HLSensory Overload: We’re Everywhere You’re Going To Be

What are your rights when you catch a drone taking video of your daughter like this in the so called privacy of your own property?!?

Drone cams — appear to be a game changer for peeping toms…

Come soon to…everywhere and brought to you by your friendly neighborhood government and your local hobbyists

As remote sensing technology becomes cheaper and more prevalent, it is within the reach of anyone with an Amazon account. The result is that U.S. citizens are finding that their zone of privacy is soon to be reduced to a lead-lined basement room. Your own fenced backyard is now considered a public space, and your right to any sort of privacy is limited to areas where current and future sensors are incapable of seeing — and that space is rapidly shrinking. Your recourse? According to the Feds — head to the basement or consider yourself free game to anyone who can afford the technology.

The Pentagon recently released information regarding its 1.8 gigapixel camera, the ARGUS-IS (Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System), bringing domestic surveillance questions riddled with privacy issues to the forefront. Sure, surveillance associated with terrorist, criminal and gang activities are critical to protecting the safety of Americans every day — but who is protecting our privacy when our children play soccer? Or when we are having family over for a BBQ? How about when we are simply commuting to and from work?

Designed for use in an unmanned drone from an altitude of 20,000 feet, the ARGUS-IS can keep a real-time video eye on an area 4.5 miles across down to a resolution of about six inches. The possibilities are truly endless with this spy technology currently being utilized in the continental U.S.

According to BAE Systems, additional capabilities of ARGUS-IS include:

• Creating video windows,

• Detecting and tracking moving vehicles,

• Reaching back into the forensic archive, and

• Generating 3D models

While this unprecedented technology will go a long way in advancing law enforcement and homeland security capabilities, critics say this technology can infringe upon the very privacy and freedoms Americans cherish.

ARGUS-IS image of Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia

When the Pentagon and DARPA released information on the capabilities of the ARGUS-IS technology, the ACLU immediately cried foul.

Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS — By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project

The PBS series NOVA, “Rise of the Drones,” recently aired a segment detailing the capabilities of ARGUS-IS. As demonstrated in this clip, the system is capable of high-resolution monitoring and recording of an entire city. The clip was also written about in DefenseTech and in Slate. In the clip, the developer explains how the technology, which he also refers to with the apt name “Wide Area Persistent Stare”, is “equivalent to having up to a hundred Predators look at an area the size of a medium-sized city at once.”

Stanley goes on to argue the regulation of drones, such advanced camera technology and cautions that without strong rules and parameters this technology can be used in inappropriate ways. The full text of this article can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/drone-nightmare-scenario-now-has-name-argus.

Other critics say that the 1.8 gigapixel drone camera is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

DARPA’s 1.8 gigapixel drone camera is a high-res Fourth Amendment lawsuit waiting to happen

As unmanned aerial vehicles continue to populate the skies above battlefields and college campuses faster than anyone can count them, the US government has taken a keen interest in equipping them with an increasing number of state-of-the-art surveillance technologies. The latest to be revealed is DARPA’s frightening ARGUS-IS, a record-setting 1.8 gigapixel sensor array, which can observe and record an area half the size of Manhattan. The newest in the family of “wide area persistent surveillance” tools, the system can detect and track moving objects as small as six inches from 20,000 feet in the air.

But what’s most terrifying about ARGUS (fittingly named after Argus Panoptes, the 100-eyed giant of Greek myth) is what happens afterward: the system gives its owner (and eventually, DARPA says, a well-programmed A.I.) the ability to scan an entire city for all sorts of “suspicious” activity, not just in real-time but after the fact. It all adds up to around 6 petabytes (6,000 terabytes) worth of 12 frames-per-second video per day. This full article, By Joshua Kopstein, can be found here: http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/1/3940898/darpa-gigapixel-drone-surveillance-camera-revealed

According to the FAA, by 2020 it is estimated that 30,000 drones will fill American skies. With the technology of the ARGUS-IS, will privacy be something of the past? Homeland security and government officials will have to grapple with laws that balance our constitutional rights and the security of our great nation. DARPA claims that the ARGUS-IS technology could be the beginning of artificial intelligence where algorithms could set parameters and indicators to spot and identify criminal activity.

With oversight and transparency, the ARGUS-IS certainly has the potential to enhance the capabilities of our homeland security professionals who work day-in and day-out to protect America and her ideals. However, is giving up potential privacy rights worth fighting terrorism or other nefarious activities? Sure, taking your shoes off at the airport or going through a body scanner can be a pain and can be seen as an invasion of privacy but most agree and go along with it without much thought. Here, the potential for your family being watched at a cookout for no reason and without due process either in real time or two weeks after can certainly be seen as an absolute invasion of privacy.

Interesting enough…a scenario involving drones occurred just this weekend in Kentucky, when a Hillview, KY man who said a drone was hovering over his yard — where is teenage daughter happened to be sunbathing — was arrested for taking it out with a shotgun. The father was arrested and charged with first-degree criminal mischief and first-degree wanton endangerment. The article notes, “the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been scrambling to make and clarify regulations as unmanned devices become more prevalent.” The homeowner that was arrested said, “he had the right to shoot down the drone because it was hovering over his property and invading his family’s privacy.” “He didn’t just fly over,” he said. “If he had been moving and just kept moving, that would have been one thing — but when he come directly over our heads, and just hovered there, I felt like I had the right…“We need to have some laws in place to handle these things.” More on this story can be found here: http://wtop.com/national/2015/08/man-arrested-for-shooting-down-a-drone-hovering-over-his-yard/

How does this scenario differ if it is the government — not a hobbyist — that is hovering over and taking pictures?!?

Scenarios are plentiful in imagining the beneficial and negative impacts, or pros and cons, of the drones outfitted with ARGUS-IS technology, but it comes down to how comfortable are you with the government knowing what’s best in balancing our constitutional rights and our security?

If your creepy neighbor is leering over the fence at your daughter, you have recourse. But if the same neighbor films her in HD with a drone, well, it’s your fault for letting her be out in the yard. If the government won’t protect us from peeping Toms, what are the odds that they have honorable intentions for this technology? Could it be that the only reason they are not putting limitations on this technology is that they don’t want to be similarly restricted?