ABC News.com February 26, 2002
Witness From Space
Satellites and Forensics:
Do They Share a Future?
By Amanda Onion
Authorities know roughly when Amanda VanScyoc was strangled and when her body was dropped into the Ohio River. They also think they know who did it.
But no one was around to witness the crime or to affirm the main suspect's alibi. Still, investigators in Boonville, Ind., are hoping something was watching - from space. Likely? Not really, say experts, but it could be worth a try. And while searching for satellite images to support forensic cases may be a controversial stretch now, other satellite-related technology is poised to bolster investigators' efforts in the future.
Looking for a Car in the Driveway
As his team's investigation hit another dead end last month, Warrick County Sheriff Bruce Hargrave submitted a request with federal authorities for any satellite images that may have been snapped of the region during the Nov. 9 slaying.
Hargrave said the suspect maintains he was at home during the two-hour period when authorities believe the 18-year-old woman was killed. If, by chance, a satellite snapped a picture around the suspect's home and revealed an empty driveway, Hargrave hopes they could convince a jury he was lying about his whereabouts.
Hargrave adds that because the murder scene is within 75 miles of a U.S. military base, they may have a better chance that a satellite was recording at the time from above.
John Pike, a satellite and security expert at Global Security Inc., says it's a long shot, at best.
"The amount of time required to write a letter asking for images is small, relative to the potential benefit," said Pike, of the nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Va. "But you're basically buying a lottery ticket. And, as you know, most lottery tickets don't pay off."
A Watched World
The number of spy satellites capable of snapping high-resolution images of Earth is not publicly known. Pike believes the United States operates four optical satellites that can decipher car-sized objects on the ground and three others that take topographic images using radar. Jeffrey Richelson, of the nonprofit organization National Security Archives and author of the book America's Secret Eyes on Space, says the United States operates "about three" optical satellites that can snap images in 6-inch resolution.
Russia, France and Israel also operate high-resolution satellites and sometimes sell their images to state and federal agencies. And a private company, Space Imaging Inc., sells satellite images taken by its high-resolution IKONOS satellite.
Most of these devices are capable of "seeing" a vehicle parked in a driveway. The problem is in the timing.
"The idea that there are satellites flying over the United States and constantly taking photos and storing them is fortunately not true," said Richelson. "These images would likely have to be requested in advance."
Pike adds that locations in the United States are generally a "low priority" compared to locations like, say Khandahar, Afghanistan, where the U.S. government likely had frequent satellite monitoring in recent months.
Seeing Big Change
But satellites have provided evidence for other cases in the past.
In 1999, spy satellite images of mass graves in Kosovo provided evidence of Serb atrocities. The state of Arizona has used satellite images purchased from the French government to prove that a farmer was growing cotton on his land without a permit. And the state of Georgia has used images to detect illegal cutting in its timberland.
Satellite images have also been used in recreations for the courtroom. In 1999 a company called Visual Forensics helped acquit a U.S. pilot of manslaughter charges after his plane slashed down support for a ski lift in Italy. The satellite pictures showed an optical illusion may have confused the pilot, causing him to fly too low.
But these images were for the most part ordered in advance or recorded landscape-scale changes from one period to the next. They weren't culled from already-existing pictures from space.
Satellites, like NASA's LandSat satellites and weather-mapping satellites take more frequent pictures and provide a more complete bank of pictures to the public. But Pike points out the images they provide are far too fuzzy to detect much detail.
There are also legal issues. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union argue for individual privacy and could likely challenge the use of satellite images in forensic investigations. Although Stewart Baker, a lawyer with the firm Stepto and Johnson and a committee member of the American Bar Association, believes investigators using satellite images would be within legal limits.
"There's nothing you can see from space that you can't see from an airplane," he said.
Enlisting the help of federal authorities could invite other legal trouble. Due to the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, the federal military can't actively participate in police-type activity on U.S. soil. Some believe the act could prevent investigators from requesting the federal government aim their satellites at a target, but it might not prevent them from using already-existing images.
"The question in the courts is whether the federal government's role is active or passive," says Tim Lynch, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute, a think tank based in Washington.
The events of Sept. 11 could make such policy more flexible in the future.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz testified in October before the Senate Armed Services Committee that it might be desirable to give federal troops more of a role in domestic policing to prevent terrorism.
Blood Tests by Satellite
One satellite-dependent program that has been accelerated since Sept. 11 is a NASA-led project to set up a national, satellite-linked forensic center. Under the plan, investigators could feed data to the center where top experts could process the information and provide fast results.
"We send instruments to space and detect things like the presence of water on an asteroid," said Jakob Trombka, NASA's principal investigator for the Justice Space-Age Tele- group. "It's the same sort of technology that we want to make available at a reasonable cost to local authorities."
Trombka says he expects the satellite network to be up and operating within three to five years.
This kind of network might have helped investigators like Hargrave in Indiana make more sense of evidence gathered at the scene of VanScyoc's murder. In the meantime, they're holding out for a lucky strike from above.
"We're not anticipating getting what we need," said Hargrave. "But we felt it was an area we just had to check out."
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