You might be able to see the hurricanes heading for Florida. Maybe. But just about all other commercial satellite imagery could be put off-limits, if a new Senate bill goes through as planned.

The measure, "Nondisclosure of Certain Products of Commercial Satellite Operations," would exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) unclassified, commercial satellite pictures bought up by the government, as well as "any... other product that is derived from such data."

"Almost every clause of the proposed exemption embodies patent hostility to the conventions of open government and public access to government information," Secrecy News fumes.

"In essence," Cochran says in a letter to Congress, "this new FOIA exemption would result in taxpayer dollars being used to preclude the media from adequately informing the public about matters of critical importance that in no way implicate the national security."

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001096.html