey does his bidding..
m
riversedge
(70,204 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,146 posts)probably can see you on your deck.
Next thing you know bedbugs will be there!
riversedge
(70,204 posts)pecosbob
(7,538 posts)LastDemocratInSC
(3,647 posts)Cicada
(4,533 posts)Feynman opposed classifying military technology. He said our enemies get the info within a year but it keeps our own scientists in the dark for many years. Satellite images have been around for more than 50 years. Nothing secret here I bet.
oasis
(49,380 posts)SeattleVet
(5,477 posts)Lonestarblue
(9,981 posts)He wont know the difference, and when he tweets it, shares it with Putin during one of their private phone calls, or exposes it the foreign ambassadors in the Oval Office, no harm will be done.
MBS
(9,688 posts)And (hopefully) at minimum, only shared with him a very small sample of intel- only things that would be less devastating for him to spill to Russia or Israel or North Korea than the most serious stuff.
The intelligence agencies must be even more appalled than we are. I like to think that they know their "customer" and are protecting our country accordingly.
Marcuse
(7,479 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)This was always part of the danger of having a human dumpster fire inhabiting the White House. The President/VP have unique and near-total authority to declassify pretty much any damn thing he or she wants.
https://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/cnsi-eo.html#three
(a) The authority to classify information
originally may be exercised only by:
(1) the President and the Vice President;
(2) agency heads and officials designated by the President; and
(3) United States Government officials delegated this authority pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section.
(b) Officials authorized to classify information at a specified level are also authorized to classify information at a lower level.
(c) Delegation of original classification authority.
(1) Delegations of original classification authority shall be limited to the minimum required to administer this order. Agency heads are responsible for ensuring that designated subordinate officials have a demonstrable and continuing need to exercise this authority.
(2) Top Secret original classification authority may be delegated only by the President, the Vice President, or an agency head or official designated pursuant to paragraph (a)(2) of this section.
(3) Secret or Confidential original classification authority may be delegated only by the President, the Vice President, an agency head or official designated pursuant to paragraph (a)(2) of this section, or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4(d) of this order, provided that official has been delegated Top Secret original classification authority by the agency head.
yaesu
(8,020 posts)lark
(23,097 posts)There's only one nation that would profit so much from this information and it's Russia for all their client states drumpf continues to put the good of PUtin above the good of the USA, always. He is nothing but a destroyer of democracy and tool of the fascist oligarchs. Hes too stupid to plan anything effective, but his master, PUtin isn't.
Bengus81
(6,931 posts)I can see furniture on my backyard decks with Google Earth pics and those sure as hell aren't from a military satellite.
kiri
(794 posts)Google earth takes pictures from a few hundred feet up, using drones or helicopters. Reading license plates from 1000 miles up is harder, 52,800,000 ft. For scale, commercial airline flights are at about 35,000 ft = ~6½ miles up, +/-.
Bengus81
(6,931 posts)Some pics on other platforms are shot from aircraft--called like birds eye view and are very limited in coverage. The main pictures of Earth you see in GE are shot from about 400 miles up by Digital Globe.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Lot of overlapping visual inventory. Both even use low altitude drones for some areas. (Always expanding)
Brother Buzz
(36,422 posts)If you could view the original satellite data, you could glean a whole lot more information, like whether it was an upright chair or a chaise lounge, and if it had armrests and cushions.
AllaN01Bear
(18,191 posts)orangecrush
(19,546 posts)Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)A person "acting", as President of the United States seriously compromising our national security. WOW! Whooda thunkit?
Wow! I mean, really, WOW! I don't think I would have been able to imagine that happening and now...WOW, it has. Not only is reality stranger than we think, it is stranger than we CAN think, as the saying goes.
I am just waiting for Rod Serling to appear now and do the narrative. Tap, tap, tap...
NonPC
(303 posts)She said it all. The guy is a moron.
OrwellwasRight
(5,170 posts)Or both.
SpankMe
(2,957 posts)...foreign intel agencies have probably already figured all this out - and more - and far before this image was released.
Although Trump is a tone deaf, clueless, traitorous moron, this image itself doesn't provide a whole lot that betrays US imaging capabilities.
The problem I see is that - again, assuming the amateur analysis is valid - it fills in a few more blanks that allow adversaries to paint a better picture of certain capabilities and potentially develop countermeasures.
Can you imagine what the GOP would have done if Hillary had released such and image in this way? The non-equivalent standards are just stunning.
Nitram
(22,794 posts)plane because satellites cannot record that level of detail.