Credit: GeoEye (Before image, left); DigitalGlobe (after image, right)

These "before" and "after" satellite images--ordered and analyzed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science--show the expansion of a military encampment in eastern Burma between November 11, 2000 (left), and December 13, 2006 (right); such camps support military crackdowns. The images corroborated reports from a human-rights group.

The image pairing was one of several successes for the association's project on geospatial technologies and human rights, which in recent years has helped document hundreds of human-rights violations by comparing field notes with satellite images. Among other things, the project documented the existence of forced-relocation camps where 23,700 people were said to be living, as well as the expansion of refugee camps in Thailand near the Burmese border, to which victims are fleeing.

Q&A
Lars Bromley
A satellite sleuth explains how images illuminate abuses