Germany, US plan secret spy project?

[Magda Hassan]

AP, Jan 4, 2011, 07.53am IST














Tags:wikileaks|US satellite spying program|European Union|Aftenposten
BERLIN: Germany and the US are planning a $270 million satellite spying program that is causing friction in the European Union, according to WikiLeaks documents published by Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten on Monday.

Germany's aerospace center denied this, insisting its plans for a high-resolution optical satellite have purely scientific and security uses. The cables say Germany joined a partnership with the US to create a satellite spying program that was presented as a commercial enterprise.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world...214256.cms

[Ed Jewett]

US, Germany developing secret spy satellites: cables 03 Jan 2011 Germany and the United States are jointly developing secret spy satellites under the guise of a commercial programme despite opposition from France, leaked US diplomatic cables showed Monday. The project, named HiROS, envisions the construction of an undetermined number of high-resolution observation satellites capable of spotting any object on the planet down to a size of just 50 centimetres (about 1.5 feet), according to classified cables from US embassy in Berlin leaked to WikiLeaks and obtained by Norwegian daily Aftenposten.






I thought we already had many satellites and other forms of airborne photo detection whose resolution was far better than that and some of which offered near-real-time linkage.