MagnusP
US satellite the unspoken source that sparked search
This may inform the debate.
I don't really think so.
This is media garbage.
These images are not from a sensitive US source (implied "governmental") whose identity needs protecting. They are from a commercial organisation that proudly plasters its copyright notice in the corner of each. The very organisation that proudly claims it immediately manoeuvred its satellites to get the original South China Sea images that appeared so promptly on their own crowd-sourced photo search engine Tomnod.