Intelligence experts say that the top-secret intelligence project which held up approval of the recent intelligence reform bill in the U.S. Senate is a satellite that would, or maybe already can, intercept and shut down other countries' spy satellites.

UPDATE: The Washington Post is now reporting that the program in question is a low-observable, "stealth" satellite project and not an anti-satellite weapon.

The use of spy satellites to gather intelligence has been criticized by many who feel a greater emphasis should be placed on human intelligence. Dwayne Day argues that spysats have been unfairly maligned.

The National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. intelligence agency responsible for the U.S. spy satellite infrastructure, is in a financial and organizational crisis that could hamper U.S. ability to respond to emerging proliferation crises in North Korea and Iran according to this feature story.

Given enough commercial and spy satellites, supplemented by aircraft and a ground system to marry it all together, the intelligence community might one day achieve the ultimate in coverage: constant, real-time surveillance of the planet.
But even without such coverage, imaging and other satellite technologies are already colliding with privacy concerns.

According to knowledgeable U.S. officials, a highly classified $17 to $19 billion replacement system, supposed to be completed around 2005, has gotten so far off schedule that the military could suffer an "imagery gap" as aging satellites in the current system flicker out.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has a fleet of aircraft, some equipped with night surveillance and eavesdropping equipment, flying America's skies to track and collect intelligence from suspected terrorists.

New intelligence software finds meaning in the chaos of clues scattered throughout data-saturated networks. The challenge: to unravel terrorist plots before they happen.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced plans to develop a Total Information Awareness (TIA) system that it hopes, will ferret out terrorists' information signatures and decode them prior to an assault.

The U.S. Space Command is reviewing a plan to create a clearinghouse that gathers and analyzes data regarding impending Earth impacts from asteroids or comets. The information node would also assess possible damage stemming from an incoming object. Such a clearinghouse, if established, would merge military and civilian talent to help minimize damage and loss of life due to a strike from space.

The Washington Post reports on the new interagency, computerized intelligence network that has being hastily constructed to respond to the war against terrorism.