[Infowarrior] - Google Earth helps yet worries government

[Richard Forno]

Google Earth helps yet worries government
By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/2008-11-06-googleearth_N.htm

WASHINGTON — The secretive National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is  
rushing to get the latest, high-definition satellite photos of  
Afghanistan into the hands of U.S. ground troops as they ramp up  
operations in the country's tangled terrain.

The NGA analysts aren't tapping the government's huge network of  
highly classified spy satellites; they're getting the pictures from  
commercial vendors. That's the same stuff pretty much anyone can get,  
either through free, online programs, such as Google Earth, or by  
buying it from the same companies supplying Uncle Sam.

It's a remarkable turn, given the warnings that security experts in  
the USA and worldwide raised a few years ago about giving the entire  
planet — terrorists and rogue states included — access to high- 
resolution satellite photos once available only to superpowers.

Last month, the most powerful commercial satellite in history sent its  
first pictures back to Earth, and another with similar capabilities is  
set for launch in mid-2009. The imagery provided by those and other  
commercial satellites has transformed global security in fundamental  
ways, forcing even the most powerful nations to hide facilities and  
activities that are visible not only to rival nations, but even to  
their own citizens.

Although no one disputes that commercial imagery poses threats, it has  
been embraced in ways few predicted.

"It's created a lot of opportunities to do things we couldn't do with  
(classified) imagery," says Jack Hild, a deputy director at NGA, which  
provides imagery and mapping for defense and homeland security  
operations.

Pictures from government satellites are better than commercial photos,  
but how much better is a secret. Only people with security clearances  
generally are allowed to see them. Using commercial products,  
intelligence agencies can provide imagery for combat troops, which  
wasn't possible before because of the risk of it reaching enemy hands  
and even international coalition partners.

Federal agencies use commercial imagery to guide emergency response  
and inform the public during natural disasters, such as this year's  
Hurricane Ike. It's also used by government scientists to monitor  
glacial melting and drought effects in the Farm Belt.

When commercial satellite photos first hit the market, "the gut  
reaction was, 'We can't allow this imagery to be out there because  
someone might do us harm with it,' " Hild says. "Are there still bad  
things that people can do with commercial imagery? Absolutely … but we  
think the benefits far outweigh the risks."

Other nations share the sentiment. U.S. and foreign government  
contracts provide critical income for commercial imagery companies,  
such as Digital Globe and GeoEye — both of which supply photos for  
Google Earth.

"Most of our revenue (is) from governments," says Mark Brender, vice  
president of GeoEye, which got half its 2007 revenue from the U.S.  
government and 35% from foreign governments. "They have a core  
competency in understanding how to use this technology — and a  
national security imperative to do so."

In August 2006, the Islamic Army in Iraq circulated an instructional  
video on how to aim rockets at U.S. military sites using Google Earth.

Posted on a jihadist website, the video showed a computer using the  
program to zoom in for close-up views of buildings at Iraq's Rasheed  
Airport, according to an unclassified U.S. intelligence report  
obtained by USA TODAY. The segment ended with the caption, "Islamic  
Army in Iraq/The Military Engineering Unit — Preparations for Rocket  
Attack."

The video appeared to fulfill the dire predictions raised by security  
experts in the USA and across the globe when Google began offering  
free Internet access to worldwide satellite imagery in 2005. Officials  
in countries as diverse as Australia, India, Israel and the  
Netherlands complained publicly that it would be a boon to terrorists  
and hostile states, especially since the pictures often provide a  
site's map coordinates.

Indeed, some terrorist attacks have been planned with the help of  
Google Earth, including an event in 2006 in which terrorists used car  
bombs in an unsuccessful effort to destroy oil facilities in Yemen,  
according to Yemeni press reports. Images from Google Earth and other  
commercial sources have been found in safe houses used by al-Qaeda and  
other terror groups, according to the Pentagon.

Many security experts say commercial imagery does little to enhance  
the capabilities of such organizations.

"You can get the same (scouting) information just by walking around"  
with a map and a GPS device, says John Pike, director of  
GlobalSecurity.org, a research organization specializing in defense  
and intelligence policy. The imagery "may give someone precise  
coordinates (for a target), but they need precise weapons … and their  
ability to target discrete parts of a particular site is pretty  
limited. People who think this gives you magical powers watch too many  
Tom Clancy movies."

Safeguards

Nonetheless, the world's governments have taken a variety of steps in  
response to the emergence of Google Earth and other commercial imagery  
sources, according to a confidential report issued in July by the  
CIA's Open Source Center and made public by the Federation of American  
Scientists. Among them:

•Negotiation. Some nations have asked Google and other companies to  
keep certain images off the market, the report says. For example,  
Google Earth uses older imagery of parts of Iraq based on British  
concerns about exposing military sites. Some commercial imagery  
providers -- typically those providing pictures from planes, not  
satellites -- blur sensitive images before they are provided to  
Google, usually in accordance with local law or at the request of  
local authorities.

•Bans. China has barred websites selling "unapproved" commercial  
imagery, according to the report. In 2006, Bahrain officials banned  
Google Earth, but the CIA report notes that the move may have been  
mainly to "prevent exposure of elaborate residences and land holdings  
of the country's rich."

•Buying in. Several countries, such as China and Thailand, are getting  
into the satellite imagery business themselves, and India sells its  
spy photos commercially, the report says. Many countries that lack  
their own satellite capability have become enthusiastic purchasers of  
commercial imagery to meet intelligence and security needs.

•Evasion. Many countries have stepped up efforts to conceal sensitive  
facilities, either by putting them underground or camouflaging them,  
the report says. Others, such as India, have improved their ability to  
discern when satellites pass overhead, which allows them to conduct  
sensitive military activities when cameras aren't watching.

"We actively engage with organizations and governments … to strike a  
balance between their security concerns and the needs of the end  
user," says Chikai Ohazama, Google Earth's product management  
director. Sensitive sites often are obscured by satellite operators  
before Google even gets the imagery, he adds. It often doesn't matter  
"because the imagery already is available from other places."

Newer satellites

The number of sources for satellite imagery continues to grow, fueled  
not only by government customers in the USA and worldwide, but by an  
explosion in public usage.

This month, GeoEye launched the most advanced commercial satellite yet  
— able to distinguish home plate on a baseball field — and the NGA  
paid half the $475 million cost. Digital Globe will launch a satellite  
with similar resolution and other new capabilities next year on its  
own dime.

The use of commercial imagery relieves some of the burden on the U.S.  
government's classified satellite network, says Rick Oborn, spokesman  
at the National Reconnaissance Office, which runs the system.

"We're oversubscribed," Oborn says, noting that intelligence and  
security missions get priority and often need the higher resolution  
and quicker returns offered by the government's own satellites.  
"Anytime the broader area stuff can be taken commercially, so much the  
better."

The appetite for commercial imagery from the general public continues  
to grow as more people realize the technology has uses far beyond  
picking out your home on Google Earth.

Non-governmental organizations have used commercial imagery to show  
devastating attacks on villages in Darfur by the Janjaweed militia.  
Security experts have used it to show development of new missile bases  
in North Korea. Environmentalists have used it to document effects of  
global warming.

"In a way, those sort of things also have a lot to do with national  
security," says Steven Aftergood, an intelligence expert at the  
Federation of American Scientists. "It's an extraordinary tool (for)  
bringing transparency to government. … And it's here to stay."



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