Having served in the
military, in the
intelligence branch *pause while all the
military intelligence is an oxymoron jokes float past* I feel impelled to add, that the satellite itself is not reading your
license plate. Even with the naked eye the resolution is not quite that good. However intelligence professionals rely on *gasp*
computer software to give them a "best guess". These
programs are not 100% infallible, but they definitely up the
ante. These programs can look at an image and by determining the subtle nuances of the "blur" that is the licence plate, give a pretty good picture of what that plate reads.
The node title is still accurate. No, Spy Satellites cannot read your license plate number, however Spy
Satellite images in
consort with image enchancing
technology and the trained eye of imagery analysts can.