For one, private imaging satellites can be tasked to track down, locate terrorists and those supporting them, and to make appropriate plans for counter action, Rye said.

Moreover, the growing armada of commercial remote sensing satellites adds to robustness of the entire network of classified Earth-monitoring spacecraft.

"You are able to provide coverage over some parts of the world that even the government-operated satellites may not have access to because of the orbits that they are in," Rye said. "Under those circumstances, we would provide a very valuable gap-filler kind of capability over remote regions of the world," he said.

"One of the dynamics of today's world is that conflicts don't always occur where they used to occur back in the Cold War era," Rye said. It is critical to attain imagery of remote, out of the way places rapidly to confirm whether certain individuals or forces are in certain locations, he said.

Rye pointed to another bonus in using private remote sensing satellites.

John Baker, Technology Policy Analyst for RAND, the respected think tank with offices in Arlington, Virginia, said that commercial remote sensing satellites are likely to find a niche in supplementing government satellites already on patrol.

Overhead imagery has proven useful in the past for public diplomacy reasons, Baker said. But due to the open availability of private satellite imagery, we are likely to see a rise in statements from amateur, backseat photo interpreters. Individuals or small organizations may be prone to make errors in interpretation of images, or to see what they want to see, he said.

"But that's just the inevitable part of this information explosion we have, be it from satellite images or information gleaned from the Internet and elsewhere," Baker said. "To some degree, that's probably not at all a bad development."

Use of commercial satellite imagery matched by specialized talents of organizations, universities and other governments is of benefit, Baker said. "I don't believe anybody is going to have a monopoly on good analysis and knowledge of a problem the way it is now, after the Cold War," he said.

Baker said the more observing the better.

"The more capabilities you have up there to observe things, there's a chance that -- just by chance, if nothing else -- somebody's going to get the right image at the right time, or near the right time," Baker said.

RAND's Baker said that the reliance upon space for information gathering also means assuring that these valuable assets are protected.

"We've gotten to a stage where we have to give much more serious attention to that," Baker said. "It’s clear that the U.S. has heavy reliance upon these assets, whether you're talking from a military or intelligence perspective or simply in terms of the role they play in the functioning of the world economy," he said.

In this regard, military forces are in high-alert status.

That increased be-on-your-guard dictum not only applies to forces around the planet, but also to critical spacecraft now in orbit and to the ground infrastructure needed to operate and download the information they glean.

"When higher-level force protection conditions are directed, security provided to ground components of satellite control systems is increased," said Army Major Barry Venable, a spokesman for the U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs. "We choose not to discuss what specific actions may take place with the space segment," he told SPACE.com.

The value of the commercial satellite systems goes beyond military applications, said Joanne Gabrynowicz, Director of the National Remote Sensing and Space Law Center at the University of Mississippi.

"Any child born from September 11 on can only know of the Twin Towers as historical icons. There is pre-attack commercial satellite imagery that documents what the towers were and where they were. The satellites can now also provide a method for recording how we cleaned up the aftermath and how we will rebuild in the area," Gabrynowicz said.

Commercial remote sensing satellites can document one of the most important events in world history from a unique perspective, Gabrynowicz said. "And one can hope we can learn from that history," she said.

Gabrynowicz said that industry and government might well collaborate in using commercial systems as part of intelligence gathering. By working together, the prospect of "shutter control" -- where the government restricts commercial satellite operations at the expense, some argue, of First Amendment rights -- can be avoided.

"Whether or not this happens depends on where the military sees commercial imagery fitting into its overall capabilities," Gabrynowicz said.

The heavy hand of secrecy, along with billions of dollars being poured into out-of-public view programs is a worry of Steven Aftergood, Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C.

"There is certainly a temptation to give carte blanche to the military and intelligence agencies to do what ever needs to be done in a time of crisis," Aftergood said.

Aftergood said he expected the terrorist events to play an important role in shaping the future organization of America's entire national security apparatus.

At the end of the Cold War, the existing threat of the Soviet Union disappeared, and left no comparable threat to take its place, Aftergood said. "All of a sudden, there is a very clear and immediate threat that quickly becomes the top priority," he said.

"We are already seeing a reduction in briefings that are given to Congress, even on a classified basis. And that is terribly worrisome. We cannot defend our freedom and our democracy by backing away from it. That is not the way to go," Aftergood said.

"If we come to a clear understanding of what the real threat is," Aftergood said, "that might be matched by a new clarity, a new judiciousness in the application of what does and does not need to be protected by secrecy. But that's an optimistic view."