Intelligence community officials have been meeting with representatives of the National Archives to discuss the anticipated declassification and release of intelligence imagery from the KH-9 satellite dating between 1971 and 1984.
Officials have been negotiating the transfer of the original negatives from the KH-9 system and the provision of finding aids, according to a newly released but heavily redacted report from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, dated June 2012.
Multiple releases of declassified imagery are planned over the coming year “with final delivery of imagery scheduled for September 2013.” See “Intelligence Imagery Set to be Disclosed in 2013,” Secrecy News, October 22, 2012.
The potential implication of these evidence gaps becomes more consequential when you look at how institutions actually make decisions day to day.
Every new institution inherits something – existing incentives, existing staff, decades of prior investment that shaped what’s possible.
This is not the first time Google has agreed to censor imagery at the behest of governments, but be warned: obfuscation at this broad level poses a direct threat to the public’s ability to monitor and scrutinize government operations.
America’s affordability problem is bigger than home prices and rents. The best housing policies make it easier to build homes, and recognize how housing connects to other domains.