With Everything About Spy Satellites Secret, What’s Important? : Intelligence: By classifying every aspect of the reconnaissance satellite program, U.S. overuses the security system.

Saturday marks the 30th birthday of the National Reconnaissance Office. Created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as the central office for the procurement and operation of U.S. reconnaissance satellites, the NRO has been key in the development of the photographic and signals intelligence satellites that permit arms-control verification, crisis monitoring and the collection of a wide variety of vital intelligence.

But there will be no public ceremony or presidential proclamation. For the NRO does not, officially, exist. Just as in 1960, today’s NRO is a “black” organization--its very existence is classified “Secret.”

NRO’s classified existence is interwined with the secrecy that surrounds the satellite reconnaissance program. But the justifications for this secrecy have lost much or all of whatever validity they had. Not only is such secrecy pointless, it is harmful.

Three major reasons have long been cited for maintaining this secrecy. One is that it preserves the ability of U.S. reconnaissance satellites to provide crucial intelligence on the Soviet Union and other areas of the world. Revealing the satellites’ capabilities, it is argued, enables targets to avoid the eyes and ears of U.S. spy satellites.

A second argument for tight security has been concern for the sensibilities of other nations. In 1960, when the first U.S. reconnaissance satellites were launched, the Soviet Union threatened to shoot them down--just as it had shot down Francis Gary Powers and his U-2 earlier that year. Most U.S. national-security officials felt that one way to reduce chances of this was not to humiliate the Soviets by announcing that secret Soviet installations were being photographed by U.S. spy satellites.

Since then, the potential reaction of other nations has been added to the rationale. Former CIA Director William E. Colby said a prime obstacle to declassification was the “diplomatic objection that other nations would create difficulties if they were compelled to admit that many of their tightly protected secrets were in fact not secret at all.”

The final rationale for total secrecy is an argument expressed by a Defense Department official: “Once we start answering questions and opening doors, where do we stop?” Making any information public creates a demand for more information, this argument goes, making it easier for individuals or organizations to ferret out truly sensitive material.

But these reasons are all easily challenged. While some aspects of current reconnaissance programs should remain secret, many other aspects--such as the designation of the different satellites, their mission and general capabilities--can be divulged without harm. For example, numerous U-2 and SR-71 photographs have been made public without compromising the aircraft.

The argument that the United States cannot officially release information about the reconnaissance program, especially photographs, because of foreign sensitivities had merit in 1960. But the Soviets have long since dropped their objection to satellite surveillance. Today, they sell photos produced by their older spy satellites,

In October, 1978, when President Jimmy Carter officially acknowledged the existence of the U.S. photographic reconnaissance satellite program, no paroxysms of protest resulted. In any case, the United States, the Soviet Union and China will not be the only participants in space reconnaissance. France, along with Spain and Italy, is developing the Helios military reconnaissance satellite. Israel is on its way to deploying a photo-reconnaissance satellite. India will probably be next. Germany and other countries are studying it. Nobody is complaining.

Even the argument that keeping all information classified is the best means of protecting important secrets is problematic. It is not clear that the best means of protecting secrets is to classify, classify, classify. Numerous observers, including government panels, have declared overclassification devalues secrecy. In addition, the wider the net of secrecy, the more difficult it is to protect genuinely important secret documents.

The rationale for declassifying the existence of NRO and information concerning the satellite reconnaissance program goes far beyond the argument that justifications for absolute secrecy are flawed. Absolute secrecy is harmful--it limits informed discussion of public policy and restricts the use of reconnaissance satellites for civilian purposes.

Some advocates of declassification have suggested satellite photography would allow the public to make more informed judgments. In 1985, former NRO Director Hans Mark wrote, “I believe that the American people should be informed about reconnaissance systems. It would it much easier for our political leaders to justify a number of important military and foreign-policy initiatives if people really knew what our adversaries around the world are doing.”

The relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union has changed dramatically since 1985, but the notion of supplying more information about certain international events and activities remains valid. Future reconnaissance data--particularly photos--can reassure the public that the Soviet Union is complying with arms-control agreements--or make clear it is not. The perilous situation created by the proliferation in nuclear and chemical weapons cannot be solved by watching and listening. It can, however, be more effectively addressed in public and international forums. Such programs flourish in secrecy and whither in the light.

Loosening security restrictions would also allow extensive use of satellite reconnaissance photography in the civilian sector. Civilian satellites provide far less detailed, and thus less valuable, pictures than military satellites. But the current use of reconnaissance satellites is severely limited because of security clearances that must be obtained and security procedures that must be followed.

One arrangement that fell apart because of security concerns involved the U.S. Geological Survey. During construction of the Alaskan pipeline, the survey wanted photographs from reconnaissance satellites. An attempt to work out an agreement between the survey and those responsible for protecting information reached an impasse when it came to the requirement for the map-makers to eliminate certain markings that would normally be transferred to topographic maps. By the time agreement could be worked out, it was too late for the photos to be useful. The project was canceled.

The potential uses of satellite photography for civilian purposes are numerous. Satellite photography can be employed to prevent flooding from the melting of snowpacks. Satellite photos of snowpacks can be measured by photogrammetrists so that hydrologists can compute runoff. Based on these computations, downstream dams can be drawn down to prevent flooding.

High-resolution imagery or the information gleaned from it concerning agriculture would help both government analysts and the private sector. Such imagery enables more accurate estimates of acreage devoted to agricultural crops, or identifies the extent of any diseases that have afflicted crops. In the past such information could have saved U.S. consumers billions of dollars because it would have given grain suppliers advanced notice of shortages in the Soviet Union, so they could have stockpiled enough to satisfy both U.S. and Soviet markets.

Satellite reconnaissance photographs can also be useful in disaster assessment and relief operations. The same type of reconnaissance satellites used to send back detailed imagery of Chernobyl could be used to provide instantaneous data on major earthquakes and tornadoes.

There are numerous other civilian uses of reconnaissance satellite imagery--identification of toxic-waste sites, oceanography, sea-ice surveys, land-use surveys, urban mapping, geology, agricultural land-use surveys, road planning, canal design, navigation and in monitoring strip mining, offshore drilling and agricultural pesticide use.

Since its creation in 1960, the operations of NRO have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion--in 1990 dollars. It is time for them to get a better return on their investment.