Virilio answers that it must be based on physical perception. His vision is not confined to some Parisian study. Since the end of the Cold War the figure of the political observer appears in every area of conflict, where it has become synonymous to the concept of democracy. If the observers are refused entrance, one is de facto at war with the world. The physical presence of independent experts guarantees the democratic quality of intentions and practices.
Satellites can record everything except democracy and human rights.
This technological limitation indicates where classical politics may yet be situated, now that the military perception has become transpolitical. Virilio discards the notion that democracy owes its existence to political observers as naive. The world's visibility suffers less from camouflage and concealment than it does from problems of perception on the part of the subject. Humans, according to Virilio, are not lingual beings, but are controlled in their thoughts and actions by the force of implanted images. We only have to open our eyes in the morning, and already we find ourselves in a museum of outlived modes and styles of observation.