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Coverage of Terrorism
Imagery and Public Relations: At left, a gun camera video image of what appears to be a
highly effective air strike on military jets at Kabul airport. The image received heavy
television coverage when it was released by the Department of Defense shortly after the
beginning of the air war in Afghanistan. At right, an Ikonos satellite image showing that
the same planes were in precisely the same position 18 months earlier, demonstrating
that the targets were actually "three derelict cargo airplanes," writes analyst Tim Brown
of GlobalSecurity.org, who discovered the archive image. U.S. air strikes on these targets
during the first 72 hours of the air war had little military value, he contends, except for
the "strong media and visual impact" produced by network news coverage of the vivid
imagery. Image credits: (left) Department of Defense, (right) Space Imaging /
GlobalSecurity.org.
what they assert to be potentially dangerous
information.
Procedures for suppressing what is
regarded as “sensitive” imagery and
geographic information have been a
feature of presidential national security
directives since the Reagan administration.
But never before have these
restrictions been implemented so rapidly
or on such a wide scale. The National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), which operates
low-resolution weather satellites,
posted an image on the Internet on the
afternoon of September 11 that showed
a long smoke plume drifting from New
York City down the east coast of the
United States. Moments later, they took
it off the net and issued a press statement
stating that no weather imagery
report at all was available for September
11. When satellite imagery watchers
called NOAA on this contradiction,
the agency eventually returned the satellite
photograph of the smoke plume.
NOAA has yet to acknowledge that they
suppressed the image in the first place.
Unfortunately, since mid-September
NOAA’s highly regarded Operational
Significant Event Imagery (OSEI) coverage
of territories outside the United
States has been cut to a small, anemic
fraction of its former output, also without
acknowledging that there has been
any change.
Recommended Sites
www.spaceimaging.com
Space Imaging’s Ikonos one-meter resolution
satellite is the premier source for civilian highresolution
imagery, but at this writing its data
collected over Afghanistan and environs has
been effectively blockaded by the U.S. Department
of Defense. Space Imaging Middle East in
Dubai, UAE (www.spaceimagingme.com),
Space Imaging Eurasia in Ankara, Turkey
(www.sieurasia.com) and Space Imaging
Europe in Athens, Greece (www.si-eu.com), are
each franchises, in effect, of the U.S. company.
Each also has its own downlink capability to
gather imagery from Afghanistan and environs
collected by Ikonos, U.S. Landsat satellites, and
India’s mid-resolution IRS-C and IRS-1D
satellites.
www.spot.com
Spot Image features considerably more satellites
presently in orbit and a stronger image
archive than its competitors, but most data are
at about 10- to 15-meter resolution. This
resolution is appropriate for most commercial
applications and in some instances can be
adapted to meet the needs of the news media.
Spot Image’s new generation of higher resolution
satellites is scheduled to be online during
the spring or summer of 2002.
www.imagesatintl.com
ImageSat International, formerly known as West
Indian Space Inc., features a 1.5- to three-meter
resolution Eros A1 satellite that has captured
images of the Afghan war that are unavailable
elsewhere. However, ImageSat also boasts that
it has won Department of Defense contracts
similar to those that tied up Space Imaging’s
satellite data during the conflict.
www.earthsat.com/environ/region
Earth Sat are image processing and analysis
specialists. They provide infrared satellite
imaging, GIS and agricultural and socioeconomic
data on Pakistan and Southwest Asia,
32 Nieman Reports / Winter 2001