Debka.com reports on new U.S. government restrictions that prohibit commercial satellite imagery providers from taking and selling photographs of sensitive areas (notably Israel) without specific permission.

The U.S. commercial remote sensing industry has gotten a big boost with the loosening of government restrictions on the collection and sale of commercial satellite imagery, hardware, products and services. However, arms control advocates are concerned that the goverment's move to commercialize remote sensing functions is, in effect, enlisting private industry in the militarization of space.

In a significant shift in policy, the Bush administration has ordered U.S. federal agencies to rely much more heavily on private satellite companies to provide images from space.

For the Iraq war, the Pentagon has left two U.S. companies free to sell their images to all comers -- except representatives from countries blacklisted by the State Department.

The author argues that the U.S. should clarify its position on 'shutter controls' --the possible censorship of commercial satellite imagery during a conflict-- to reduce uncertainty in the nascent imagery industry.

David Corn criticizes the U.S. government's action to buy up all commercially available satellite imagery of Afghanistan as an act of censorship that prevents the media from doing their job of monitoring the conflict.

The Economist argues that despite the increased availability of high resolution imagery from private satellites a "new era of transparency has yet to dawn" because of the financial and institutional advantage that governments and militaries still have.

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 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.

The US government has bought exclusive rights to images from Ikonos, the world's most advanced commercial imaging satellite. The deal covers pictures of Afghanistan and parts of surrounding nations.