Chapter 21 Exercises: Satellite Imagery and Remote Sensing

Exercise 21.1 — Historical Timeline Construction

Type: Individual / Research Difficulty: Intermediate Estimated time: 45–60 minutes

Instructions:

Create a detailed annotated timeline of satellite surveillance development from 1957 to the present. Your timeline must include at minimum:

• Five Cold War–era developments (government programs)
• Five commercial industry milestones
• Three regulatory or legal events
• Two instances where satellite imagery was used for accountability (journalism, human rights, environmental)

For each entry, write a two-to-three sentence annotation explaining the significance of the event and how it relates to the chapter's central themes of visibility asymmetry and the surveillance gaze.

Reflection prompt (150 words): Looking at your completed timeline, what strikes you about the pace of change? Was there a period of rapid acceleration? What was driving that acceleration — technology, economics, politics, or some combination?

Exercise 21.2 — The SARI Framework in Practice

Type: Individual / Analysis Difficulty: Intermediate Estimated time: 30–45 minutes

Instructions:

Apply the SARI (Source, Age, Resolution, Interpretation) evidence evaluation framework to two real satellite imagery–based news stories. You may use any two of the following, or find your own (with instructor approval):

1. Coverage of the Xinjiang detention facility construction (any major news outlet, 2019–2020)
2. Bellingcat's MH17 investigation satellite imagery components
3. Commercial imagery showing Russian military buildup before the 2022 Ukraine invasion
4. Planet Labs imagery of Amazon deforestation

For each story, fill out the following matrix:

Written analysis (300 words): Based on your matrix, how confident are you in the claims made in each story? Where are the weakest links in the evidentiary chain?

Exercise 21.3 — Google Earth Investigation

Type: Individual / Observational Difficulty: Introductory Estimated time: 45 minutes

Instructions:

Using Google Earth (free version, browser or app), conduct an investigation of a publicly significant location of your choice. Suitable choices include:

• A prison or jail facility
• A large industrial facility (factory, power plant, mine)
• A military installation (in your own country, publicly known)
• A port or logistics hub
• A border checkpoint

Part A: Use the historical imagery feature (the clock icon in Google Earth) to compare the site across at least three different time periods. Take screenshots or note your observations carefully.

Part B: Write a 400-word analytical description of what you observed. Address: 1. What changes are visible over time? 2. What can you infer from the imagery? What can you not determine? 3. What would a surveillance analyst, a journalist, or an environmental researcher each look for in this imagery? 4. What ethical considerations arise from this imagery being publicly accessible?

Reflection: Would your answer to question 4 change depending on the type of site you chose? Why or why not?

Exercise 21.4 — Consent and the Satellite Gaze

Type: Small group / Discussion Difficulty: Conceptual Estimated time: 30 minutes in-class discussion

Instructions:

In groups of 3–4, work through the following scenario:

A commercial satellite company has just launched a new constellation that provides one-meter resolution imagery of the entire Earth, updated every 6 hours, available on a subscription basis to anyone who pays the monthly fee (about $50/month). The imagery is collected globally, automatically, without notification to anyone being photographed.

Discuss and record your group's responses to these questions:

1. Who benefits from this service? List at least six distinct types of users and what they would use it for.
2. Who is disadvantaged by this service? List at least four types of people or communities and explain why.
3. Should this service require any form of consent from people photographed? If so, how would consent even work? If not, why not?
4. Should access to this service be regulated? If so, by whom, and on what basis?
5. How does this scenario compare to a CCTV camera installed on a public street corner?

Deliverable: A 200-word group consensus statement on whether satellite imagery services should require any form of consent or notification mechanism, and why.

Exercise 21.5 — The Dual-Use Dilemma

Type: Written essay Difficulty: Advanced Estimated time: 60–90 minutes

Instructions:

This chapter emphasizes that satellite imagery serves both accountability (exposing human rights abuses, documenting deforestation) and repression (monitoring protests, surveilling border crossings). Write a 600–800 word essay addressing the following:

Thesis prompt: "The dual-use nature of satellite surveillance technology is not an accident or an exception — it is a structural feature of all surveillance infrastructure. This means that making satellite surveillance 'safer' for civil liberties requires not just better regulation but a fundamental rethinking of who controls the infrastructure and on whose behalf."

Your essay should: - Define what "dual-use" means in this context with at least two concrete examples - Engage with the argument in the prompt (you may agree, disagree, or complicate it) - Address the role of power asymmetry: who actually controls satellite surveillance infrastructure and who is surveilled by it - Propose at least one concrete governance mechanism that would address the problems you identify - Use at least one specific historical or contemporary example from the chapter

Citation note: You may use course readings and outside sources. At minimum, engage with the chapter's discussion of Bellingcat and of border surveillance.

Exercise 21.6 — Mapping Your Satellite Exposure

Type: Individual / Reflective Difficulty: Introductory Estimated time: 20–30 minutes

Instructions:

This exercise asks you to think concretely about your own relationship to satellite surveillance.

Make a list of at least ten locations you have been in the past month. For each, consider: - Is this location likely to have been photographed by commercial satellite in the past 30 days? - What would the imagery show about your presence or activity there? - Who might have an interest in imagery of that location? - Could imagery of that location be used to make inferences about you — your employment, your political activity, your social connections, your health?

Reflection (250 words): Most people have no sense of how their daily movements appear in aggregate satellite data. After completing this exercise, do you feel differently about satellite imagery? Has your sense of what constitutes "private" space changed? If you feel your behaviors or location choices would change knowing that satellite imagery is being used in the way you described, what does that tell you about the chilling effect of surveillance (even surveillance most people don't think about)?