Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

Click here to access article by Jay Stanley from American Civil Liberties Union.

The PBS series NOVA, “Rise of the Drones,” recently aired a segment detailing the capabilities of a powerful aerial surveillance system known as ARGUS-IS, which is basically a super-high, 1.8 gigapixel resolution camera that can be mounted on a drone. As demonstrated in this clip, the system is capable of high-resolution monitoring and recording of an entire city.

What bothers me is that the author seems so grateful that the authorities gave limited exposure of this technology over PBS.

...it is good that the Air Force allowed NOVA to see its capabilities. I’d like to think it’s because as Americans, Air Force officials have respect for our country’s values and democratic processes and don’t want to let such powerful and potentially privacy-invasive tools to be created in secret. It could also be, however, because the Air Force needs private-sector help in figuring out how to analyze the oceans of data the device can collect (5,000 hours of high-def video per day).

Either way, it’s important for the public to be aware of the kinds of technologies that are out there so that it can better decide how drones should be regulated.