Technological advancement is moving ahead so fast it is impossible to keep up. Pretty soon it doesn’t look like humans are going to be responsible for much of anything at all if we continue at this pace.
The latest military “advancement” is a Linux powered rifle that basically only requires the human soldier to mark a target and then a computer can “engage and assist.” Basically it sounds a lot like a drone rifle. Insane.
More from Geeky Gadgets:
It has been reported this week that the United States military has started investing funds into next-generation firearms in the form of “smart rifles” that will be powered by Linux and equipped with a Networked Tracking Scope.
A soldier equipped with a smart rifle and its new Networked Tracking Scope would simply need to tag a target viewable on a screen, which is found on the gun’s scope to allows the computer to engage and assist.
Spying on humanity’s every electronic move is clearly not good enough for the U.S. government. It is also necessary to be able to surveil the species’ every move from 50,000 feet in the sky. You know, because of the terrorists and all. The past couple of years have seen many frightening new advances from the … Read more
So it seems the surveillance state just had its coming out party on CNN. In this interview with Erin Burnett, former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente admits that the feds have access to pretty much everyone’s telephone conversations. Also pay attention to the smirk on his face as he admits this disturbing reality.
Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian wrote an excellent piece yesterday on this exact topic. Some of my favorite excerpts:
The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are.
Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN’s Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way.
“All of that stuff” – meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant – “is being captured as we speak”.
Let’s repeat that last part: “no digital communication is secure”, by which he means not that any communication is susceptible to government interception as it happens (although that is true), but far beyond that: all digital communications – meaning telephone calls, emails, online chats and the like – are automatically recorded and stored and accessible to the government after the fact. To describe that is to define what a ubiquitous, limitless Surveillance State is.
There have been some previous indications that this is true. FormerAT&T engineer Mark Klein revealed that AT&T and other telecoms had built a special network that allowed the National Security Agency full and unfettered access to data about the telephone calls and the content of email communications for all of their customers. Specifically, Klein explained “that the NSA set up a system that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T” and that “contrary to the government’s depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists . . . much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic.” But his amazing revelations were mostly ignored and, when Congress retroactively immunized the nation’s telecom giants for their participation in the illegal Bush spying programs, Klein’s claims (by design) were prevented from being adjudicated in court.
The most interesting this about this creepy camera brought to you by the kind folks at the Defense Advance d Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is the fact that just like in George Orwell’s classic dystopic novel 1984, the government wants you to know they have this technology. From ExtremeTech:
DARPA and the US Army have taken the wraps off ARGUS-IS, a 1.8-gigapixel video surveillance platform that can resolve details as small as six inches from an altitude of 20,000 feet (6km). ARGUS is by far the highest-resolution surveillance platform in the world, and probably the highest-resolution camera in the world, period.
ARGUS, which would be attached to some kind of unmanned UAV (such as the Predator) and flown at an altitude of around 20,000 feet, can observe an area of 25 square kilometers (10sqmi) at any one time. If ARGUS was hovering over New York City, it could observe half of Manhattan. Two ARGUS-equipped drones, and the US could keep an eye on the entirety of Manhattan, 24/7.
Time magazine is out with a heartwarming story about how the next generation of drones, or as some like to call them “freedom birds,” may be equipped with lasers. Although most Americans don’t realize it, our skies are already filled with drones as I pointed out in my piece last week titled Drones in America? They … Read more
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is one of the most important organizations we have in America today. While most of the country lays fast asleep to the dangers of the encroaching surveillance state, the EFF is always vigilantly at work on the front lines. In their latest article, they show that military drones are already … Read more
