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Pentagon Testing Mass Surveillance Balloons Across the US (theguardian.com) 144

Posted by msmash from the big-brother-will-see-you-now dept.
The US military is conducting wide-area surveillance tests across six midwest states using experimental high-altitude balloons, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reveal. From a report: Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, before concluding in central Illinois. Traveling in the stratosphere at altitudes of up to 65,000ft, the balloons are intended to "provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats," according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada Corporation, an aerospace and defense company. The balloons are carrying hi-tech radars designed to simultaneously track many individual vehicles day or night, through any kind of weather. The tests, which have not previously been reported, received an FCC license to operate from mid-July until September, following similar flights licensed last year.
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Pentagon Testing Mass Surveillance Balloons Across the US More

Pentagon Testing Mass Surveillance Balloons Across the US

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  • Good thing they fly at 65,000 ft (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:33PM (#59030514)

    otherwise they'd be shot at in short order, and rightly so.

    • otherwise they'd be shot at in short order, and rightly so.

      Perhaps rightly so over South Dakota if it were not being tested, but no so over the border. Such surveillance of the border is justified.

      • Re:Its mission is the border not South Dakota (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:54PM (#59030682)

        Oh yeah, I'm certain they'll point the camera at the border for the purpose of border patrol, and nothing else. Right...

        I'd rather have illegal Mexicans cross the border than the government spying on me. The Mexican are far less nefarious.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          They don't even claim to want these to stop illegal immigration. It's yet more money burned on the alter of the war on (some) drugs.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This is the end result of project ARGUS.

      https://www.theverge.com/2013/2/1/3940898/darpa-gigapixel-drone-surveillance-camera-revealed

      A high-altitude high-resolution camera pointed at the city and capable of delivering petabytes of data to the ground. The idea is for police and local governments to make data requests for this camera to slice pieces of a gigabit streaming video and deliver them to the ground such that emergency services can gain a road/block/district-eye view of an incident.

      More likely it'll b

  • 1984, a training manual (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:34PM (#59030526) Homepage

    I read 1984 in highschool. When I read it I thought to be boring and completely pointless. At the time I didn't think of it as a training manual for the future.

    • At the time I didn't think of it as a training manual for the future.

      Actually it's more of a diary of the author's everyday experiences.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drnb ( 2434720 )
      Do you want a 1980s "Escape from New York" type wall on the border or do you want aerial surveillance that can direct Border Agents to where they are needed? I'd prefer the latter, as most Democrats do, except for the few who decided to run for the 2020 Presidential election and the handful of extremists they are catering to.

      Clue: The balloons are flying in South Dakota as a test. Their planned deployment is the border.
      Clue 2: "1984" had the cameras in your TV, in your home. An altitude of 60K over the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Do you want a 1980s "Escape from New York" type wall on the border or do you want aerial surveillance that can direct Border Agents to where they are needed?

        Actually... I want both. A good boundary wall is still needed to prevent situations where a large number of people co-ordinated simultaneously decide they would like to make a mad dash via diverging paths

      • How about a third option?
        Instead of working to undermine stable governments that don't kowtow to United States Corporations, like we've done for the last 100 years, how about we work with the Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, and all the South American countries to encourage democratically elected governments, and help them improve their economies so that people don't feel they have to emigrate to the US for a better life? Nobody worries about hordes of Canadians rushing the border.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )
          We've tried working with those governments, it didn't work.

          Less people want to leave Canada because it is a healthier nation. It enforces its borders and has merit based immigration.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Aerial surveillance by the feds isn't 1984-esque. What's 1984-esque is things like drone photography being used by local governments to detect unauthorized backyard sheds having been installed and issue permitting citations -- license plate readers being used by local governments to write parking tickets;
      facial recognition devices being used by local municipalities and businesses to do who knows what -- or in China, for example, where your social credit score may be impacted by cameras detecting you as

      • Nothing you describe is anything like 1984. What does backyard sheds and license plate tickets have to do with 1984? 1984 was about the state controlling the populace, not writing tickets because you decide to park wherever you want.

        • "Nothing you describe is anything like 1984."

          How about Samsung TVs and Alexa then, does that satisfy you?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mysidia ( 191772 )

            The only thing is the Tele-TV communicators with built-in cameras+microphone+screen
            and pervasive wireless networking are not yet available and mandatory --- In the future, they may become more and more
            mandatory: starting as a security feature for combatting CC fraud requiring customers to appear on camera to order things
            online, then a gradual elimination of older ways of performing various types of transactions that can be done without using a Tele-screen TV,
            until it completely replaces the telephone

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          1984 was about the state controlling the populace, not writing tickets because you decide to park wherever you want.

          These actions, such as the state using drones to invade peoples' backyard that would be impractical and spark outrage to attempt to investigate using humans -- automatic plate readers to automatically Identify and remember what is impractical for humans to do (such as how long a car was parked at place X, or that car XYZ123 was spotted at point Y at 8/2/2019 7:23pm) are examples of the s

    • I read the book in high school too (1970's) but even back then I saw how it would become reality.

  • ... through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri...
    the balloons are intended to "provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats,"

    Wait, what? Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri are the places that the military thinks they need surveillance in for "narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats"?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      ... through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri...

      the balloons are intended to "provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats,"

      Wait, what? Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri are the places that the military thinks they need surveillance in for "narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats"?

      Wouldn't the bigger question be why is the military getting involved with law enforcement actions within the territorial United States? Narcotics trafficking is a legal issue. From the Posse Comitatus Act:

      Sec. 15. From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section

      So unless the Coast Guard suddenly got a balloon section (and not much in the way of international coastlines in Iowa or Missouri anyway), seems to me we got a little problem here....

      • So unless the Coast Guard suddenly got a balloon section (and not much in the way of international coastlines in Iowa or Missouri anyway), seems to me we got a little problem here....

        Uhm, the 8th Coast Guard District is responsible for US Coast Guard operations on the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and Tennessee river systems. When the Mississippi was closed to all boat and barge traffic at St. Louis this spring because the high water was causing dangerous currents, it was the US Coast Guard issuing and enforcing the closure order.

        But the Coast Guard wasn't operating these balloons, so... None of the data acquired by the balloons is admissible in criminal court.

      • Wouldn't the bigger question be why is the military getting involved with law enforcement actions within the territorial United States?

        The current administration has already been using the military as policemen along the southern border... so why not around the northern border as well? We don't want those Canucks to get uppity.

    • No use looking for pot fields in the states where it's legal.

    • Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri are the places that the military thinks they need surveillance in for "narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats"?

      Yes [wordpress.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Falos ( 2905315 )

      They were losing luster on "because terrorists" so they needed to ratchet the wording a little.

      YOU ARE NOW SECURE.

    • I'm kind of thinking that there's maybe at best some pot moving across the border from Canada, but not really much in the way of "narcotics" (loosely defined as meth or heroin). Even pot I'd have questions about considering how much leaks out of Colorado or is just grown locally.

      Fentanyl and other sythetic opiates are too concentrated to require the type of midnight frontier crossing. You just mail that shit or carry it in a sealed envelope.

    • It is just a test in rural areas with little air traffic. Eventually it will be rolled out.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Track every method of transport entering the USA in real time 24/7, all weather.
      Just like the US mil will do in any war zone :)
      Every truck, bus, car, motorcycle, person walking entering the US gets look down tracking.
      The US mil is also working on tracking people well before they "enter" the USA.
      No extra privacy laws about what the US mil does in another nation once that nation invited the US mil in :)
      A camera and license plate reader gets the driver, any passenger, CCTV for every face on a bus.
      The

  • Weather balloons (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:42PM (#59030594)
    Instead of aliens, we should have paid more attention to the "weather balloons".
  • I'm pretty sure the US Debt and Constitution are both against this Stalin-esque wet dream of total state omniscience and warrantless intrusion into private citizens' lives.
  • Time to break out the tin hats
  • I need a drone that will reach up to 65,000 feet.

  • ... to shoot that shit down? Asking for a friend...

  • If only Obama had done this, the right would be up in arms over it rather than silently complicit. But then I guess it wouldn't have made a difference if their guy did it again later, so, meh.

  • You've got every individual in the country walking around with their own personal tracking and recording device, already. What data could a balloon gather that the ubiquitous "smart phones" can't already access?

    • This is just the government wanting "Enemy of the State" (movie) level imaging, realizing that it isn't really possible from space/satellites due to the limits of optics and atmospheric impacts (makes for a decent movie, especially given this article).

      65,000 feet high should allow for 1-2 foot resolution. Depends on the optics.

      Once you get a zoom lens that allows you to see things your eyes can't see it's a different world. Then 100X that (add a telescope).

  • Those of us that have lived near the border have experienced what the government wants with respect to citizen surveillance. Intrastate checkpoints where border patrol forces all highway traffic through an assortment of x-ray, chemical and human inspection. "Papers. Please."

  • US government department testing US equipment in the US.

    Should the equipment be tested in a foreign country, or deployed without being tested?

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