Surveillance

To: Retort
From: The "Your dollars at work" department

Anonymous Comrade writes: "In today's Manchester Guardian Duncan Campbell,
security specialist and author of the dossier on Echelon for the European
Parliament, reports that the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars in an
exclusive contract with satellite operators Space Imaging. The purpose of
the contract is to give the US government exclusive control over satellite
photographs produced of the attacks on Afghanistan. Space Imaging's images
are of sufficient resolution to allow one to see bodies on the ground after
attacks.
There is speculation that the deal was done commercially rather than by
using state muscle so as to preclude the possibility of first amendment
challenge by news organisations.

Apparently, the decision to close the contract was made after last
Thursday's disastrous strikes in Jalalabad which killed numerous civilians.

Other than towards attaining its censorious aims the US military and
government has no need for the images available from Space Imaging, seeing
as they already have four satellites capable of taking pictures at an even
higher resolution.The only other source for comparable iamges seems to be
the Russian Cosmos system who are not at present offering the service
commercially."