http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...0702/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/pentagon_urban_cameras U.S. Develops Urban Surveillance System 33 minutes ago Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo! By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city. AP Photo Dubbed "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas. Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans. The project's centerpiece is groundbreaking computer software that is capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face. According to interviews and contracting documents, the software may also provide instant alerts after detecting a vehicle with a license plate on a watchlist, or search months of records to locate and compare vehicles spotted near terrorist activities. The project is being overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is helping the Pentagon develop new technologies for combatting terrorism and fighting wars in the 21st century. Its other projects include developing software that scans databases of everyday transactions and personal records worldwide to predict terrorist attacks and creating a computerized diary that would record and analyze everything a person says, sees, hears, reads or touches. Scientists and privacy experts — who already have seen the use of face-recognition technologies at a Super Bowl and monitoring cameras in London — are concerned about the potential impact of the emerging DARPA technologies if they are applied to civilians by commercial or government agencies outside the Pentagon. "Government would have a reasonably good idea of where everyone is most of the time," said John Pike, a Global Security.org defense analyst. DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker dismisses those concerns. She said the Combat Zones That See (CTS) technology isn't intended for homeland security or law enforcement and couldn't be used for "other applications without extensive modifications." But scientists envision nonmilitary uses. "One can easily foresee pressure to adopt a similar approach to crime-ridden areas of American cities or to the Super Bowl or any site where crowds gather," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. Pike agreed. "Once DARPA demonstrates that it can be done, a number of companies would likely develop their own version in hope of getting contracts from local police, nuclear plant security, shopping centers, even people looking for deadbeat dads." James Fyfe, a deputy New York police commissioner, believes police will be ready customers for such technologies. "Police executives are saying, `Shouldn't we just buy new technology if there's a chance it might help us?'" Fyfe said. "That's the post-9-11 mentality." Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said he sees law enforcement applications for DARPA's urban camera project "in limited scenarios." But citywide surveillance would tax police manpower, Kerlikowske said. "Who's going to validate and corroborate all those alerts?" According to contracting documents reviewed by The Associated Press, DARPA plans to award a three-year contract for up to $12 million by Sept. 1. In the first phase, at least 30 cameras would help protect troops at a fixed site. The project would use small $400 stick-on cameras, each linked to a $1,000 personal computer. In the second phase, at least 100 cameras would be installed in 12 hours to support "military operations in an urban terrain." The second-phase software should be able to analyze the video footage and identify "what is normal (behavior), what is not" and discover "links between places, subjects and times of activity," the contracting documents state. The program "aspires to build the world's first multi-camera surveillance system that uses automatic ... analysis of live video" to study vehicle movement "and significant events across an extremely large area," the documents state. Both configurations will be tested at Ft. Belvoir, Va., south of Washington, then in a foreign city. Walker declined comment on whether Kabul, Afghanistan (news - web sites), or Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites), might be chosen but says the foreign country's permission will be obtained. DARPA outlined project goals March 27 for more than 100 executives of potential contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. DARPA told the contractors that 40 million cameras already are in use around the world, with 300 million expected by 2005. U.S. police use cameras to monitor bridges, tunnels, airports and border crossings and regularly access security cameras in banks, stores and garages for investigative leads. In the District of Columbia, police have 16 closed-circuit television cameras watching major roads and gathering places. Great Britain has an estimated 2.5 million closed-circuit television cameras, more than half operated by government agencies, and the average Londoner is thought to be photographed 300 times a day. But many of these cameras record over their videotape regularly. Officers have to monitor the closed-circuit TV and struggle with boredom and loss of attention. By automating the monitoring and analysis, DARPA "is attempting to create technology that does not exist today," Walker explained. Though insisting CTS isn't intended for homeland security, DARPA outlined a hypothetical scenario for contractors in March that showed the system could aid police as well as the military. DARPA described a hypothetical terrorist shooting at a bus stop and a hypothetical bombing at a disco one month apart in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, a city with slightly more residents than Miami. CTS should be able to track the day's movements for every vehicle that passed each scene in the hour before the attack, DARPA said. Even if there were 2,000 such vehicles and none showed up twice, the software should automatically compare their routes and find vehicles with common starting and stopping points. Joseph Onek of the Open Society Institute, a human rights group, said current law that permits the use of cameras in public areas may have to be revised to address the privacy implications of these new technologies. "It's one thing to say that if someone is in the street he knows that at any single moment someone can see him," Onek said. "It's another thing to record a whole life so you can see anywhere someone has been in public for 10 years."
Cohen I was just reading this article and about to start a thread (with the exact same title). Some scary **** no?
I was talking about the coincidence in the thread title! Seriously, where does it stop? 9/11 sure did change everything... Patriot act part deux is gonna be joy!
Wow, that's really scary stuff. I really want to live in an Orwellian society where the government is always watching like everyone is guilty of wrongdoing. Not! With the face recognition technology, GPS, and minaturised computer chips, we are well on our way to our Imperial Federal Government knowing where we are at all times. Frankly folks, I don't think that is a good thing, terrorists or no terrorists.
I guess this will take away the need to microchip everyone. If they can keep tabs on us with vehicle and facial recognition, the microchip becomes mostly obsolete. Although they are going to do the trials in "foreign cities," this technology will be put to use in this country and will be used to further restrict our right to privacy. You know, the right that was legislated away with the Patriot Act. Was Orwell a reincarnation of Nostradamus? He sure was able to predict things (newspeak, big brother, etc.).
I heard an interview with Christopher Hitchens talking about Orwell, and how he was the only major intelect to get it right on just about everything. He was right about facism, Stalinism, Empires, and now I can't even remember the rest. Anyway this stuff is scary and wrong. I don't care if it's a foreign city or not. We actually don't know too much about what the govt. does domestically. They are the most secretive administration ever. I don't mean to place blame just on this administration either, but with things like the patriot acts, refusing to turn over records to congress, and programs like this, it's all too scary. I don't like where things are headed.
Amen. It doesn't take much to turn technology against our own citizens. I hate to say it, but if the Patriot Acts are not going to be done away with when terrorism is defeated (which will be probably never),there's no guarantee that this technology won't be turned against the citizens it is obstensibly to protect.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030702/ap_on_hi_te/hacker_warnings_7 you know something we don't know?
I've read tons of SF, and to see scenarios coming true that were written about for years is scary as hell. It should be illegal.
I agree with you about Hitchens. He is one smart guy. http://slate.msn.com/id/2084753/ http://slate.msn.com/id/2084147/
Nope <i>Azadre! We need at least four backdoors before the end of the hour or the system will find us and EMP our servers!!!</i> If the full-scale privacy invasion happens, I know what side I'd choose....
These are HUGE and TERRIFYING advances toward totaltarianism. Why are more people not outraged at this? We're Americans, for God's sake!!!
I am sort of two minds about this... On a personal level, and in terms of my own political and moral compass, this freaks the hell out of me...Really, really scary. But on a technological/practical level, I have a hard time imagining us developing technology like this and then not using it. I am not defending that thinking...one of the strongest condemnations I have against Hiroshima and particularly Nagasaki was that one of the factors which may have affected the decision to use both was that those involved in the development wanted to see their full effects... ...but if you are a country with enemies, as we clearly are...and you have this technology...what is the basis for not using it? I know it's a slippery slope, and I am against us having it at all...but the problem is that, like the bomb, once you create this kind of thing it is only a matter of time till someone else does too...and if they are using it and you aren't... Just trying to see both sides. I am personally frightened as hell about this, but if this technology hadn't come along coincidental with all the other stuff this administration is doing in terms of authoritarianism and imperial overtures, I'd be less concerened. I just don't think it's realistic for us to hope that we would spend billions developing this, and then let it sit there...it's not like nukes where it's just sitting there accomplishes it's aim, and we still had many in our past who still advocated using the nukes as a 1st strike weapon...
What nobody seems to mention (unless I missed something already) is the data-processing requirements. I don't mean to dampen any paranoia -- I love paranoia. But how the heck do you somehow monitor millions of data sensors like this? It would be useful for certain areas or certain individuals, but the idea that some government employee is going to hear your worst fart and make a note in your secret file is far fetched. Maybe I'm crazy, but Big Brother requires way too much competance and person-hours for humans to fully realize it. Just my 2 cents.
