I'm probably a little late getting to this one, but just about every satellite in orbit has some American made components in them, and a standard clause in the export liscense for these parts is that the U.S. gets "shutter control" over these satellites, meaning that in the time of a national crisis, the U.S. government has the option of flipping a switch that will close the lens of a satellite for a certain amount of time. The U.S. did not exercise this option during 9/11, nor has the U.S. ever exercised this option. If the U.S. government had something to hide from the satellites of other countries, it would have been very easy to do so, but the fact is they didn't.