Blimps Monitor Crowds At Sporting Events 180
Death Metal tips news about how defense contractor Raytheon is adapting military-style surveillance packages for use aboard blimps at public events like the Indy 500. "Until recently, Raytheon's eye-in-the-sky technology was used in Afghanistan and Iraq to guard American military bases, working as airborne guards against any oncoming desert threat. Using infrared sensors and a map overlay not unlike Google Earth, the technology scans a large area, setting important landmarks (say, the perimeter of a military base), and constantly relays video clips back to a command center. If a gun fires or a bomb is detonated, the airships can detect the noise and focus the camera — all from a mighty-high 500 feet." Though the technology is expensive, Raytheon is shopping it around to police departments and other organizations that might want to keep an eye on large gatherings of people.
FP (Score:3, Funny)
There aren't going to be any terrorist attacks.
You just throw money at congressmen.
But seriously, this is horseshit. The only bad guys they catch will be the ones up in the nosebleed section sitting alone with their girlfriends who are discretely giving them head or playing "bouncy-horse" [break.com] on their laps.
Even if there are attacks (Score:3, Interesting)
It'll take about 0.5 seconds for sound to travel the 500 feet up to the airships.
Thus all that fancy expensive tech might end up giving you just lower res pics before the camera zoomed and focused in and got videos of everybody except the culprits.
How expensive is that system going to be?
If it's in the millions and I was seriously going to be monitorin
Bang! Pop. Crash. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Actually, bits of flaming blimp raining down on a crowd would be pretty terrifying in itself. Remind me to take a tinfoil umbrella.
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People shoot at the Goodyear blimp all the time. They usually don't find out about it until later, after the blimp lands. A bullet hole doesn't make a large enough hole for the helium to leak out quickly enough to be noticeable in the span of a flight that's only four or six hours or so.
That's bad in itself. (Score:3, Funny)
It would be scary to ride in the blimp.
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So much of what is sold as Protection these days is all about catching people AFTER the fact.
How many total FAILS do we need to see that buses still get bombed and innocent Brazilians still get shot in the head no matter how many security cams you hang up?
The truth is that the real terrorists don't care if they are caught, and this type of situation will not prevent sneaking weapons or explosives into a stadium, or prevent someone half a mile away from dropping a 8 or 10 mortar rounds into an event before t
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So much of what is sold as Protection these days is all about catching people AFTER the fact.
That's because doing things that would catch them BEFORE the fact are kinda frowned upon. You know, things like checking luggage and searching people before they board flights, searching the belongings of people coming into the country, listening to conversations overseas and so on. Hell, people are pissed that they have to show friggin ID before boarding a plane!
So make up your mind. Do you want to catch these guys BEFORE an attack or AFTER?
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No, people frown upon gestapo style security theater bullshit like the liquids ban and telling people that it is illegal for them to know what is and is not illegal.
Real security isn't nearly so annoying despite being far more thorough. It's also easily twice as fast as the security theater we have now.
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Hell, people are pissed that they have to show friggin ID before boarding a plane!
As they should be, checking ID to board a plane does nothing for safety, everyone of the 911 hijackers had ID. And these new "Real ID" cards will only give people a false sense of safety, they'll only be good until someone cracks them, which is only a matter of tyme.
Do you want to catch these guys BEFORE an attack or AFTER?
"Anyone who will give up a little liberty for safety will never get nor deserve either."
From Benjamin F
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That's because doing things that would catch them BEFORE the fact are kinda frowned upon.
Clearly you haven't attended a ball game any time recently.
People are screened at the gate. Bags are checked.
But the whole point of your post is that we EITHER have to let people get killed and catch the culprits after the fact OR we have to set up a Gestapo state. You seem to allow no middle ground.
Silly as the method proposed by TFA is, it is at least an attempt at a third approach.
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Because that's how the FIRST round of terrorists got started. We shot up their homelands...
When exactly did we do that to Bin Laden?
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It has no relevance only because you want it to have none. In truth, it demonstrates that we can't simply "not shoot up their country" to avoid terrorism. The fact is, there aren't a lot of Iraqi and Afghani terrorists outside those countries. It's countries we AREN'T shooting up that are producing terrorists.
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When exactly did we do that to Bin Laden?
The US desecrated his Holy Land, Saudi Arabia, when US troops were stationed there after Saddam invaded Kuwait. Thinking Saddam may invade Saudi Arabia, bin Laden offered the Saudi crown protection from Saddam. Instead the Saudis asked the US.
I don't agree with it but that was bin Laden's reasoning.
Falcon
Re:Even if there are attacks (Score:5, Funny)
...I think video footage BEFORE the gun or bomb noise would typically be of greater interest than the footage after.
It'll take about 0.5 seconds for sound to travel the 500 feet up to the airships.
Thus all that fancy expensive tech might end up giving you just lower res pics before the camera zoomed and focused in and got videos of everybody except the culprits.
but the after-footage will be useful for broadcasting over and over again, putting the general public into a state of panic, so politicians and corporations can exploit their fears and get away with even more wasteful spending.
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Why assume gunmen?
Do you know how long it takes to drop 15 mortar rounds in tube?
Do you have any idea how hard a mortar team in an alley would be to spot from 500 feet?
And since that alley might be half a mile from the stadium, do you know how long getting cops over there would take?
Like I said, this is a pointless technology.
Not quite right (Score:3, Interesting)
The only bad guys they catch will be the ones up in the nosebleed section sitting alone with their girlfriends...
I believe the scenario is Alfred Hitchcock's:
The crowd at a tennis match is following the action.
Back and forth, back and forth, their heads and bodies constantly on the move, bobbing, twisting, in unison with the play.
All but one....
The killer is in the crowd, but he is not truly part of the crowd, and that is a subtle and important distinction.
It can be a useful - practical - distinction.
So
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Yes. Failing to act like everyone else is justification for detention. Or maybe it's just grounds to pay a little closer attention to you, put a plainclothes officer near you for observation.
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There most certainly will be attacks, as there are just too many asshats for there not to be.
The first line of defense is the same as anything else: someone calls the authorities when they see one shaping up. Then an investigation can do a "sting" and take them down, as was recently the case in New York.
The second line of defense is to stop attacks in progress if at all possible. That means armed responders and/or civillians nearby.
Cameras may be slightly helpful, but most likely the response will still b
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But there are pissed off Gypsies who don't like police helicopters flying over their camps:
Gypsies smash 5 million pound police helicopter [dailymail.co.uk]
Now the police could just tether a blimp from the nearest car showroom and nobody would know.
Silly Raytheon... (Score:2)
"...In other news, Goodyear and Raytheon announced a partnership that promises to increase national security by 107% over the next 8 years. The new system, designed by Raytheon, is expected to be in service once final miniaturization is completed. Currently, Raytheon is testing new light-weight designs with great success. The newest design attaches to the nose piece of the Goodyear blimp..."
http://www.feldmanbd.com/GoodyearBlimpCrash.jpg [feldmanbd.com]
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Irritating line from TFA (Score:5, Insightful)
"The airship is great because it doesn't have that Big Brother feel, or create feelings of invasiveness," says Lee Silvestre, vice president of mission innovation in Raytheon's Integrated Defense division.
Oh, okay. As long as we don't feel like we're being watched, everything's all right then.
Excuse me? Isn't the whole idea of a good spy not to make the targets feel like they're being watched? Is it okay for foreign agents to get copies of classified documents as long as we don't feel like they're doing it?
Re:Irritating line from TFA (Score:5, Interesting)
Blimps and airships have featured in many works of dystopian fiction. Especially alternative time-line "soviets won" type works.
So I think he could be wrong about that one.
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Ahh, but blimps have also been used in utopian fiction, and in reality they have both previously been used for both good and bad purposes, just like airplanes, trains, cars, and video recording devices of all kinda.
Most peoples perception of whether a blimp is good or bad relies almost entirely on it's markings and previous experiences with those markings, the Goodyear blimps(s) have been used and seen as passive, non-threatening for years, how would you tell if it's a "good" or "bad" Goodyear Blimp? A smal
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Nobody ever suspects the Goodyear blimp
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Most peoples perception of whether a blimp is good or bad relies almost entirely on it's markings and previous experiences with those markings, the Goodyear blimps(s) have been used and seen as passive, non-threatening for years, how would you tell if it's a "good" or "bad" Goodyear Blimp?
I suddenly got this vision of an Evil Goodyear Blimp; black and red covered in spikes, with ominous smoke/fog trailing along behind it. Yup with that one you'd just know that it was up to no good.
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Oh no it's the Badyear Glimps.
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You mean kinda like this [giantbomb.com]?
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Isn't the whole idea of a good spy not to make the targets feel like they're being watched?
Actually, it can be quite productive to rattle the chains now and then. People make mistakes when they are spooked.
As long as we don't feel like we're being watched, everything's all right then.
There are times and places when no one really objects much to being watched - but will object to an show of force.
The blimp floating lazily overhead just isn't that intimidating.
The blimp floating lazily overhead just isn't that (Score:2)
intimidating.
It may not be for most people but when the watchers can follow everybody many will think differently.
Falcon
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You make a good point, but I'd like to chime in that one thing about big brother is precisely to make us feel watched. If you make people feel watched all the time, they will internalize the surveillance and they will watch themselves and you won't even have to watch them. Panopticon.
I'm okay with surveillance (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as I don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The problem is in the abuse of this, like the footage that came out of the police using their night surveillance equipment to spy on individuals having an evening with a lady in their penthouse.
So as long as abuse is monitored and actively discouraged, what's wrong with being watched while you're in public?
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I guess maybe you might be worried about false positives (e.g. toy guns or whatever), but false positives tend to be resolved easily.
If by easily you mean they are arrested and searched and spend 3 - 4 months or more fighting with a legal system that doesn't want to let go because that would mean admitting they made a dumb mistake?
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So, for example, if you take the day off work to go to a baseball game and your boss knows someone with access to the face-recognition generated "list of attendees", that's ok?
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Free World
1776-1963
RIP
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Maybe there'll be a great upheaval of some sort and some crazy privacy zealots will gain control over the country and all the data and then they will line you anti-privacy people against the wall and shoot you? That's why you need privacy, to protect you from the crazy privacy zealots.
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The problem with surveillance is, it WILL be abused. Just think of the political uses. You happen to be mayor, governor, or senator, incumbent in a pretty close race. Oh, wait, sweet. We can just put a surveillance team on the challenger, and wait for SOMETHING to happen. If the candidate doesn't do something illegal, immoral, or unethical, one of his aides or advisors will. Sweet. Just think of the possibilities!!
I could give you hundreds of other potential abuses without trying very hard. Just use
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> So as long as abuse is monitored and actively discouraged... :-)
I'm sure any abuse will be monitored and discouraged to the same extent it currently is
Oh and by the way, your back-yard is now considered a public space. Don't be alarmed though, we won't tell anyone what you get up to there.
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So as long as abuse is monitored and actively discouraged, what's wrong with being watched while you're in public?
Who's watching the watchers?
Falcon
This is great! (Score:4, Funny)
Considering the fact that we've had so many problems with stadium slaughterings and bombings.
oh wait... i ate too much scramby eggs w/ sarcasm on the side.
Lol @ excessive response to lesser problems.
Re:This is great! (Score:5, Funny)
Lol @ excessive response to lesser problems.
Something must be done to combat terrorism.
This is something.
Therefore, we must do this.
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Oh noeess!! There's a terrorist in the stadium!!
meanwhile, the 2,039 cheeseburgers they sold during the show will probably lead to more loss of life...
haha. Fear for terrorists just feeds the fire (aka 'terrorized'), and statistically I'm a bit more worried about day to day life killing me than a terrorist. Hell, we're not done worrying about pinko commies! They're gonna eat our babies!
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You should be worried about pinko commies... Nationalizing banking, insurance, healthcare, education, car manufacturing, transportation, your corner store. ;) Just face it dude, they won... Oh wait, I have to go get these damn kids off my lawn.
More seriously though, even the russians are shaking their heads at what's going on. Germans who are old enough to remember too.
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I think you've got your terms mixed up. When you understand the difference between socialism and communism, you can make more effective arguments. But since you can't at present, you've made a very poor and basically wrong example.
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Seriously though, in the entire history of modern stadiums, is there really enough of a threat to warrant constant surveillance of that kind? How many millions of people go to stadiums each year for games and races, and how many are killed, blown up, stabbed, or raped, 0.01%?... if that? And are these blimps really going to prevent that from happening again? I doubt it.
The eye-witnesses combined with the usual surveillance (guards, cameras, at the gates, ticket centers, etc) is likely quite sufficient in tr
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Yes, however they have increased security, and increased security, and they still happen.
So, basically the result is, they add some of these blimps to soccer games, riots still happen, their choice of action now is to add more blimps, riots still happen, so they add more... as well as adding more regular security, eventually people stop going because it's no longer entertaining or pleasurable, or people bring bigger weapons/motivation and turn attacking blimps and guards into the riot, people end up going j
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You DO KNOW that the Superdome rumors were ALL proven false don't you?
And you DO KNOW it has a DOME, rendering blimps ineffective, don't you?
Oops (Score:5, Funny)
When I read the title, I thought this was about donut-eating cops.
Never mind.
People being monitored!? (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting? (Score:2)
not a privacy issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:not a privacy issue (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't the sporting event, it's the "etc."
These things are expensive. They're not going to sit there just for Superbowl Sunday or whatever. They'll be used for as much surveillance as they can get away with. Whether it's a good idea or not. Think 'mission creep'.
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The problem isn't the sporting event, it's the "etc."
These things are expensive. They're not going to sit there just for Superbowl Sunday or whatever. They'll be used for as much surveillance as they can get away with. Whether it's a good idea or not. Think 'mission creep'.</p></quote>
Exactly. It reminds me how all that "anti-terr
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The slippery slope is always something to worry about. But I'd like to hear a realistic description of how that would work here. Its overhead point of view, hundreds of feet up, is going to give it mostly blurry s
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The idea is to use it on crowds of people at sports events, etc
The problem isn't the sporting event, it's the "etc." These things are expensive. They're not going to sit there just for Superbowl Sunday or whatever. They'll be used for as much surveillance as they can get away with. Whether it's a good idea or not. Think 'mission creep'.
Viewing from 500 feet and at a high angle, with a field of view wide enough to take in the whole crowd, they're not going to be able to identify individuals.
Yet. Optics is an advancing field. Combine "yet" with "mission creep"... get the picture?
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Surveillance isn't ubiquitous in the UK (Score:3, Interesting)
Surveillance isn't ubiquitous in the UK.
Not unless you're one of those folks who think UK=England, and England=London. Of which there are quite a few.
(Actually I've never quite understood why people mix up the UK and England as being synonymous, any ideas?)
Mind you I accept there is too much surveillance over here.
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Yes, we have too much surveillance. And it hasn't reduced crime by an amount commensurate with the cost, IMO.
The English used to refer to England standing in for the whole of the UK. A synecdoche if you will. So, the monarch of this torpid islands used to sign themselves King or Queen of England, and that would apply to the whole. The multiple volume Oxford History of England was, you guessed it, a history of the UK. It has changed, particularly since devolution. We are British now, apparently, although thi
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I can't remember the last time I saw a camera, except in high traffic areas where they are used for traffic monitoring or in city centres where it makes more sense than trying to patrol every str
MN (Score:2)
Minnesota consists of the Twin Cities and... well... nothing much worth noting.
I don't know, I like the North Shore. I haven't yet but I'd like to check out the Boundary Waters as well.
Falcon
Black Sunday? (Score:2)
There was a book with a movie followup about putting a bomb in a blimp over the super bowl.
Looks like it just got easier to do that.
Who watches the watchers?
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a bomb in a blimp over the super bowl.
Sounds like some sort of scatological fetish book to me.
Good old Raytheon (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if they offer cool tech for us regular citizens to watch over the authorities. Kinda doubt it.
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There are several open UAV platforms out there now, including planes, helicopters, and quadrocopters. Any sizable and stable remote controlled aircraft is a candidate, but the quadrocopters are probably your best bet for video surveillance.
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How dare you ask such a thing citizen, please come with us.
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:-) You're absolutely right. Everything they have, we handed to them on a silver platter.
Peace out, dogg
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Laws only apply to the bottom 90% of the population. That's the way we like it, as noted in the AC's reply. Air traffic rules would probably preclude any "non-official" flights over major events at low altitude. Ramifications would include lost of their toy and probably a fine.
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Raytheon is a For-Profit Corp. No Surprise Here! (Score:2)
Raytheon is a for-profit corporation in a country where everything is for sale including the country. They are just trying to make a profit off of the pop-fear of domestic terrorism.
Try to change the culture of "profit first" above anything else and educate the masses if you want to never see programs like this again.
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You have a point, but I don't think the problem is so much the 'for profit' bit as the 'country for sale' bit. Government in bed with (selling out to) corporations is textbook fascism. Politicians who love their country would not be selling it out to the highest bidder. Then again, politicians tend to love power not their country.
Bottom line here is that there are great constitutional safeguards against this. The people just forgot that *they* are the government (you know, government of the people bit)
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Someone tried to remove the profit motive once. Soviet Russia, called it was I think.
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The point was "profit first, above anything else", not removing the motivation for profit. There are higher priorities than profit.
What happens when you shoot the blimp? (Score:2)
Doesn't this make the blimp an obvious target for anybody who really wants to do mischief?
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"Great Squad Leader in the Sky" syndrome (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably a bad idea. This is known in the military as the "Great Squad Leader in the Sky" syndrome (a phrase coined by David Hackworth, one of the greats of small-unit combat), and has been since Vietnam. Leadership from a helicopter overlooking a combat zone sounded like a great idea; at last, the commander could see everything. In practice, it works very badly.
Piping vast amounts of imagery back to a command center is popular with commanders and politicians, but not with grunts. It's useful for finding enemy activity, but not much help once the enemy has been engaged.
It turns out that the technology the people on the ground really like is small robots. Sending in a robot first in urban warfare is very popular with the troops. Nobody likes going into a possible ambush or booby trap several times a day. Eventually the odds catch up with you.
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I think you're thinking about it from a wartime point of view. Ideally, if you go to, say, a NASCAR race, you're hoping somebody won't start opening with gunfire or blowing stuff up. You're looking for any activity in a sea of non-activity, and it sounds like this is well-adapted to the purpose.
I don't imagine they'll use it for something as simple as a car race, but I could see some potential application for very high-profile events like the Super Bowl or New Year's Eve in New York City.
Look! Over there! (Score:5, Insightful)
"If a gun fires or a bomb is detonated, the airships can detect the noise and focus the camera."
Note to self: if ever wanting to defeat the system, remotely or have a friend, set off a string of fire crackers somewhere else while I carry on unwatched.
"Though the technology is expensive, Raytheon is..." hoping customers won't be put off by a system that falls for the equivalent of "Look! Elvis!"?
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These days it is possible to use audio fingerprinting and multiple semi-directional microphones to detect the heading and distance to a shooter, and even the type of weapon and ammunition (within certain parameters.) I don't know for sure that Raytheon will put anything like that into this package, but they are experts in remote sensing.
I propose we (Score:2)
the technology is expensive (Score:2)
So ? They will just raise taxes to pay for it. Remember folks, its 'for the children'.
Bravo the Military Industrial Complex! (Score:4, Funny)
Using high-tech blimps to spy on sporting crowds is a fantastic idea to fill the gap until our intelligence services work out some way to get their own people into the crowds of these events, but to do that they would need to crack the intelligence crown jewels and figure out how and when these events will be held. It's great the things that government and the military industrial concept can achieve that a lesser mind might be tempted to do on the cheap.
And to the NSA guy sneering at this post, why aren't you doing something about bin Laden instead? He's on the Afgani-Pakistan border. Everyone knows it. The Daily Show event did a live cross from there. Or don't you guys get cable?
Luckily... (Score:2, Funny)
... it's illegal in the US to fly an airship less than 1000 feet above a gathering of people, or less than 1000 feet above the highest obstacle within 2000 lateral feet of the airship.
There is no privacy at a preannounced public event (Score:2)
Like a football game or political rally, you can be expected to be monitored by police, event security and the media.
blimps have been at football games with cameras for 49 years. The idea of using blimps for anti-terrorism purposes is not scary nor is it that big of a news story.
Cool new section! (Score:2)
I must have missed the announcement... when did Slashdot add the new Your Rights Outside section?
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Wait what? (Score:2)
How come this didn't get sold to North Korea? I can already see the implementations there. Gatherings of one or more persons on a street corner are illegal. Actually maybe this thing needs a !NK and !2people tag.
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I read this and facepalmed,
So we know this AC doesn't wear glasses.
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And the drone would be cheaper.
Just getting a blimp to the site would cost more and require way more advanced planning and advanced notice.
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There are less than 5 Goodyear camera blimps in the US.
So your definition of "many" is rather flawed.
No one is proposing to use existing blimps.
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Call me silly, but I think something like this would have been far more effective if they had just shut up about it.
Call me paranoid, but there have been blimps flown over sporting events for a long time, now.