Google versus Israel

Ogle Earth considers claims that new high-resolution aerial imagery on Google Earth poses a special danger to Israel by giving valuable data to its potential attackers. The Oglers decide not:

The imagery sold commercially to all comers by the French, the
Russians, by DigitalGlobe and others has been at two-meter resolution
for years. The only thing that's changed is that the cost of acquiring
it by the public has now gone to zero, thanks to Google — and money is
one thing that Israel's enemies haven't lacked. Meanwhile, the
intelligence services of some countries hostile to Israel have most
certainly had access to much higher resolution satellite imagery, which
is shared easily enough with militant extremists.

Oddly enough, one of the most paranoid security-conscious countries in this respect seems to be Sweden, which, though not in any obvious danger of bombardment, has insisted on pixellating aerial shots of its signal intelligence HQ at Lantmäteriverket (pictured). In space, however, national laws only go so far. Microsoft's Virtual Earth still had the pixellations in its close-ups when Ogle Earth went looking; Google had clear footage.

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