Big Brother and Spy Satellites

I was reading "The Being"'s last post and something in it made me think of something else.
"actually it turned out that ALL OF SOCIETY was filmed and still is and for the most part, most of society does not even know...they call this secret filming by the government Big Brother...and yes, it is quite real and all things are filmed...without your consent or knowledge!"
I went looking and found this......

Satellites Spy on Washington from on High
Washington, D.C., home of the CIA, National Security Administration (NSA) and FBI, is a well-known haven for spies and surveillance. But new satellite pictures of the White House, Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial show these government agencies aren't the only ones watching and being watched.
These latest images from Dulles, Va., satellite-imaging company, GeoEye, are among the first to be collected by the GeoEye 1, a satellite launched into polar orbit on September 6 that can "see" objects on Earth as small as 16 inches (0.41 meter) in size in black-and-white mode or 64.6 inches (1.64 meters) in color. Images from the GeoEye 1, which stands 20 feet (6.1 meters) high and weighs more than 4,300 pounds (1,950 kilograms), so impressed Google that the Internet search giant plans to add the satellite's high-resolution, digital color photos to Google Earth next month.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=spying-washington-from-satellite

Now I have had a couple of friends that worked in different branches of military intelligence.
( I know, I know, that's an oxymoron)
Anyway, they all told me that whatever technology the goverment admits to having, you can figure they are really about 10 to 20 years beyond that.