[Infowarrior] - Public Satellite Images May Need Censorship, Satellite Spy Chief Says

[Richard Forno]

Public Satellite Images May Need Censorship, Satellite Spy Chief Says

National security make require pixelation censorship of commercial satellite
imagery in the future, according to an interview with the head of the
country's spy satellite agency.   Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, director of the
Pentagon's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, told the AP that he
could "certainly foresee circumstances in which we would not want imagery to
be openly disseminated of a sensitive site of any type, whether it is here
or overseas."

The little known group, which sports one of the largest budgets of the
nation's spy agencies, has helped fund commercial imagery companies that
services like Google Earth rely on, but impose limits on their resolution.
The agency also used it's budgetary power to keep information off the net.

    During the 2001 invasion to overthrow Afghanistan's Taliban regime, the
geospatial intelligence agency bought up all the imagery over that country
for several months, creating a blackout for private groups at the height of
the fighting. The agency was criticized for embarking on "checkbook shutter
control" and hampering relief work and public understanding of the fight.

Without sounding too much like a technology triumphalist, I'm doubtful the
government can win this information war. Perhaps the Pentagon can buy itself
a few years or a decade of continued overhead monopoly of omniscience but
information wants to be free and the resolution wants to be high.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/05/public_satellit.html