Lets gets a couple of facts out of the way, first of all overhead pictures have been available from private companies for a long time, second anyone that had a credit card could get access to that data. So I am sure it makes some countries a bit nervous that this low resolution imagery can be seen by the public on a very easy to access manner. But lets take this a step further what happens when someone launches a satellite create images of much higher quality.
I have no idea if their are laws on this sort of thing, but I am personally very uncomfortable with the thought that some private company would put up a bird that would offer higher resolution images than what is available now, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words and that type of information in the wrong hands could be a very bad thing. [NYT]