It's U.S. law permitting the production of such imagery...

I've just been looking and the law is known as

''The Kyl-Bingaman Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997''

There's a mention of it in a Globalsecurity article here - although the best link in it is broken.

And quoting this article

Quote:

One extreme form of shutter control is simply to permanently prohibit imaging of a given area. Although such a policy runs counter to long-standing U.S. efforts to legitimate remote sensing, the United States has already instituted one such ban. Under the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment to the 1997 National Defense Authorization Act, U.S. companies are forbidden to collect or sell imagery of the entire country of Israel "unless such imagery is no more detailed or precise than satellite imagery that is routinely available from commercial sources." The amendment also gives the president the option of extending the blackout to any other country or geographic purpose. When the amendment first passed, it did not seem to raise a significant problem. NOAA reportedly told the American companies at the time that the Russian Spin-2 film imagery at roughly two-meter resolution was equivalent to the U.S. industrys planned one-meter systems. But in July 1998, NOAA informed Earth Watch, Space Imaging, and OrbImage that they would not be allowed to distribute imagery of Israel at one-meter or better resolution. News reports claim that the change in policy came about as the result of intense lobbying by pro-Israeli groups. Given that Israel already operates its own spy satellite (Ofeq-3) and reportedly has plans to enter the commercial remote sensing market itself, allegations persist that Israel is at least as interested in protecting its commercial prospects by hamstringing American competitors as it is in protecting its own security.



But basically if you google

The Kyl-Bingaman Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997 there's a fair bit about

Hope that explains things a bit!

Thanks
Phil
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