U.S. Develops Urban Surveillance System

Associated Press ^ | Jul 01, 2003 | MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN

[optimistically_conservative]

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) 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 foreign city.

AP Photo

Dubbed "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas.

Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans.

The project's centerpiece is groundbreaking computer software that is capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face.

According to interviews and contracting documents, the software may also provide instant alerts after detecting a vehicle with a license plate on a watchlist, or search months of records to locate and compare vehicles spotted near terrorist activities.

The project is being overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is helping the Pentagon develop new technologies for combatting terrorism and fighting wars in the 21st century.

Its other projects include developing software that scans databases of everyday transactions and personal records worldwide to predict terrorist attacks and creating a computerized diary that would record and analyze everything a person says, sees, hears, reads or touches.

Scientists and privacy experts — who already have seen the use of face-recognition technologies at a Super Bowl and monitoring cameras in London — are concerned about the potential impact of the emerging DARPA technologies if they are applied to civilians by commercial or government agencies outside the Pentagon.

"Government would have a reasonably good idea of where everyone is most of the time," said John Pike, a Global Security.org defense analyst.

DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker dismisses those concerns. She said the Combat Zones That See (CTS) technology isn't intended for homeland security or law enforcement and couldn't be used for "other applications without extensive modifications."

But scientists envision nonmilitary uses. "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.

Pike agreed.

"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."

James Fyfe, a deputy New York police commissioner, believes police will be ready customers for such technologies.

"Police executives are saying, `Shouldn't we just buy new technology if there's a chance it might help us?'" Fyfe said. "That's the post-9-11 mentality."

Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said he sees law enforcement applications for DARPA's urban camera project "in limited scenarios." But citywide surveillance would tax police manpower, Kerlikowske said. "Who's going to validate and corroborate all those alerts?"

According to contracting documents reviewed by The Associated Press, DARPA plans to award a three-year contract for up to $12 million by Sept. 1. In the first phase, at least 30 cameras would help protect troops at a fixed site. The project would use small $400 stick-on cameras, each linked to a $1,000 personal computer.

In the second phase, at least 100 cameras would be installed in 12 hours to support "military operations in an urban terrain."

The second-phase software should be able to analyze the video footage and identify "what is normal (behavior), what is not" and discover "links between places, subjects and times of activity," the contracting documents state.

The program "aspires to build the world's first multi-camera surveillance system that uses automatic ... analysis of live video" to study vehicle movement "and significant events across an extremely large area," the documents state.

Both configurations will be tested at Ft. Belvoir, Va., south of Washington, then in a foreign city. Walker declined comment on whether Kabul, Afghanistan (news - web sites), or Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites), might be chosen but says the foreign country's permission will be obtained.

DARPA outlined project goals March 27 for more than 100 executives of potential contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

DARPA told the contractors that 40 million cameras already 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.

Great Britain has an estimated 2.5 million closed-circuit television cameras, more than half operated by government agencies, and the average Londoner is thought to be photographed 300 times a day.

But many of these cameras record over their videotape regularly. Officers have to monitor the closed-circuit TV and struggle with boredom and loss of attention.

By automating the monitoring and analysis, DARPA "is attempting to create technology that does not exist today," Walker explained.

Though insisting CTS isn't intended for homeland security, DARPA outlined a hypothetical scenario for contractors in March that showed the system could aid police as well as the military. DARPA described a hypothetical terrorist shooting at a bus stop and a hypothetical bombing at a disco one month apart in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, a city with slightly more residents than Miami.

CTS should be able to track the day's movements for every vehicle that passed each scene in the hour before the attack, DARPA said. Even if there were 2,000 such vehicles and none showed up twice, the software should automatically compare their routes and find vehicles with common starting and stopping points.

Joseph Onek of the Open Society Institute, a human rights group, said current law that permits the use of cameras in public areas may have to be revised to address the privacy implications of these new technologies.

"It's one thing to say that if someone is in the street he knows that at any single moment someone can see him," Onek said. "It's another thing to record a whole life so you can see anywhere someone has been in public for 10 years."

___

On the Net:

DARPA contracting document: http://dtsn.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/CTS/file/BAA_03-15_CTS_PIP.pdf

[appalachian_dweller]

>> If it isn't in the Constitution, the federal government can't do it. <<

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Someone should remind the Supreme Court of that.

[DannyTN]

"I bought a Trac Fone for just such purposes and it's registered to Tom Daschle. No accounts, no records, only an amorphous Tom Daschle with a cell phone to light up the satellite tracker.

LOL, I'm trying to think of places you could mail it to. Brothels...Gay bars...etc. But I haven't been able to think of anywhere I'd be shocked to learn Daschle visited.

[blackdog]

Maybe I should have it overnited to Karl Rove every third day. Once Hillary finds out where he's been going, she'll fly his King Air right into Mount Rushmore.

[DannyTN]

"Maybe I should have it overnited to Karl Rove every third day. Once Hillary finds out where he's been going, she'll fly his King Air right into Mount Rushmore. "

You could send it to Monica Lewinsky once a week. At the very least that ought to start a good rivalry between Tom and Bill.

[microgood]

and the government has a right to record public events to protect us against red light runners, terrorists, speeders, etc.

But who protects us from the government? Since government is made of people and not GOD, they are corruptible. A lot of identity theft comes from government employees selling information which should be private to others. We need to limit the information government has about us exactly because we cannot trust them. We have our constitution because we cannot trust them.

[Old Sarge]

My Gods, how many times have we seen this scenario play out already?

[TexasRepublic]

This could become far worse than "1984" - Orwell didn't foresee the proliferation of millions of tiny inexepensive solid state color TV cameras and computers to monitor them.

[Ancesthntr]

Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans.

You can bet that this is precisely what it was designed to do.

Mourn for our Republic - it is on its deathbed.

[Dr Warmoose]

"One can easily foresee pressure to adopt a similar approach to crime-ridden areas of American cities

Oh the minorities will surely go for that. Yet another reason to hate whitey and distrust authority. I wonder what the replacement cost is to keep those cameras in working order? If I was a drug dealer there would not be a single camera recording my actions.

Maybe I need to patent my LCD license plates.

[Ancesthntr]

Kkindt said:

God's eyes are watching us all the time so it should be something we are use to - it happens that those who don't believe in God and that He doesn't see them that often get upset by public cameras.

SO GET USE TO being recorded. IT happens every second of your life by God - and the government has a right to record public events to protect us against red light runners, terrorists, speeders, etc.

Microgood said:

But who protects us from the government? Since government is made of people and not GOD, they are corruptible. A lot of identity theft comes from government employees selling information which should be private to others. We need to limit the information government has about us exactly because we cannot trust them. We have our constitution because we cannot trust them.

Microgood is exactly correct. Who will watch the watchers? And why, Kkindt, to you compare the government to G-d? The government is made up of a bunch of corruptible human beings, who are tempted even more into corruption by the power that they wield. Remember the saying "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely?" Well, Kkindt, we are well and truly screwed. Some future J. Edgar Hoover is going to get recordings on all of his or her political enemies, and will use that information to blackmail them the same way that the Clintons used the 900 FBI files against the Republicans.

Ben Franklin, a wiser observer of human beings than anyone on FR, said "Those who are willing to give up their essential liberties in exchange for the illusion of security neither deserve nor will get either." In light of this statement, and of the corruptibility of humans everywhere, maybe you should re-examine your statist philosophy a bit.

[Dr Warmoose]

current law that permits the use of cameras in public areas may have to be revised to address the privacy implications of these new technologies.

Where is Sandra Day O'Connor to weigh in on this. Screw "current law", just say sodomites might lose their privacy and POOF! the whole camera issue falls away as an invasion of the Constitutional Right To Privacy.

Or is that right only available within the bedroom?

[sit-rep]

Coming to a neighborhood near you!

[unixfox]

You won't be saying that in just a few short years.

Open your eyes and look around.

[unixfox]

You're such a good serf.

[Dr Warmoose]

How about making politicians records publicly available?

Don't you know that those who receive a government paycheck are angelic saviors from above? It is only the evil people who make up the non-government sector that can't be trusted and need to be monitored 24/7.

With all of this monitoring you would think that there would be some grand payoff for this total invasion of privacy. But I seriously doubt that the government would use this for catching parole violators, illegal aliens, people with outstanding arrest warrants or the majority of government employees who wander around town aimlessly while on the clock running errands, cruising the park, enjoying three hour lunches at some strip joint, etc. . More likely to be used by divorce attorneys, targeted investigations on political enemies, the ever expanding War On Drugs, traffic violators, and any other subject where the government could find a return on its investment in terms of cash and control.

[FreedomPoster]

That place reminds me of the town that The Prisoner lived in.

[Dr Warmoose]

So I fail to see how cameras in public areas recording what I do is an invasion of my privacy.

Wow, an actual bone fide slave-minion of the State. I suppose that you feel that government is perfect and flawless and would never do anything to hurt you because the government's benevolance exceeds the mercies of the Creator God.

Information is power and Power is something that is routinely abused. The next time that there is a rape or robbery in the neighborhood and you show up on a government camera around the same time. I hope you have a gift card at Home Depot so you can afford to replace your front door.

Spit on the sidewalk? A piece of paper falls from your pocket? Look! You are on candid camera and as your mug is being photgraphed by a government desperate for easy fines and taxes from its citizens (to pay for all of this around the clock survelliance you so dearly love) the whirring sounds of printers performing the steps in forwarding to your address fines for spitting, jaywalking, littering, smoking, whatever the government feels a need to punish.

You say that you don't want privacy and everybody's outdoor lives should be scrutinized? What happens when there is the likely public/private cooperation in that some private company fronts the money to install these cameras, look for "crimes" then sends you fines and does this all on a commission? What if this private company then finds your non-private life outside your home as a way for additional revenue to marketers and other demographers? Since countless numbers of people will be needed to "monitor" these events and process the fines, undoubtably you must feel that every person hired is the epitomy of honesty and virtue and certainly no one would use the cameras to trace some hard body woman around town - to stalk certain people. Oh no. The government is good. The government is perfect. People should surrend all modesty, privacy and identity to your god the government.

I suppose you believe that 225 ton statue out on Bedloe's Island is the Statue of Security.

[optimistically_conservative]

SO GET USE TO being recorded. IT happens every second of your life by God - and the government has a right to record public events to protect us against red light runners, terrorists, speeders, etc.

I'm troubled by this.

I no longer can enjoy my liberty or pursue happiness in relative anonymity from the state.

There is no longer an assumption of an act which would attract the attention of the state.

You have surrendered to the state a compelling interest to monitor your activities either without cause, or in the expectation of that you will violate something or in some other means fit into a "compelling state interest."

Especially troubling is not that the state will act on a violation, but that the state will compile, correlate, profile and eventually predict my proclivities and behavior.

I will be categorized and filed based on a comprehensive compilation of snippets, placed on watch lists with autonomous thresholds watching for a triggering event or act.

There will be numerous false positives, and false negatives, resulting in an increased loss of liberty for most but a reduction in the populist infractions you mention.

Just not that attractive to me. I'm hoping there will still be large tracts of land with low density populations where I'm less likely to be observed - so I can live in Aldous Huxley's wilderness.

[spodefly]

With all of the technology available to spy on citizens, I have entertained the possibility of being under surveillance by a shadowy gov't group. And rather than become paranoid about it, I actually felt sorry for them.

Day 1 -- Subject awoke at 8:59am. Went to his home office in the room adjacent to his bedroom. Stayed there until 7:45PM. Ordered in Pizza. Read an article on ASP.net. Went to bed at 11:45PM.

Day 2 -- Subject awoke at 8:59am. Went to his home office in the room adjacent to his bedroom. Stayed there until 7:45PM. Fixed a BLT. Read an article on c# programming. Went to bed at 11:45PM.

Day 3 -- Subject awoke at 8:59am. Went to his home office in the room adjacent to his bedroom. Stayed there until 7:45PM. Ordered in Pizza. Read an article on ASP.net. Went to bed at 11:45PM.

...

Day 68 -- Subject awoke at 8:59am. Went to his home office in the room adjacent to his bedroom. Stayed there until 7:45PM. Ordered in Pizza. Read an article on ASP.net. Went to bed at 11:45PM.

Day 69 -- I quit. This is boring. Subject is pathetic, and I am even more pathetic for doing nothing but watching him.