
President Trump Tweets Sensitive Surveillance Image of Iran - onychomys
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755994591/president-trump-tweets-sensitive-surveillance-image-of-iran
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hartator
> Either way, Panda notes that a small redaction in the upper left-hand corner
> suggests the intelligence community had cleared the image for release by the
> president.

Worth noting the image was cleared for release.

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garmaine
That's a wild ass guess. That info could have been proactively redacted before
sending to the whitehouse briefing, a standard process for things that are
truly sensitive (since not everyone at the whitehouse who might end up seeing
it is need-to-know). That doesn't mean it was cleared for public release.

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geggam
Not really..since the president can retroactively declassify material ( as can
the secretary of state see : Hillary emails )

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dx87
Technically any member of congress can declassify information. If they talk
about classified information while they have the floor (I think that's the
term), then it becomes part of the public record. They probably won't get much
access to classified information afterwards though.

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thrill
Classified information in the public record is still classified, just
compromised.

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0xfaded
I haven't editorialized the title. The interesting part is the resolution
capabilities of the spy satellite compared to what's commercially available.

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kposehn
Totally. That is far beyond anything we previously believed possible if it was
indeed one.

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hartator
Or it was just a drone. The angle of the photo suggests so.

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cma
Satellites can take photos from many angles too, you could maybe figure it out
from some very sensitive foreshortening analysis to try and work out how far
away it was.

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kposehn
I actually wondered at first if it was a falsely liveried (or IFF’d) airliner
at altitude that has optical/sigint equipment on it.

From the angle it wouldn’t be feasible, but it was an interesting idea.

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davidw
Not the first time. Remember when he gave away secrets to the Russians in the
oval office meeting with them?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%27s_disclosures_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%27s_disclosures_of_classified_information)

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Fjolsvith
The words, "The Product of National Empowerment" written next to the smoking
hole in the ground.

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r00fus
What are the security implications of this action? For example, when the
Valerie Plame was outed by Karl Rove/Scooter Libby, it was clear that a group
of companies/networks were immediately compromised.

Does this current action have immediate repercussions?

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kposehn
Yep!

The main thing is not wanted to show potential adversaries the extent of your
capabilities. It also allows them to glean information on how to counter the
newly disclosed capability as well.

For example: If this was a satellite, the specific one is almost certainly
outed. Satellites are tracked constantly and by the angle of the photo and
approximate time you should be able to figure out where in the sky it was and
what satellites were in orbit. With that you now know to not do anything when
those are present.

If Iran isn’t capable of doing that sort of analysis, certainly every other
major power in the world is.

Frankly, I’m betting it was the X-37B or a previously unknown spy satellite
hiding in plain sight as a commercial satellite.

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jarfil
With so many satellites up there, I'd be surprised if you could find any
moment, anywhere on Earth, long enough that you could do something remotely
important without several satellites being able to see you at the same time.
They might be focusing on something else, or you might be hiding under a roof,
but other than that if they want to see you, they'll see you.

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baybal2
Well, looks like the hearsays of Locheed managing to fit adaptive optics on a
recon satellite were true after all.

There could be the one and only possible employer in Sunnyvale for adaptive
optics specialists, something that people in such a narrow field all got
notice of years ago.

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quotemstr
Damn, those are some fine optics.

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amingilani
For once, I can't vouch for this post despite being flagged. That's odd.

I think the flag misses the point about the amazing technical capabilities of
the satellite image by considering it as a purely political post.

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whatshisface
If Trump wanted to send a message, he could probably do it with hardware above
what is commercially available but below the best the US had in space. Without
knowing the true extent of US imaging capabilities, accusations that something
important has been revealed are somewhat unfounded.

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TheOperator
He shared pictures of their damaged space center? I don't think NPR
understands what "sensitive surveillance" is or is clickbaiting.

He definitely shared surveillance but it's not as if everybody and their mom
didn't know the US had these capabilities.

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Retric
The specific capabilities of spy satellites are very much classified. It’s for
similar reasons we don’t release exact number for fighter aircraft top speeds
etc. Countries over or under estimating US capabilities is useful.

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Mountain_Skies
Do we know that this image is the full extent of the United States imaging
capability?

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garmaine
No. But it is _way_ beyond the best that was previously known.

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trhway
so, the photo was taken from the screen - we have the flash (and that explains
that loss of color and the uniform bluish color palette instead) and even
outline/reflection of the head and the top of the shoulders of the person who
was doing the photo (the flash is at the level of the person's eye and the
person's head outline is right off the flash). I wonder if somebody to do some
reverse engineering of the image - who would that person taking the photo
happen to be? especially considering that the photo was supposedly taken
inside a facility where taking the photos isn't ok until of course it is
somebody occupying a government position above those rules :).

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refurb
I'm not intending to get into a Trump argument here, but releasing what
appears to be sensitive information is often done for ulterior motives.

This is either: (1) a major screw up or (2) the US gov't making it clear to
Iran they can see more than Iran thought they could.

Maybe we'll know decades later when someone writes a book about the conflict.

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marshray
Seems consistent with the usual pattern of an incompetent executive letting
political operatives run the show.

Except this generation of political operatives grew up believing the
misinformation spread by the previous ones. Consequently, they are so arrogant
and naive as to believe that literally everyone who works in US National
Security (and may be expressing concerns over irreplaceable sources and
methods) are just "deep state haters."

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Fjolsvith
More like its consistent with the usual pattern of spreading misinformation by
making the public and other nations think he's an incompetent executive, while
running strategic circles around his adversaries.

Because we can't just argue that he bumbled his way to being a billionaire.

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marshray
There's little evidence that he's some kind of financial genius and a lot to
suggest the opposite.

What we do know is that he inherited a very large sum of money, has a very
long public record of losses and bankruptcies, and overinflating his claimed
net worth.

This is what happened the time he started a publicly traded corporation, one
subject to actual public accounting requirements:

 _Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts lost money every single year that Trump ran it
as a public company. Net losses of $13 million in 1995 ballooned to $134
million by 1999, and $191 million in 2004. ... In total, from 1995 through
2004, the company booked total losses of $647 million ... Trump had complete
control — both as the chairman and as the owner of a special class of stock
that carried many more votes than those he sold to the public. He even gave
the company his initials, DJT, as its stock ticker symbol._

 _Its debts mounted, the stock collapsed — and in the end, the creditors had
had enough. The courts stepped in, the company had to go through a Chapter 11
bankruptcy reorganization... By April 2004, someone who had invested a
notional $100 in the IPO was left with about $10._

 _Over the same period, investors in competitor Harrah’s Entertainment more
than doubled their money. Investors in luxury hotel, casino and resort
companies like Starwood and MGM earned returns of more than 400%. Even the
plain old stock market index more than doubled._

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/donald-trump-was-a-
stock-m...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/donald-trump-was-a-stock-market-
disaster-2015-07-22)

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Smithalicious
I wonder how much this matters, though. Regardless of whether he actually is a
shrewd businessman or not, he's done a good job of at least keeping up the
_appearance_ of being a lot more capable and wealthy than he really is. He's
definitely managed to at least convert his resources into being one of the
most famous and powerful men in the world.

That's not to say that I necessarily think it's all part of some kind of
larger master plan, but if you look at it from the point of view of fame and
power, Trump has done really well for himself.

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hkchad
The us has high resolution satellite surveillance, news at 11.

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sjg007
Why are classified images sent to a phone or computer Trump can tweet from?

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brown9-2
A government that keeps thing from the President is way more problematic than
a President arbitrarily declassifying info like this.

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Swenrekcah
Generally, but the lines unfortunately blur when the president might well be a
foreign asset

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dirtyid
Not expecting to ID faces or read license plates, but am I the only one who
thought resolution capabilities would be better?

