Google Earth provides bird;s eye view of Israeli reactor
Before you read this: ask yourself: Why does ISRAEL get to have nuclear secrets? Why does this suggest that ONLY Isreal should have military secrets in the world? Why does it not suggest the VAST amounts Israel spends releasing other people's "secrets" to the world? How can something that is that big and vast and obviously must be run, be kept SECRET? I mean really.
JERUSALEM When Google Earth first came along, the company went to some lengths to address the security concerns and restrictions in various countries, including Israel, where images of this nation were often blurry and you couldn't zoom in to find your house in Jerusalem.
Well, good-bye to all that.
Sensitive installations, Air Force bases with their planes and helicopters, missile bases and even the nuclear reactor in Dimona have never been photographed better, writes Yuval Dror in Friday's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. A recent Google Earth update shows satellite pictures that make it possible to see clear, sharp pictures of military and civilian targets all across Israel.
Up until recently, the satellite pictures of Israel on Google Earth had a particularly low resolution: every pixel was equal to 10-20 meters. Now, the satellite maps of Israel show great parts of the country with a resolution close to two meters per pixel.
American law prohibits showing satellite pictures of the State of Israel with a resolution higher than two meters per pixel, but Google argues they are not breaking the law.
The images are pretty remarkable. You can check out a very detailed shot of Israel's not-so-secret nuclear reactor in Dimona (along with other Israeli military sites) courtesy of Charles Levinson at Conflict Blotter, www.conflictblotter.com.
Yedioth Ahronoth basically accuses Google of aiding and abetting terrorists, Iran and others trying to destroy Israel.
'We feel like we're dressed, but in fact we're not' the paper's Alex Fishman writes. 'We are transparent. The State of Israel, with its sensitive installations, has lost another scarf veiling its charms. If up until now we were undressed only by the superpower satellites, then now, with the improvement in the quality of satellite images from Google Earth, Israel's most secret spots are becoming visible not only to any ephemeral intelligence organization ...
From now on, when an Islamic Jihad militant is sent to collect information about a sensitive target in Israel, his dispatchers can give him the coordinate to insert in Google Earth on his laptop.
Up until now, to guide a terrorist or an agent with any level of accuracy, it was necessary to collect information, and this wasn't always easy. Today this information is freely available to all. Go get satellite pictures and take a walk through the State of Israel's secret installations.
Israel is a nation of open secrets. But it does everything it can to keep them, as former Israeli nuclear engineer Mordechai Vanunu well knows after spending 18 years in an Israeli prison for treason after revealing Dimona's secrets in the British press.
Even now, Israeli government censors are preventing Israeli reporters from writing many details about last month's Israeli strike on Syria, even though everyone from Syrian President Assad to Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken publicly about it.
How dangerous is this really for Israel? It certainly doesn't make security easier. Maybe Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza are right now huddled around a laptop loading Google Earth and planning their next strike. Just about the only thing they have to fire are the low-power, unguided Qassam rockets. And one suspects that nations like Iran and Syria, if they plan to attack Israel, are going to rely on something more than Google Earth to stage a strike.
October 11, 2007
September 08, 2007
Be sure to check the story on the link
Google acquires CIA-linked company http://www.google- watch.org/ jobad.html
Google has acquired Keyhole, Inc. Keyhole is supported by In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm funded by the CIA. Rob Painter joined Google as Senior Federal Manager. He came straight from In-Q-Tel, where he had been Director of Technology Assessment.
n 2003, Keyhole's CEO John Hanke was quoted in an In-Q-Tel press release: "Keyhole's strategic relationship with In-Q-Tel means that the Intelligence Community can now benefit from the massive scalability and high performance of the Keyhole enterprise solution."
The spooks in Washington now had another hook into Google, Inc. Then in mid-2005, Rob Painter joined Google as Senior Federal Manager. He came straight from In-Q-Tel, where he had been Director of Technology Assessment.
September 07, 2007
US (et al) Military Bases Mapped
Guantanamo: Aerial view of
Guantanamo Bay detention camp
In March 2007, TNI revealed some of the human and environmental costs of the thousands of military bases in its report, Outposts of Empire: The case against foreign military bases. Now you can for the first time see the global reach of foreign military bases from outer space and then zoom in close for aerial shots of key bases such as US base Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Nato Headquarters in Skopje Macedonia, or the imposing number of US bases on the small island of Okinawa, Japan.
Researchers from US universities, NGOs Transnational Institute and Fellowship of Reconciliation used official sources, security websites, and private research to map more than 800 bases in more than 60 countries. The US has by far the largest number of bases, but French, British, German, Russian, as well as joint international bases such as NATO and EUFOR bases have all been mapped.
The resulting Google Earth programme is a striking visualisation of the extent to which foreign military bases in the 21st Century reach right across the globe. It also points to why there is growing community resistance against military bases from Greenland to French Polynesia, Paraguay to Korea, which has crystallised into a powerful global movement (www.no-bases.org).
For security reasons, countries often do not provide detailed information on the exact locations of their foreign military bases and installations. As a result, the map is still far from complete. However it is hoped that the map will evolve and improve in the coming months with the help of activist and researcher’s inputs from all over the globe. Help us improve and expand the map by checking the position of a base near you and send us a mail with corrections or additions using this form
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Credits: The project of mapping bases was initiated by John Lindsay-Poland, Ethan Flad and Brian McAdoo expanding on map work pioneered by Zoltan Grossman at Evergreen State College in Washington (See Fellowship magazine, Winter 2007 issue (Vol. 73, no. 1-3, www.forusa.org). The work was built on by TNI intern, Lena Strunk using data which is cited for each base.
