It amazes me that Hollywood would have us believe military satellites can read your morning newspaper from ten miles away. Obviously untrue. But I don't understand how they can't get ANYthing? Just on the simplest most basic level, there were 250 people with cell phones, and I'm sure they had onboard wifi, they can't use the telcom satellites to triangulate the last ping...? Or is there some reason that would not be feasible...?
It's not that untrue really, while they can't read your morning newspaper, current military satellites can see a person holding a news paper, the thing is, considering that those satellites are moving at 26000Km/h it obviously they are not made to track stuff, but more to snap picture of an area each orbit (there are also geostationary satellites but those has an orbit much much higher and thus the image is not as precise) another reason why you don't see military satellites images is that because not a single country wants to show it capabilities and position of their satellite