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News: Big Brother has big eyes in the sky!

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
argus.jpg


At 15 frames per second, that's got to be a trainload of data to be transmitted from a 1.8 GigaPixel camera that we have already paid for!

Just $18 million awarded in November 2007 and already February 2009 this system is getting ready to be deployed!

BAE Systems.com said:
WASHINGTON — BAE Systems has received an $18.5 million, 30-month contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a new class of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems and capabilities.

BAE Systems will lead DARPA’s Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System (ARGUS-IS) program. The company will develop, integrate, and demonstrate advanced ISR systems and capabilities for wide-area persistent monitoring. The systems are targeted for use in Department of Defense unmanned and manned surveillance platforms.

“Shortfalls in persistent surveillance continue to challenge U.S. forces across many theaters of operation,” said Dr. John Antoniades, director of remote sensing technologies for BAE Systems’ Advanced Technologies group. “The ARGUS program will provide a sorely needed, persistent, and robust surveillance capability for many existing ISR airborne platforms.”

The program’s goal is to develop a compact system combining a multi-gigapixel, high-resolution sensor; wide-field optics; an ultra-high-bandwidth, real-time airborne processing system; and a ground station for interactive multi-target designation, tracking, and exploitation. The airborne processing system can simultaneously and continuously detect and track the presence and motion of thousands of small or large targets over an area covering tens of square miles.

“This next generation of real-time surveillance systems will increase wide-area, high-resolution collection capabilities by one to two orders of magnitude over current airborne assets,” said Dr. Steven Wein, director of optical sensor systems for BAE Systems.

About BAE Systems
BAE Systems is the premier global defense and aerospace company, delivering a full range of products and services for air, land, and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, information technology solutions and customer support services. BAE Systems, with 96,000 employees worldwide, had 2006 sales that exceeded $27 billion on a pro forma basis, assuming BAE Systems had owned Armor Holdings, Inc. for the whole of 2006.

"You may think your new ten-megapixel camera is pretty hot –- but not when you compare it to the 1.8 Gigapixel beast built for the Pentagon. The camera is designed as a payload for the A-160T Hummingbird robot helicopter now being quietly delivered to Special Forces. It will give them an unprecedented ability to track everything on the ground in real time. The camera is scheduled for flight testing at the start of next year.
Developed under the auspices of Darpa, the camera is the sensor part of Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System or ARGUS-IS. The camera is composed of four arrays, each containing 92 five-megapixel imagers. The other parts of ARGUS are the airborne processing system, which has to deal with a phenomenal torrent of data, and the ground-based element. The airborne part fits into a 500-pound pod.
The Hummingbird is unique in its ability to hover at high altitude (over 15,000 feet) and its endurance of over 20 hours. This means it can park high in the sky and scan a wide area. Robo-chopper camera-maker BAE Systems says that its imager will be able to cover an area of over a hundred square miles. The refresh rate is fifteen frames per second and a "ground sample distance" of 15 centimeters –- this means that each pixel represents six inches on the ground. (The Darpa diagram, above, suggests a smaller area of coverage, 40 square kilometers or 15 square miles, at that resolution.)"

Read the rest of the story in "Wired", here.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Na!
No good!
I want to be able to piss on a bush without being spied!
Keep your money to salve starving and suffering people in the world…
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
In London and a few other great cities in the U.K., video cameras watch everything everywhere. In fact civil liberties may not be harmed although imagined privacy is. Think about the airport screener with the new infrared cameras that can see through clothing and the idea that customs can look through or even copy the contents of your laptop! There's a lot of trespass we take for granted.

Sure it's all safe for us. If we could send our genitals ahead by Fedex, people would do it, for sure! Well there's no real problem, Fedex will deliver them the next morning, but imagine having to stitch them back on in your hotel room every time!

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
In London and a few other great cities in the U.K., video cameras watch everything everywhere. In fact civil liberties may not be harmed although imagined privacy is. Think about the airport screener with the new infrared cameras that can see through clothing and the idea that customs can look through or even copy the contents of your laptop! There's a lot of trespass we take for granted.

Sure it's all safe for us.

On the contrary! not safe at all!
we have no control on WHO decides what! Civil liberties may be harmed at any moment and we won't be able to react and break all these awfull machines! we are sheeps. And the shepherds know it all.
A shepherd is a person who tends to, feeds, or guards sheep, especially in flocks. The word may also refer to one who provides religious guidance, as a pastor.
Source: wikipedia

Wake-up! re read Orwells, re watch Charlie Chaplin films! we're caught! we think we live in democracy but that's a big fake idea!

Ok, sorry, am better going photography… ;-[
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
On the contrary! not safe at all!
we have no control on WHO decides what! Civil liberties may be harmed at any moment and we won't be able to react and break all these awfull machines! we are sheeps. And the shepherds know it all.
Source: wikipedia

Wake-up! re read Orwells, re watch Charlie Chaplin films! we're caught! we think we live in democracy but that's a big fake idea!
Nicolas,

It's not just the government, it's big business too! Our every day lives are broken down by parameters and the data stacked and mined.

Privacy groups say widely-anticipated recommendations on how websites collect, save and share information about users don't protect the public.
The Federal Trade Commission's new policies focus on targeted advertising that tracks consumer behaviour online.
"The time for baby steps to protect online privacy is long passed, there need to be laws," said Jeff Chester of the Centre for Digital Democracy.
"Self-regulation simply hasn't worked," he said.
"The Commission is supposed to serve as the nation's leading consumer protection agency. But for too long it has buried its mandate in the 'digital' sand, as far as ensuring US consumer privacy is protected online.
"The FTC should have recommended that Congress enact legislation and give people control over what information is collected and how it is used," Mr Chester told the BBC.
"Day of reckoning"
For the last year the Commission has been looking at the issue of online marketing, which has grown into a $20bn (£13.6bn) a year industry by pitching adverts at consumers based on what websites they have visited.
In its 48-page Staff Report on Behavioural Advertising, the FTC expanded on the agency's guidelines for online marketers set out in 2007 and said it aimed to "encourage privacy protections while maintaining a competitive marketplace".
Read more here

I have no doubt that Europe is not far behind in this abuse of our use of the internet and filling up "Warranty" and "Registration" forms for gear we buy!

Asher

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
It's not just the government, it's big business too! Our every day lives are broken down by parameters and the data stacked and mined.
I have no doubt that Europe is not far behind in this abuse of our use of the internet and filling up "Warranty" and "Registration" forms for gear we buy!

Of course it's not only governements! The "shepherds" are drawn by the big money makers, this is not a secret!
In Europe, Asia are also involved ! but I have to admit that the USA have a certain degree of advance! see the Reagan's projects and I'm quite sure that your former President did a lot to protect US citizens…
In France there is a tradition to resist when liberties may be harmed, but till our new President, we're recovering our lateness…
Still there is a indpendant organisation called CNIL (Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés) whose mission is to ensure that data privacy law is applied to the collection, storage, and use of personal data. Created on 6 January 1978. See wiki
It helps a little bit to prevent and protect… I've never heard of such organisation in other countries…
 

Phil Marion

New member
Nicolas, my guess is this helicopter will have a primary use as battlefield recon. It will probably be used to locate Taliban urinaters - and any other such folk who dare to object to their Washington imposed rulers - rather than spying on rogue Frenchmen peeing on the President's favorite French vineyard, but maybe I am not cynical enough....yet.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Phil
just a point, in my first post here,
I want to be able to piss on a bush without being spied!
a bush is a small tree and there were no pun intended.
If it would have been your former President, I would have written Bush.

Though I don't like him very much, I do have a kind of respect for his function.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
 
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Still there is a indpendant organisation called CNIL (Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés) whose mission is to ensure that data privacy law is applied to the collection, storage, and use of personal data. Created on 6 January 1978. See wiki
It helps a little bit to prevent and protect… I've never heard of such organisation in other countries…

The Dutch version: http://www.dutchdpa.nl/indexen/en_ind_cbp.shtml

Bart
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So, with this growing technology, what will "freedom" mean in 20 years from now?

What spaces will be private for those of us declared to be in free socieities?

Asher
 
Is this system operating on MS-Vista?

On a second thought: I am planning to travel to Coroico, Bolivia from the capital La Paz over the week end --to avoid carnival and frozen-water-balloon throwers--. The town is about 40 miles away and I can't find a road map after 20 minutes of google searching. (I do see the roads very well in Google Earth).

My point is: while there is so much resources being spent on military real time mapping, there are parts of the world that continue to live in total abandon of simple technology as A ROAD MAP.

Not blaming anyone, just reflecting in the way we civilized humans are...
 

Rod Witten

pro member
So, with this growing technology, what will "freedom" mean in 20 years from now?

What spaces will be private for those of us declared to be in free socieities?

Asher

Further advances in technology most likely will compound our current problems with information credibility. Today, our mental freedom is essentially imprisioned by media, academic, religous, corporate and political programming, our own ignorance and naivety. Yes, many have the freedom to choose between flavors of someone elses self-interest. But, why should we worry since the ACLU is looking after all of our liberties.

rew
 
Unfortunately as technology gets better I believe we'll be under the constant watchful eye of "big Brother".I'm sure the debate as to the benefits of such an invasion of privacy will continue.Thank god we still have lobbyists in washington who are standing up for some of our constitutional rights...including the NRA.

Matthew Erricson
http://photofstop.com
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