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Blimps Monitor Crowds At Sporting Events

Posted by Soulskill on from the inflatable-rights-violation dept.

Death Metal tips news about how defense contractor Raytheon is adapting military-style surveillance packages for use aboard blimps at public events like the Indy 500. "Until recently, Raytheon's eye-in-the-sky technology was used in Afghanistan and Iraq to guard American military bases, working as airborne guards against any oncoming desert threat. Using infrared sensors and a map overlay not unlike Google Earth, the technology scans a large area, setting important landmarks (say, the perimeter of a military base), and constantly relays video clips back to a command center. If a gun fires or a bomb is detonated, the airships can detect the noise and focus the camera — all from a mighty-high 500 feet." Though the technology is expensive, Raytheon is shopping it around to police departments and other organizations that might want to keep an eye on large gatherings of people.

5 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Irritating line from TFA by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The airship is great because it doesn't have that Big Brother feel, or create feelings of invasiveness," says Lee Silvestre, vice president of mission innovation in Raytheon's Integrated Defense division.

    Oh, okay. As long as we don't feel like we're being watched, everything's all right then.

    Excuse me? Isn't the whole idea of a good spy not to make the targets feel like they're being watched? Is it okay for foreign agents to get copies of classified documents as long as we don't feel like they're doing it?

    --
    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    1. Re:Irritating line from TFA by sakdoctor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Blimps and airships have featured in many works of dystopian fiction. Especially alternative time-line "soviets won" type works.
      So I think he could be wrong about that one.

  2. I'm okay with surveillance by MLS100 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as I don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

    The problem is in the abuse of this, like the footage that came out of the police using their night surveillance equipment to spy on individuals having an evening with a lady in their penthouse.

    So as long as abuse is monitored and actively discouraged, what's wrong with being watched while you're in public?

  3. Good old Raytheon by gringofrijolero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder if they offer cool tech for us regular citizens to watch over the authorities. Kinda doubt it.

    --
    Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
  4. Re:This is great! by The+Archon+V2.0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lol @ excessive response to lesser problems.

    Something must be done to combat terrorism.
    This is something.
    Therefore, we must do this.