The Homeland Security Department is relying more often and more broadly on geospatial information technology, including spy satellites, to collect and analyze intelligence for its counterterrorism and emergency response missions, raising domestic privacy concerns.

The sharpest commercial imaging satellite ever launched is now orbiting the Earth, sweeping over the North Pole and under the South Pole every 98 minutes, collecting high-resolution images of the scene below. From 423 miles up, the GeoEye-1 satellite can spot objects as small as 16 inches across.

America has become so lousy at building spy satellites that "the United
States is losing its preeminence in space," a Congressional
intelligence report declares. What's worse, this decline comes as
"emerging space powers such as Russia, India and China" are getting
better and better at snooping from above.

The Department of Homeland Security will proceed with the first phase of a controversial satellite-surveillance program, even though an independent review found the department hasn't yet ensured the program will comply with privacy laws.

The Pentagon has approved plans to buy and launch two commercial-class imagery satellites for intelligence gathering. However, the decision still awaits approval as it conflicts with national security space policy that directs the government to buy as much commercial imagery as possible to help U.S. companies withstand competition from subsidized foreign satellite companies.

After the spectacular failure of the last spy satellite effort, the Bush administration is trying once again to put a new set of government eyes in space through a $1.7 billion project approved last week whose goal is to have two new satellites in orbit by 2012.

Images from high-resolution military spacecraft, combined with powerful change detection software at ground processing facilities, is enabling the space-based identification and tracking of specific Taliban and al Qaeda individuals in the isolated villages and rugged terrain of Afghanistan.

Caught off guard by recent Iraqi military operations, the United States is using spy satellites that ordinarily are trained on adversaries to monitor the movements of the American-backed Iraqi army, current and former U.S. officials say.

Japanese lawmakers voted Friday to allow the military use of space, breaking a decades-old taboo in the officially pacifist country which has an increasingly ambitious space programme. The move will remove any legal obstacles to building more advanced spy satellites.

A large American spy satellite has lost power and is expected to crash back to Earth sometime late next month. A spokesman with the U.S. National Security Council refused to speculate on the possibility that the satellite may be shot down by a missile to prevent any debris causing damage.