Thanks to Fred Lapides for this, which relates to the photos we’re being shown of the target sites in Afghanistan.‘The US Government has bought all rights to all the pictures of Afghanistan

and surrounding areas taken by the privately operated Ikonos high-resolution imaging satellite… Under the terms of the contract, Space Imaging, the company that operates Ikonos, will not “sell, distribute, share or provide the imagery to any other entity”.

Although Ikonos images can be sold commercially, the US Government has the right to impose such restrictions, which are known as “shutter control”.

The objective is for the US Government to obtain an additional pair of eyes over Afghanistan to supplement its own spy satellites and, more importantly, to deny others the use of the images.

Space Imaging’s two-year-old Ikonos satellite provides black-and-white images capable of seeing objects one metre (3.2 feet) across. It also takes colour pictures with 4-m (13.1-ft) resolution. The detail in the Ikonos images already taken show a line of trainees from the al-Qaeda network marching between camps in Jalalabad.’ BBC