Posted on 09/17/2007 12:28:32 AM PDT by dayglored
The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated gadgets to keep individuals under their surveillance. When it comes to technology, the US is determined to stay ahead of the game....
Their goal is to invent a system whereby a facial image can be matched to your gait, your height, your weight and other elements, so a computer will be able to identify instantly who you are.
How you walk could be used to identify you in a crowd. "As you walk through a crowd, we'll be able to track you," said Professor Challapa. "These are all things that don't need the cooperation of the individual." ....
"And this idea about a total surveillance society," I asked. "Is that science fiction?"
"No, that's not science fiction. We're developing an unmanned airplane - a UAV - which may be able to stay up five years with cameras on it, constantly being cued to look here and there. This is done today to a limited amount in Baghdad. But it's the way to go."
Interestingly, we, the public, don't seem to mind. Opinion polls, both in the US and Britain, say that about 75% of us want more, not less, surveillance. Some American cities like New York and Chicago are thinking of taking a lead from Britain where our movements are monitored round the clock by four million CCTV cameras....
Using radio waves, you point it a wall and it tells you if anyone is on the other side. ... it turns out that the human body gives off such sensitive radio signals, that it can even pick up breathing and heart rates...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
That's what governments do, when they have power. There simply are no exceptions; sometimes there are delays in implementation, but the end result is always the same.
I truly fear for privacy should the Dems gain the White House in 2008.
You think not having passed the Patriot Act would stop a President Hillary from violating the civil rights of her opponents ?
I'd say "short-sightedness" rather than "stupidity". A lot of people seem to assume that the party currently in power will remain in power forever. It just ain't so.
Hillary has demonstrated that she will wield power without conscience. That troubles me. Our Republic has weathered a number of powerful Presidents, and a number of bad Presidents, but rarely a powerful, bad President. Sounds dangerous to me.
This has been going on ever since they first tacked up the Wanted Poster. The idea is to catch the bad guys.
> You think that having it in place isn't going to make her attempts to do that easier?
Bad administrations will flagrantly violate the law, regardless. Forgive me if I don’t want to hogtie responsible administrations from fighting a war on terror.
My problem with the whole surveillance thing is that it doesn't prevent anything - it just provides data after the fact. UK shows that repeatedly - they'll have a crime (like the latest bombings), and sure, within a couple of hours they can show the perps committing the act, and show where they were in the hours before hand, but while that's glitzy, it didn't stop the crime. In terms of terrorism, when you are fighting people willing (and eager) to die in commission of their act, it really doesn't matter if you can see where they bought a soda 4 hours before - you're not going to prosecute anyway. It doesn't prevent ordinary crime either, because the criminals learn pretty quickly where they'll be under surveillance and just commit their crimes in other places. All the surveillance does is provide video history of a few crimes, and millions of hours of peaceful, law-abiding people going about their lives, unaware of the privacy they've lost. The idea that a government employee would ever have the ability to just look up all the video of someone they pick out (say a beautiful woman, or an ex-boyfriend), researching the patterns of their lives, just tells me that there is an element of society that will be looking to have those jobs that we probably would prefer didn't.
Way more freakin cameras watching and waiting for grandma to run a red light than there EVER will be on the border watching to see Osama’s buddies come waltzing in with nukes in their backpacks.
read
......And this isn't being used by the medical profession because.....?
I'm going to call BS on this claim. Our most sensitive medical monitoring equipment still requires instrument to patient contact unless we irradiate them.
I believe that the reason that the report’s claims sound like BS is that it is technically incorrect.
First, ‘radio’ waves.
All waves are of the ‘electro-magnetic frequency’ or EMF. Radio, TV, radar, are all divisions made by the FCC.
microwave,uhf,vhf,x-ray,vlf,ulf,visual - are the divisions or ‘spectrum’, which are technically correct.
Radio waves, as used, means a signal is imposed upon a particular frequency, to enhance it’s recognition when radiated back.
If you beam various parts of the spectrum at a solid object, some bounce back, some go through. Video, or audio interpretation of the difference in what bounces back can reveal even details like the article claims.
I have a device that I can hold up to the wall, and it will tell me;
If the wall is hollow.
If I am over a stud.
Where the nails are, exactly.
If what is behind the wall is wood, or metal.
If there is an electrical wire with current.
I can put it on my leg and it tells me where the bone is.
I can put on the floor, and it will tell me the same.
Any surface, it works.
I have had it for over 10 years.
You can buy it at a good hardware store.
We can ‘see’ through solid concrete.
Once again, the terminology is the fault. Concrete is not solid. It ‘is’ a dense solid.
It is permeable. We even beam EMF signals through the Earth. The Earth itself beams them every day. (Earthquake seismic waves)
We ‘see’ pictures from the Hubble, and Earth based ‘telescopes’, but most are interpretations of ‘radio’ waves.
This picture is taken of objects billions of light years away, through a universe that is as dense as concrete is on the molecular level.
I wouldn’t be too quick to call BS on this issue. The BS comes from the reporter’s translation of the concepts.
Or the Republicans.
I don’t care.
I think I saw you the other day at the store.
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