On Sept. 24, a company called Space Imaging–a partnership between America’s space giant Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. and some other investors–launched the first of its Ikonos satellites, capable of seeing details as small as a meter across. The pictures it takes will, in principle, be sold to whoever wants them. Space Imaging has plans for more such satellites, as do rival firms like EarthWatch and OrbImage. While relatively coarse imagery from nonmilitary satellites launched by governments has been available for a long time, these commercial services will offer a new world of detail. And because of the expense of launching such systems, the companies that own them will be out on the street–or Information Superhighway, or whatever–selling their wares to all comers.
The first punters in the queue will mostly be wearing uniforms. Satellite imagery of the enemy has long figured in the dreams of staff officers around the globe. Now it will be openly available for cash. While giving armies what they want is not something to be undertaken lightly, in this case it may turn out to be no bad thing. A world in which countries have relatively accurate information about their neighbors’ capabilities may well be a safer one. That is not a foregone conclusion–the same technology may also allow the planning of smaller but more lethal strikes aimed precisely at an enemy’s weak spots. But most analyses of the cold war suggest that the knowledge of who had what where, while sometimes fueling ideas of first strikes, was, broadly speaking, stabilizing. There is a saying that wars are fought because the two sides disagree over the likely outcome. Satellite imagery will make such disagreements less likely.
If commercial spy satellites were just a way of giving to the rest of the world’s countries the facilities that America, Russia, India, France, Israel and China previously kept pretty much to themselves, they would be geopolitically significant but not terribly interesting. However, their potential goes further than that. This extraordinary technology is not just being redistributed among the countries of the world. It is being taken out of their hands and given to noncountries–to companies, to nongovernmental organizations, to anyone who can afford it. And though bespoke imagery taken of a specific place as soon as possible will be pretty expensive, a lot of other stuff is going to end up being quite affordable.
The fact that countries are by and large big and people are by and large small is normally seen as being to the detriment of people. But as far as spy satellites go, being small is a big advantage. Despite what Hollywood may have led you to believe, individuals have little to fear from spy satellites. Even the very best can’t make out faces and other distinguishing features. The satellites are in low orbits and whiz over any given spot at an impressive speed; they can’t hover over you to watch where you go. And if push comes to shove you can always go indoors. Technology threatens individual privacy in many ways, but satellite surveillance is not one of them.
Countries, though, have nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide. They are laid out for all to see. Their salient features are larger than noses or car license plates, and they are unlikely to move very far between orbits. With the help of a satellite private citizens can see military bases, forest clearances, environmental blights, the distribution of mineral resources–both abroad and at home. They can see troop deployments, nuclear mishaps, palaces amid poverty, agricultural surpluses kept from the starving, mass graves and all sorts of other things that countries are used to keeping under wraps. States used to looking down on their citizens will have to get used to being looked down on in their turn.
That which holds true for what states do within their own borders will hold true for what they do beyond them, too. In principle, the new satellites will make war reporting far more independent of the belligerents. In practice, that may take a little time. These first commercial spy satellites are being launched from America, and their operators’ licenses provide for some level of government control over the imagery they sell. The exact limits of this control are not clear: could something as nebulous as the national interest be enough to shut down the eyes in the sky, or would it take clear and present danger? In the medium term that decision will probably be up to the courts. In the long term, it will probably be irrelevant. If American satellites are too tightly controlled, then satellites will be launched from other countries. The market will eat away the privileges of the state in this aspect of information technology just as it has in such things as broadcasting standards and capital flows.
In the long run, this panoptic power could do much to shine light into darkness and make the world a better place. In areas like resource management it will allow citizens and their governments to make decisions with more information and in a greater spirit of openness than ever before. People in developing countries, where resource management matters so crucially and where the information asymmetry between the governors and the governed is often at its greatest, may stand to profit the most. If, that is, ways can be found to afford them access to the data. The private sector is providing the world with these new eyes as a business proposition; the vision required to put them at the service of those who need them most will have to come from elsewhere.
