Satellite imagery and the spectacle of secret spaces

Abstract

This paper documents and assesses emerging efforts to resist and subvert deep-seated and long-held governmental secrecy over geographical spaces of military/security activities and other sites deemed sensitive by the state. It explores tensions in new web-served mapping and high-resolution imagery of these sites, which view them though 'pin holes' of publicly available data. These 'counter-mappings' focus attention on the significance of sites that are either buried unnoticed in seamless global image coverage, or else censored on official mapping. Some reveal a strongly anti-hegemonic and oppositional discourse, others a more playful set of cultural practices. We situate these newly witnessed secret sites in contemporary visual culture, exploring the spectacular and Debordian possibilities of resistance that they offer, and evaluate the significance and ironies of these diverse imaging practices.

Drone Bombings in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas: Public Remote Sensing Applications for Security Monitoring

“…The slight blue discoloration north of the drone is most likely the result of an active lidar (light detection and ranging) sensor that is scanning the landscape and interfering with the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Although such an image clearly plays into the "spectacle of secret places", we believe that this is the first satellite image of a drone in the FATA [6]. This suggests that there is a high density of drones in the region because this snapshot was captured during the daytime in a relatively small area.…”

“…One of the current advantages of using remote sensing in political geography is that it can collect imagery of the Earth in regions where it is very difficult to collect field data [6]. For instance, it is now possible to study genocide in Darfur by quantifying the number of destroyed structures in villages in southern Sudan with high-resolution commercial imagery [7].…”

Understanding the Value of VGI

“…GIS Certi fi cation Institute's Code of Ethics) and ongoing debates concerning the social impact of GI technology, particularly but not exclusively in terms of privacy and surveillance (see, e.g. Perkins and Dodge 2009 ;Pickles 1995 ;Elwood and Leszczynski 2011 ) . While this research is clearly of interest to the broader GIScience community, this chapter focuses on the perspective where value is seen as an indicator of the worth or signi fi cance of a speci fi c good or service.…”

<strong></strong>Enabling Transparency Through Technology? Non-Governmental Satellite Imagery Analysis of North Korea<strong> </strong>

“…In the aftermath of 9/11, many states have further restricted information in the public domain and expanded their use of surveillance technology to control their citizens. At the same time, applications like Google Earth and commercial satellite technology also allow spaces to be seen that governments wanted to keep secret from civil society [2]. The increasing availability of commercial and open source satellite imagery has begun to challenge governments' interpretational sovereignty by opening up spaces for new expert groups to play an influential role in security discourses that is based on their "authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge" [3][4][5].…”