Watching You, Watching Me
http://www.radiolab.org/story/watching-you-watching-me/
(Season 14, Episode 7)
From awkward moments to practical jokes to serious attempts at battling crime, we ask whether being watched is a good or bad thing.
…
… Then, a hard look at the trade-off between privacy and safety. In 2004, when casualties in Iraq were rising due to roadside bombs,
Ross McNutt and his team came up with an idea. With a small plane and a 44 mega-pixel camera, they figured out how to watch an entire city all at once,
all day long. Whenever a bomb detonated, they could zoom onto that spot and then, because this eye in the sky had been there all along,
they could scroll back in time and see - literally see - who planted it.
After the war, Ross McNutt retired from the Air Force, and brought this technology back home with him. Manoush Zomorodi and Alex Goldmark from the podcast
“Note to Self" give us the lowdown on Ross’s unique brand of persistent surveillance, from Juarez, Mexico to Dayton, Ohio. Then, once we realize what we can do,
we wonder whether we should. ...
In their own words “About PSS"
http://www.pss-1.com/about-pss
PSS develops highly capable, yet affordable, wide area surveillance systems for city, state, national, and international markets.
Who We Are
In business since 2007, PSS has brought innovative systems to the Wide Area Surveillance marketplace. With a deep pedigree in military wide area motion imagery systems, its owner and Chief Technical Officer, Dr. Ross T. McNutt PhD. has developed the most complete & affordable system on the market today.
Our Focus
PSS provides unparalleled capabilities and support systems to customers it serves. Not content with providing pieces of a system, PSS designs and builds complete matched systems including sensors, image processors, support & management software, data communications, image storage devices, processes, and ultimately image exploitation command centers.
As someone who's spent his adult life attracted to 'off-sides' places and rural living great distances from the metropolitan areas, I think it's easier for me to recognize some mega trends that folks lost in the flow (and the brain washing) won't recognize.
In any event, this seems like a perfect example of our society's real-time human-over-population experiment exposing another down side of our mad rush towards over-population and crowding.
No time* for more musings beyond the observation:
Who says we don’t have waaay too many people?
I keep seeing where Republican types ridicule Ehrlich and his observations about the reality and dangers of over-population back when I was a kid.
Look around and tell me his warming ain't happening before our eyes :smirk:
The UH-72A Lakota helicopter can be equipped with a 5 mile range camera that is also effective in the dark and operated remotely by computer. Sounds like the same camera they are talking about.
Crazy. I don’t like the idea of mass public surveillance, although as some of the commentators noted - we don’t really have any right to privacy in public. We need other means to keep the lid on that.
Then, a hard look at the trade-off between privacy and safety. In 2004, when casualties in Iraq were rising due to roadside bombs,
Ross McNutt and his team came up with an idea. With a small plane and a 44 mega-pixel camera, they figured out how to watch an entire city all at once,
all day long. Whenever a bomb detonated, they could zoom onto that spot and then, because this eye in the sky had been there all along,
they could scroll back in time and see - literally see - who planted it.
This caught my attention because it's complete bull$*** on every level. This Ross McNutt and his geek tech didn't help us out at all in Iraq, and here it sounds like he's trying to manipulate the public into thinking this a good idea by pimping his military service.
Crazy. I don't like the idea of mass public surveillance, although as some of the commentators noted - we don't really have any right to privacy in public. We need other means to keep the lid on that.
Then, a hard look at the trade-off between privacy and safety. In 2004, when casualties in Iraq were rising due to roadside bombs,
Ross McNutt and his team came up with an idea. With a small plane and a 44 mega-pixel camera, they figured out how to watch an entire city all at once,
all day long. Whenever a bomb detonated, they could zoom onto that spot and then, because this eye in the sky had been there all along,
they could scroll back in time and see - literally see - who planted it.
This caught my attention because it's complete bull$*** on every level. This Ross McNutt and his geek tech didn't help us out at all in Iraq, and here it sounds like he's trying to manipulate the public into thinking this a good idea by pimping his military service.
I'm curious about the rest of the story, which seems like you might know a little about.
The technology is available and surveillance will be done illegally, as it was done in the case where Snowdon blew the whistle. There is no escape.
The only thing that would lessen some of the damage resulting from invasion of privacy is if there were laws banning any legal action using what was found on illegal mass surveillance. And if it is found to have been done, those responsible should be indicted. Of course, it’s not easy to enforce such rules eapecially when there is government corruption and double dealing, but it’s better than nothing. At the very least such surveillance recordings should never be allowed as evidence against any defendant in a court of law, no matter what the charge. . And laws protecting whistleblowers should be strengthened. Of course politicians and lawyers will try to carve out exceptions, as they always do.
The technology is available and surveillance will be done illegally, as it was done in the case where Snowdon blew the whistle. There is no escape.
The only thing that would lessen some of the damage resulting from invasion of privacy is if there were laws banning any legal action using what was found on illegal mass surveillance. And if it is found to have been done, those responsible should be indicted. Of course, it's not easy to enforce such rules eapecially when there is government corruption and double dealing, but it's better than nothing. At the very least such surveillance recordings should never be allowed as evidence against any defendant in a court of law, no matter what the charge. . And laws protecting whistleblowers should be strengthened. Of course politicians and lawyers will try to carve out exceptions, as they always do.
Beltane, I have bad habit of hitting Edit, though I might be aiming at New Post.
In any event, I’ve accidentally edited by post #4 and wanted to draw your attention to it…
Crazy. I don't like the idea of mass public surveillance, although as some of the commentators noted - we don't really have any right to privacy in public. We need other means to keep the lid on that.
Then, a hard look at the trade-off between privacy and safety. In 2004, when casualties in Iraq were rising due to roadside bombs,
Ross McNutt and his team came up with an idea. With a small plane and a 44 mega-pixel camera, they figured out how to watch an entire city all at once,
all day long. Whenever a bomb detonated, they could zoom onto that spot and then, because this eye in the sky had been there all along,
they could scroll back in time and see - literally see - who planted it.
This caught my attention because it's complete bull$*** on every level. This Ross McNutt and his geek tech didn't help us out at all in Iraq, and here it sounds like he's trying to manipulate the public into thinking this a good idea by pimping his military service.
I'm curious about the rest of the story, which seems like you might know a little about.
I just know this technology didn't make a dent in IED suppression in Iraq when I was there. afaik, casualties from IEDs increased after 2004. Never heard of McNutt before reading this article, but I get the impression he is attempting to use his military service in a way to pimp his company's necessity to law enforcement agencies.
