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.
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.
Curbs on Satellite Photos May Be Needed; Photo: NASA photo of Ecuador volcano eruption courtesy of PINGNews
