Full motion video is possible, but not for long as it uses a lot of
bandwidth and storage. Also, the geometry of satellites is such that,
depending upon their orbit, they can only provide good images of a
single point on the ground for a limited amount of time. More likely,
if a particular human can be identified (unlikely from space), one
could use a sort of time-based synthetic aperture to build up
knowledge of that person's activities. UAVs are much more likely to
be used to track a particular individual in real-time.
LANL and the Air Force developed something called Angel Fire
<www.afit.edu/en/.../AFIT%20Annual%20Report%202006.pdf>that was used in
Iraq and Afghanistan based on high flying conventional aircraft (too
high to see/hear/shoot from the ground)
Steve Suddarth, now AF retired from that project, has started a
commercial venture out of the Edgewood airport called Transparent Sky
<transparentsky.net>, they flew at least one mission during the last
devastating fires in the Jemez to demonstrate real-time acquisition and
registration.
Anecdotally, I understand that Angel Fire was used effectively with
other tools layered on top to trace the source of IEDs after they were
detonated (run back and see who had stopped at that location earlier in
the day, where they drove in from, etc.) It has been called "Tivo for
Marines". All well and good perhaps for the battlefield but do we want
that level of surveillance in civilian situations?
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