ABSTRACT
Remotely sensed data collected by aerial, ground, and space based systems is increasingly becoming an important part of spatial data bases. Although remote sensing activities involve a wide range of sciences and technologies the most fertile area for complex spatial data base issues lie in the law and policy governing data collection, distribution, archiving, and access. Because of the vast array of applications for remotely sensed data--agriculture, documenting population trends, and resource management, among many--the social, legal, and economic dimensions of these issues are equally large and complex. However, incoherent, incompatible, or nonexistent remote sensing laws may be an emerging problem at the interface between law, information policy, and spatial databases which threaten to further complicate the resolution of these issues.
To demonstrate the diversity of legal approaches to remote sensing law, this paper surveys existing international and domestic laws and cases of various nations dealing with remotely sensed data. Data purchase contracts of the two major commercial space data providers, the Earth Observation Satellite Corporation (EOSAT) and Spot-Image, will also be analyzed. One employs trade secret law while the other utilizes copyright protection.
The two leading remote sensing nations, France and the United States, have, since the 1980s, pursued policies to commercialize their national remote sensing systems. The result has been that an entire class of users, specifically academic researchers and developing nations, encountered increasingly limited access to data from these systems due to increased prices. This has occurred at the same time that government research grants are decreasing. In an attempt to reconcile some of the issues raised by commercialization and the growing division between technologically advantaged and disadvantaged nations, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) passed a Declaration of Principles Regarding the Remote Sensing of Earth from Space (U.N. Principles) after more than a decade of negotiations. Whether the Principles add any substance to the body of international remote sensing law is still the subject of much debate. (DeSaussure 1989 and Christol, 1987)
The growing need for global change research and the limited success of commercialization of the U.S. Landsat system resulted in Congress repealing the Land Remote Sensing Commercialization Act of 1984 (Landsat Act)and passing the Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992 (Policy Act). Despite the recognized need to reform remote sensing legislation in the United States, the new law has already been breached in some of its most major provisions. NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Clinton Administration, all have avoided compliance in their attempts to meet the law's mandate requiring NASA-DoD operations be joined and to address the consequences of the unexpected loss of Landsat 6.
This raises the question of whether or not chaotic or nonexistent remote sensing legislation is an impediment to the greater use and sharing of data for spatial databases. It may be that law--a basically conservative and reactionary institution--is being pushed to its limits in providing stability and predictability in the dynamically developing arena of remote sensing. If this is the case, it is important to identify long-term policies and principles to guide remote sensing activities. France, while faced with the same problem of lackluster commercialization, has yet to pass any national legislation regarding its national system, Satellite Observation de la Terre (Spot), although the importance of remote sensing is raised repeatedly raised in the French Parliament. The United Kingdom, a self-proclaimed champion of Earth observations, issued national remote sensing policy as early as 1984 (House of Lords 1984) but passed its first space-related legislation in 1986 without any mention of remote sensing. (Space Act 1986).
While primarily addressing laws regarding space-based data, this paper also demonstrates that fundamental legal issues--such as the lack of a uniform definition of "remote sensing"--also inhibits the development of the law as it relates to aerial and ground-based sensing. Remote sensing is being used by individual states in a wide spectrum of activities ranging from monitoring car emissions, to conducting land surveys, and managing cultural resources. Decisions regarding these activities have begun to create an emerging body of case law that will, perhaps, have a greater impact on the collection, dissemination and archiving of remotely sensed data than formal legislation.
Even the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution has begun its transition into the twenty-first century in the case of Dow Chemical Company v. United States, wherein the Supreme Court ruled on the use of aerial and satellite remote sensing to conduct Fourth Amendment searches. Dow raises the collateral issue of the ability of courts to understand the intricacies, potential, and limitations of new technologies.
Similar issues are being raised in the European Community (EC) where it has adopted a European-wide policy to use aerial and satellite remote sensing to apprehend and prosecute perpetrators of agricultural subsidy fraud. (EEC 1992). Although concern has been raised regarding the issue of improper governmental intrusion, the focus of the EC policy has been primarily economic. Citing the Maastricht Treaty as the legal basis for individual member state responsibility to support the European Community's efforts to catch perpetrators, a large data base is being collected and examined to stem the growing numbers--3,200 since 1988--of fraud against the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund. (EEC 1992b)
The overview of the nations, states, activities, laws, and cases that involve remote sensing presented in this paper will serve as the beginning of an inquiry that can determine the whether remote sensing law is an obstacle or opportunity for integrating remotely sensed data into spatial databases, now and in the future.
REFERENCES
Christol, C. (1987). "The 1986 Remote Sensing Principles: Emerging or Existing Law?" Proceedings 30th International Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space, :1-8.
DeSaussure, H. (1989). "Remote Sensing Satellite Regulation by National and International Law" Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal 15: 351-376.
Dow Chemical Company v. United States, 106 S. Ct. 1819 (1986).
EEC (1992). Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3508/92 (1992).
EEC (1992b). Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3887/92 (OJ 1992 L391) (1992).
House of Lords (1984). 1984 House of Lords Select Committee Report on Remote Sensing and
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Landsat Act (1984). Land Remote Sensing Commercialization Act of 1984, 15 U.S.C. 4201 et seq. (1984)
Policy Act (1992). Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, 15 U.S.C. 5601 et seq. (1992).
Space Act (1986). Outer Space Act of 1986.
U.N. Principles. G.A. Res. 41/65, 42 U.N. GAOR Annex (95th plen.mtg.) at 2 U.N. Doc. A/RES/41/65 (1987).