[notahacker]

I don't think many people would argue collection of multispectral and radar images of the earth from space for commercial distribution was what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they talked about freedom of speech. Legal restrictions on photography, particularly commercial photography, came before satellites.

Weird how HN spends most of its time complaining about digital panopticons, CCTV etc and then is up in arms about the basic principle of regulating companies increasingly moving towards selling the ability to discreetly take images or video of any area at any time. (I can see the logic in excepting low res SpaceX launch videos from that and doubt they'd have had any problems at all if they'd applied for a license in time, but you draft regulations for the rules not the exceptions, especially when there's only a handful of companies to license)