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For some time now we have all been hearing how the CIA, the NSA and their sister organizations “on the dark side” (as Dick Cheney calls it) have been able to use hi resolution satellite images to spot details from space. Now hi resolution photography is becoming increasingly available to the rest of us mortals. In time these technological developments may be as problematic for privacy advocates as government surveillance.

Here (the thumbnail on the left) is a high-resolution image of downtown Boston. At first all you will see is a panorama of the buildings. If you place your mouse in the very center and double click, however, you will begin to see just how powerful this tool is. Soon you will notice that there is a motorized tourist trolley. In no time you can read the sign on its side “Old Town Trolley Tours and Charter”. There is a pedestrian on the sidewalk - a black male carrying something under his arm, perhaps a newspaper, and possibly a cup of coffee in his left hand.

In the frame on the left you can see plants on someone’s deck. You can even notice that several of them are on their side, proably from the wid. It would seem that anyone living in that apartment, if they had happened to be out on that deck when the photo was taken, might have had an expectation of privacy.

That was then. This is now.