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DARPA Developing 'Combat Zones That See'
t0rnt0pieces writes "DARPA 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 city. Officials claim that the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas, but police, scientists and privacy experts say the technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans. Combined with other technologies, such as software that scans databases of everyday transactions and personal records worldwide, the government would have a reasonably good idea of where everyone is most of the time. Read the news story and the contracting document."
So I guess the officials can also tell us why the hell overseas cities should provide the camera installation for US troops to fight there more easily?
To install the cameras you usually need to control the city and to control a city in a military operations requires some fighting before. Looks like a perfect Catch22 to me.
The trends in the government toward an Orwellian society sinerely worry me. Ashcroft and Bush have exploited 9/11 in order to pass many new laws that curb the openness of American society. They do all this under the guise of "national security" -- and yet we are not any more secure -- the non-partisan Council of Foreign Relations recently put out a report, saying that "Nearly two years after 9/11, the United States is drastically underfunding local emergency responders and remains dangerously unprepared to handle a catastrophic attack on American soil, particularly one involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-impact conventional weapons. If the nation does not take immediate steps to better identify and address the urgent needs of emergency responders, the next terrorist incident could be even more devastating than 9/11."
Our state of government is corrupt. Politicians are being bribed left and right in order to allow the big-media to consolidate even more, in order to pass DMCA type legislation, and in order to pass acts such as the PATRIOT Act, which should have been named the Big Brother Act. They are even creating Orwellian agencies such as the Total Information Awareness program (renamed to the Terrorism Information Awareness system, in hopes that this would help them fool the public on its purposes).
This is a farce. We need a new leader who will restore American values to this country. I personally think Howard Dean is our best chance at restoring this country to what it was (a good example of what he stands for is in his speech titled "The Great American Restoration", but in all honestly, almost anyone would be preferable to the anti-American Bush cabal.
Ah yes, the good old "Only the guilty need fear" argument, shame its a fiction.
Around the world we have countless examples of restrictions made in the name of national security actually being used against the country's own citizens. East Germany, Russia, China, most of the old communist countries and so on.
The actions of the Stasi and the KGB were all justified by the excuse of "National Security".
Nice troll.
How does this help law enforcement? There's a huge difference between enforcing the law and turning everyone into paranoid fscks. Just because I'm not doing anything illegal doesn't mean I'll be happy with some prick monitoring it.
Laws are for people with no friends.
A few radical folks decided that King George III had to go. That was treason and some of them were hanged (Nathan Hale).
At the time that the radicals decided that British rule had to go, all those radicals had to do was step out behind the barn and look around to see if they were being overheard by the King's forces. That would be impossible under this proposal.
There is a well established legal right to engage in this kind of discourse - but this proposal eliminates (chills) the right of the people to peacably assemble (even if they want to plot the overthrow of the current government - perhaps by ballot / constitutional convention / impeachment / or just running Ralph Nader again). US. Const. 1st Amend.
Do you use credit cards, debit cards, cash point card ?
Use a mobile phone, use it lots ?
Any one of the above can be used to track you.
Use store cards, reward cards (don't know if you get these in the US, but most the big supermarkets in the UK have these), combined together with you credit/debit card records a reasonable profile of you could be put together.
Technology is cool, with live by tech, we die for tech, but the same technology also traps us in an observable, trackable society.
To quote a great American patriot, Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
The United States was formed in order to create a government for the people, not against them. Our people are honorable citizens, not potential terrorist suspects. This trend toward an Orwellian society goes against all American values.
AND UK/USA. It is illegal under both our laws for the security services to spy on civilians. So we spy on yours, you spy on ours, data exchanged, all nice and legal.
And what's with this "how long until it is used on American soil?" attitude? Are you the only people on the world who are allowed to have privacy or something? Do you see a breach of someones civil liberties in some random country as "OK", provided Americans aren't affected? What's with that attitude?
Already, I am way too swamped with information I can't process it all, and many businesses I have to deal with ( insurance companies and anything to do with retirement investments ) know this and send me reams and reams of meaningless data.
Ever tried to read those phone-book prospectus they send? Or tried to understand whats really covered in that insurance policy? Or know what you should do with those proxies?
So somehow the government is going to collect and store all this data on all of us. How many of us will be needed to snoop on the rest of us? How many of us will be actually earning our keep, rather than coercing (taxing) it away from someone else? Will our economy, already crumbling from the effects of our inefficiency, absorb yet more non-productive loading? We are already running a helluva national debt. I know we think Joe Taxpayer is going to somehow foot the bill for this whole thing, but I get the idea we are kinda in for a surprise similar to the one some astronauts got when they tried to push some overstressed things beyond their limit. Once the infrastructure collapses, we may have to start off at a very low level again. What scares me is that it seems to me that technology has outpaced our means of maintaining it without a sophisticated infrastructure in place to do so. Given the resources of a machine shop, could you produce anything you needed to keep cars running?
I have large areas of my life in collapse already from not "making time" to pay due diligence to numerous busyworks. ( I put "making time" in quotes, because I really can't make time, I only can divert it from something else. ) - I simply can't see where we as a public can afford all this busywork trying to keep tabs on everybody else.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I knew as soon as I read your comment that you'd get lots of responses, and you have, but none that I've read so far have given you the correct answer, IMHO.
I'm sure that in 1937, all the German people thought their government was the greatest thing on the planet. I'm sure that even the Jews didn't really think they had anything to worry about, after all, they weren't breaking any laws. Within a few year, though, Hitler made sure that laws were created that the Jews, just by being Jewish, were breaking. According to Hitler, that made them a threat to his country, and they had to separated. Since some of the resisted, they had to disposed of. It's a harsh truth, but as far as Hitler was concerned, everything he was doing was perfectly acceptable. The Jews, before the late 30's, didn't think anything was wrong... obviously they were mistaken.
Just because you're not breaking any laws now doesn't mean you won't next week, next month, or next year. We have a government that has the power to create laws. The only thing the general population can do is protest, but in the end, the only way the politicians will regret what they do is if they're not re-elected, which in the worst case (Senators) can be 6 years later (I'll also mention that in the original Constitution, Senators weren't supposed to be elected, but rather chosen by the State Legislature). Even if a new law was drafted and passed that would require (insert your ethnic group here) to register in the middle of the desert in Nevada, realistically, there's nothing you could do about it for the next few years, until the sponsors of the bill were up for re-election.
The Bill of Rights was based on certain God-given (not Government-given) rights, such as the freedom of speech, press, religion, etc. One of the rights that isn't specifically mentioned is the Freedom of a certain amount of Privacy. Where I go on vacation is my choice, and I feel it's a matter of privacy. If I decide to go to Mount Rushmore alone, and not tell anybody about it, I don't want anybody else to know. That's my choice, and it's a freedom I expect from living in a country where the national anthem says "Land of the Free". Free to do what? To have the government track my movements, wherever I go? Is that what the Founding Fathers thought when they left England? "Gee, General Washington, I think we should create a government that can monitor and oppress its people whenever it wants with almost no possibility of retribution." I somehow doubt it.
The fact that we're discussing what freedoms and liberties are violated by the government tracking our movements tells me that people have forgotten why this country was founded in the first place. This country was founded so people could make lives for themselves doing whatever they chose, as long as they didn't deprive someone else of their freedoms. The government was created for the sole purpose of protecting people from deprivation of property and violence. The government was the friend of the people 200 years ago, but now is an entity to be looked upon with fear and apprehension. The "values" of "diversity" and "equal" rights are responsible. People that work for a living now have up to 40% of their earnings taken away and given to people that don't work for a living. Credit is given to people based on the color of their skins. "Equal rights" is a joke now, only funny to those that get things handed to them. To everyone else, it's a threat of violence or incarceration.
The people of this country need to seriously look at what their country has become, then we need to fix it.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
Well, I don't understand the guy's concerns. This DARPA effort is just the application of current technology to a traditional warzone necessity. Any nation with the same technical capabilities would, and will, do the same.
Slashdot runs this kind of stuff under a "rights" rubric just as a piece of scaremongering to drum up traffic. It is nothing less than bush league tabload sensationalism (which, come to think of it, is what Slashdot has sunk to these days.) Sadly, it seems to get a lot of credence in the "Ashamed to be Born in the West" crowd.
The U.S. can't and shouldn't lead if that means kowtowing to the racist and extremist views that are endemic and most of the world. If the rest of the world finally gets the gumption to eliminate its own racist and manipulative dictators and potentates, then they can democratize themselves and join the 21st century. Until then, they pose a threat to democracies everywhere, including the U.S. Why would any state seek to lead nations whose very existence threaten it?
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