Agence France Presse October 17, 2001
US buys up all satellite war images: report
The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to prevent western media from seeing highly accurate satellite pictures of the effects of bombing in Afghanistan, the Guardian reported Wednesday.
Ikonos, a civilian satellite launched in 1999, could provide images of bodies lying on the ground after bombing attacks by the US-led coalition, according to the paper. The decision to shut down access to satellite images was taken on October 11, after reports of heavy civilian casualties from the bombing of training camps near Darunta, northwest of Jalalabad, the Guardian said.
Under American law, the US Defence Department has legal power to exercise "shutter control" over civilian satellites launched from the United States in order to prevent enemies using the images while America is at war.
But no such order was given, even after the bombing raids began, said the Guardian, a left-leaning broadsheet.
Instead, the Pentagon bought exclusive rights to all Ikonos satellite pictures of Afghanistan off Space Imaging, the company which runs the satellite.
"If they had imposed shutter control, it is possible that news organisations would have filed a lawsuit against the government arguing prior restraint censorship," John Pike, of Globalsecurity, a US website which publishes satellite images of military and alleged terrorist facilities around the world, told the Guardian.
Copyright 2001 Agence France Presse
