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Pentagon Developing Urban Surveillance System

By Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Wed Jul 02, 2003 at 03:54:25 PM EST
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Our friendly Pentagon is developing a new urban surveillance system that will track and record every vehicle within a city. It's called "Combat Zones That See."

The Pentagon 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.

Named "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect its troops abroad and fight in cities overseas. Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could be adapted easily to spy on Americans.

The program is the brainchild of DARPA. In addition to its planned massive database of personal records, DARPA is currently at work on a system that would create "a computerized diary that would record and analyze everything a person says, sees, hears, reads or touches."

While DARPA denies it intends these programs for civilian use, scientists are concerned:

"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 American Federation of Scientists.

"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."

If you are still not feeling like you are at risk of becoming a subject of our government's surveillance, consider this:

DARPA told [contractors attending a conference] that 40 million cameras 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.

Anyone want to bet that these systems will be in place at the Republican convention in NYC next year--and at the site of future WTO meetings?

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