S.3277
Introduced:
July 25, 2018
115
Second
December 21, 2018
Failed to pass in Senate
In the contest of this large, multifaceted bill dealing with NASA and other U.S. space activities, there was one provision related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In a section about “nongovernmental Earth observation activities,” the bill stipulated that nothing therein would affect the prohibition on collecting and releasing detailed satellite imagery of Israel. Since 1997, U.S. law has prohibited high-resolution satellite imagery of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, forcing U.S.-based commercial satellite imagery services like Google Earth to offer only low-quality depictions of those areas.