The U.S. Congress passed restrictions in 1996 by which the Secretaries of State or Defense could impose so-called "shutter" restrictions on commercial spacecraft when they image U.S. allies such as Israel. In fact, the Israeli government requested that such a restriction on imaging Israel from space be imposed on U.S. firms. Now a bill, H.R. 1702, the Commercial Space Act of 1997, proposes to roll back these restrictions. In language obtained by SpaceCast, the proposed new law would force the U.S. government to "go public" with any national security concern over a proposed remote sensing license -and mandates the issuance of a license automatically if U.S. government officials can't make a case that to do so would hinder U.S. foreign policy or security interests.

Sources at the State Dept. tell SpaceCast that concerns over the weakening of the power of the U.S. government to intervene for allies such as Israel will be raised when the legislation reaches the full House Science Committee later this summer, and if necessary "we will take our concerns to the floor (of the House) to be heard," one source tells us. Congressional sources say the Clinton administration is more concerned about "nonexistent" security issues than the "commercial competitiveness" of U.S. space business providers. But one thing is clear: the issue of commercial remote sensing and the national security won't go away -and may be one of the few sticking points in the space bills now before the U.S. Congress.