A British satellite enthusiast has discovered a means by which the public can access US spy plane photo transmissions.
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A Nato surveillance picture taken from the Telstar satellite an enthusiast discovered could be watched by anyone with basic equipment. The picture shows a protected convoy of vehicles accompanied by armoured personnel carriers near the Macedonian border.
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Mr John Locker discovered the freely available pictures through his satellite dish. They were broadcast from a commercial satellite over Brazil.
NATO said it was not concerned about any possible security breaches but American officials said plans were in hand to encrypt the data.
Mr Locker, who picked up the signal, stressed he was not tapping into anything. "This is not an intercept," he said. "I am not a hacker - this is free to air programming."
He said pictures he has seen covered military exercises on the ground in Macedonia and further north in the Sarajevo area in Bosnia.
The pictures have been broadcast through a satellite over Brazil. Clips from the feed, which are not encrypted, have been transmitted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on their website.
Mr Locker said he had spent the last seven months alerting NATO and US military commanders about the free availability of the pictures.
Viewers tuning into the satellite this week were reported to have been able to watch a security alert around the US Army's headquarters at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.
Last week, the spy plane provided airborne surveillance for a heavily protected patrol on the Macedonian-Kosovo border near Skopje.
"What I suspect is that they are using military satellite capacity for Afghanistan as their top priority. As that capacity runs out, they may be using a commercial satellite as a backup," said Mr Locker, a freelance journalist who writes for satellite communications magazines.
Mr Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, told the BBC plans were now in hand to encrypt the data.
"We have discovered in the period since September 11th how important this sort of real-time intelligence is," he said. "Now we are making much better use of this kind of information and it will make sense to encrypt it in the future."