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In 1994, because of that fear, a group of American and Israeli entrepreneurs and defense veterans had an idea: why not start up an international satellite company which would be free from the perception that it was controlled by U.S. intelligence? There were plenty of clients around the globe that wanted to buy satellite imagery, but not necessarily have the CIA know what they were buying.

To avoid giving the company an American feel, these entrepreneurs incorporated their company in the Cayman Islands, naming it West Indian Space, Ltd. They moved its official registration to the Netherlands Antilles in 2000. That year, too, they gave the company its present name, ImageSat.

In the early days, the company focused on giving global clients confidence that they could conduct surveillance without the U.S. government knowing about it. Companies and national governments could snoop aggressively without having to worry that agents in Langley were looking at their pictures, too. To that end, the American investors were never allowed to own more than 50 percent of the company. (American ownership of more than 50 percent would subject it to the same licensing requirements as its fully American-owned competitors, GeoEye and DigitalGlobe.)

Here’s how several company founders described the need for a non-American business plan in a court filing:

ImageSat’s competitors were (and still are) backed by the largest United States aerospace companies and the U.S. government. ImageSat’s principal competitive advantage against its financially superior and technically more experienced competitors was its profile as an independent and robustly international company able to sell truly independent high-resolution satellite imaging capabilities to governmental customers worldwide, free from the unwanted influence of a politically motivated regulatory or licensing regime, such as that of the United States.11

The foreign clients were allowed to operate ImageSat’s satellite from their own ground stations, control the pictures taken, and keep those pictures from ImageSat’s other customers. The only restrictions came from the Israeli government: the company would not be allowed to sell to any country or customer within a 2,500-mile radius of Israel’s own ground station, and it would not be able to sell to the “rogue states” of Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. Clients began lining up for the service, and ImageSat sold satellite surveillance to countries including Venezuela, Angola, China, Taiwan, and India.

But soon, some shareholders grew disillusioned with ImageSat’s management. The group of dissident shareholders felt that the company was being brought under the control of the Israeli government—which, because of the historic ties between Israel and the United States, meant that American intelligence would be able to obtain the details of ImageSat’s operations. In July 2007, they filed a lawsuit for up to $300 million in damages, alleging corporate malfeasance and arguing that the effective takeover was ruining the company’s business prospects. Shareholders bringing the suit included American and Israeli businessmen, and companies registered in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, and the British Virgin Islands.

Citing this international constellation of plaintiffs, and noting that most of the relevant action took place in Israel, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court dismissed the case a year later on jurisdictional grounds. Even so, allegations that the Israeli government may influence ImageSat could continue to scare off the company’s international clientele.

It’s no use pitching yourself as a non-American company if your customers think the U.S. government has access to your top executives. As we’ll see in Chapter Nine, the business of corporate espionage has gone global. And not everyone in this business has America’s best interests at heart.

CHAPTER NINE

Nick No-Name

The wiry former British special forces officer introduces himself only as Nick* and sits on