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Thread: A New Surveillance Tool Is Coming to U.S. Skies

  1. #1

    A New Surveillance Tool Is Coming to U.S. Skies

    An Arizona company developing a new type of high-altitude, long-range surveillance platform just completed a 16-day mission during which massive balloons floated over four western U.S. states, all part of an effort to someday keep them aloft for months at a time.World View Enterprises Inc. builds what it calls Stratollites, a system designed to offer the type of coverage satellites afford but without the need to launch incredibly expensive rockets into space. Effectively unmanned balloons, the untethered platforms operate with surveillance equipment payloads of as much as 110 pounds (50 kg) at altitudes of 50,000 feet to 75,000 feet, the company said, far above commercial air traffic.
    They will be able to monitor mines, pipelines, transit infrastructure—and perhaps the contents of your fenced-off backyard—in hyper-accurate detail.
    The company plans to start selling its commercial product early next year and has spoken with several potential commercial and military customers, Chief Executive Officer Ryan Hartman said Tuesday in an interview. World View sees its customer base as companies that operate critical industrial and commercial infrastructure.
    The platform, navigated remotely using a unique altitude control system, can provide imagery that’s superior to orbiting vehicles, Hartman contends, because “we’re five times closer to the earth than the nearest satellite.” He said “our imagination is sort of our limit with regards to where and how these systems can be used. Certainly there is a market in target surveillance and reconnaissance on a global scale.”
    “There’s a very real potential here that these kinds of systems will lead to a pervasive aerial surveillance.”
    Given that satellites have the capacity to read license plates, World View’s product may have implications for privacy and civil liberties. Asked if the company would sell access to police departments, Andrew Antonio, director of business development for World View, said “flying a Stratollite is no different” than how “domestic law enforcement agencies leverage aerial technologies like helicopters and aircraft.”
    Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, isn’t so sure.
    “Everything depends on how expansive it is and how high resolution it is and how wide of an area it can surveil,” Stanley said of World View’s Straollite. “There’s a very real potential here that these kinds of systems will lead to a pervasive aerial surveillance of cities where our every move will be tracked.”
    He pointed to a sweeping 2012 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that limited police power to track people using GPS devices. The reasoning used by some of the justices in that unanimous ruling could easily be expanded to other types of surveillance technology, Stanley said.
    Jeramie Scott, senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Domestic Surveillance Project, said that while high-altitude surveillance balloons may have beneficial uses, “they will also pose a serious threat to our privacy and civil liberties.
    “The balloons will likely drive down the cost of surveillance, making persistent aerial surveillance of all our public movements a real possibility,” Scott said. “Traditionally, our privacy in public has been protected by the limitations of technology and the exorbitant costs of tracking everyone’s public movements, but surveillance balloons potentially remove these barriers.”
    And the threat to privacy isn’t just from law enforcement misuse, he added. “Without safeguards, companies will seek to monetize the data that can be collected about individuals as they move about in public.”
    World View’s own test showed that the ability for surveillance technology to linger overhead for long periods of time, covering a wide swath of America, is indeed in reach.

    More at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/surve...080010177.html
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  3. #2
    Straollite. “There’s a very real potential here that these kinds of systems will lead to a pervasive aerial surveillance of cities where our every move will be tracked.”
    So cool!! Isn't the future awesome!!
    It's all about taking action and not being lazy. So you do the work, whether it's fitness or whatever. It's about getting up, motivating yourself and just doing it.
    - Kim Kardashian

    Donald Trump / Crenshaw 2024!!!!

    My pronouns are he/him/his

  4. #3
    Just when you think they can't come up with new ways to spy on us.
    "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration is minding my own business."

    Calvin Coolidge

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    An Arizona company developing a new type of high-altitude, long-range surveillance platform just completed a 16-day mission during which massive balloons floated over four western U.S. states, all part of an effort to someday keep them aloft for months at a time.World View Enterprises Inc. builds what it calls Stratollites, a system designed to offer the type of coverage satellites afford but without the need to launch incredibly expensive rockets into space. Effectively unmanned balloons, the untethered platforms operate with surveillance equipment payloads of as much as 110 pounds (50 kg) at altitudes of 50,000 feet to 75,000 feet, the company said, far above commercial air traffic.
    They will be able to monitor mines, pipelines, transit infrastructure—and perhaps the contents of your fenced-off backyard—in hyper-accurate detail.
    The company plans to start selling its commercial product early next year and has spoken with several potential commercial and military customers, Chief Executive Officer Ryan Hartman said Tuesday in an interview. World View sees its customer base as companies that operate critical industrial and commercial infrastructure.
    The platform, navigated remotely using a unique altitude control system, can provide imagery that’s superior to orbiting vehicles, Hartman contends, because “we’re five times closer to the earth than the nearest satellite.” He said “our imagination is sort of our limit with regards to where and how these systems can be used. Certainly there is a market in target surveillance and reconnaissance on a global scale.”
    “There’s a very real potential here that these kinds of systems will lead to a pervasive aerial surveillance.”
    Given that satellites have the capacity to read license plates, World View’s product may have implications for privacy and civil liberties. Asked if the company would sell access to police departments, Andrew Antonio, director of business development for World View, said “flying a Stratollite is no different” than how “domestic law enforcement agencies leverage aerial technologies like helicopters and aircraft.”
    Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, isn’t so sure.
    “Everything depends on how expansive it is and how high resolution it is and how wide of an area it can surveil,” Stanley said of World View’s Straollite. “There’s a very real potential here that these kinds of systems will lead to a pervasive aerial surveillance of cities where our every move will be tracked.”
    He pointed to a sweeping 2012 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that limited police power to track people using GPS devices. The reasoning used by some of the justices in that unanimous ruling could easily be expanded to other types of surveillance technology, Stanley said.
    Jeramie Scott, senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Domestic Surveillance Project, said that while high-altitude surveillance balloons may have beneficial uses, “they will also pose a serious threat to our privacy and civil liberties.
    “The balloons will likely drive down the cost of surveillance, making persistent aerial surveillance of all our public movements a real possibility,” Scott said. “Traditionally, our privacy in public has been protected by the limitations of technology and the exorbitant costs of tracking everyone’s public movements, but surveillance balloons potentially remove these barriers.”
    And the threat to privacy isn’t just from law enforcement misuse, he added. “Without safeguards, companies will seek to monetize the data that can be collected about individuals as they move about in public.”
    World View’s own test showed that the ability for surveillance technology to linger overhead for long periods of time, covering a wide swath of America, is indeed in reach.

    More at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/surve...080010177.html
    So, they mention this wa developed to reduce the cost of rocket launching platforms. Then they mention that it will reduce cost and remove barriers in surveillance technology and that the data collected can be monetized.

    Beat me to it, we are so screwed! +rep

    You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Swordsmyth again
    Last edited by Pauls' Revere; 06-06-2019 at 08:27 PM.

    We're being governed ruled by a geriatric Alzheimer patient/puppet whose strings are being pulled by an elitist oligarchy who believe they can manage the world... imagine the utter maniacal, sociopathic hubris!

  6. #5
    Imagine my joy and excitement.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

  7. #6
    Reminds me of the movie Aeon Flux with the floating balloon over society.

    We're being governed ruled by a geriatric Alzheimer patient/puppet whose strings are being pulled by an elitist oligarchy who believe they can manage the world... imagine the utter maniacal, sociopathic hubris!

  8. #7
    Imagine what happens when one of those things loses altitude and a commercial aircraft runs into it.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Imagine my joy and excitement.
    Do you feel the gaze of the all seeing eye from the One World Government upon you?

    We're being governed ruled by a geriatric Alzheimer patient/puppet whose strings are being pulled by an elitist oligarchy who believe they can manage the world... imagine the utter maniacal, sociopathic hubris!



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Imagine my joy and excitement.
    The time of the Beast is here. It's in your cars GPS. It's in your ATM/Credit card. It's in your digitized facial recognition. It's in your media surveillance and in your emails. It's in your on-line buying habits. Everyone a number. The Bible got it wrong. The number of the Beast isn't 666. It's 1-0-1-0-1-1-0-1. Or any combination, thereof.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    The time of the Beast is here. It's in your cars GPS. It's in your ATM/Credit card. It's in your digitized facial recognition. It's in your media surveillance and in your emails. It's in your on-line buying habits. Everyone a number. The Bible got it wrong. The number of the Beast isn't 666. It's 1-0-1-0-1-1-0-1. Or any combination, thereof.
    Yeah, it might turn out to be.... 29A

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.3D View Post
    Yeah, it might turn out to be.... 29A
    I suppose so. It'd be just like the Beast to hide it. But, it is very real and very now. There's not much disputing that.

  14. #12
    So balloon boy is all grown up now.
    "It's probably the biggest hoax since Big Foot!" - Mitt Romney 1-16-2012 SC Debate

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    The time of the Beast is here. It's in your cars GPS. It's in your ATM/Credit card. It's in your digitized facial recognition. It's in your media surveillance and in your emails. It's in your on-line buying habits. Everyone a number. The Bible got it wrong. The number of the Beast isn't 666. It's 1-0-1-0-1-1-0-1. Or any combination, thereof.

    666 = 0000001010011010

    https://www.binaryhexconverter.com/d...nary-converter

    We're being governed ruled by a geriatric Alzheimer patient/puppet whose strings are being pulled by an elitist oligarchy who believe they can manage the world... imagine the utter maniacal, sociopathic hubris!

  16. #14
    Kim Jong Un can use them for target practice.

    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    You only show up to attack Trump when he is wrong
    Make America the Land of the Free & the Home of the Brave again

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    The time of the Beast is here. It's in your cars GPS. It's in your ATM/Credit card. It's in your digitized facial recognition. It's in your media surveillance and in your emails. It's in your on-line buying habits. Everyone a number. The Bible got it wrong. The number of the Beast isn't 666. It's 1-0-1-0-1-1-0-1. Or any combination, thereof.
    At least its not the Gov doing it...Right?

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Pauls' Revere View Post
    Do you feel the gaze of the all seeing eye from the One World Government upon you?
    Every day...
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11



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  20. #17
    Great. So if youre an Illegal Immigrant, you have nothing to worry about. But... if you were born here in what remains, more like the carcass of what used to be the USA, then expect the cops to come arrest you for being racist for not speaking spanish in the presence of cops.

    Nothing to fear, nothing to hide, right? What if it was necessary to hide the fact that you were born a straight white male in the US? What if you were declared by the enemy? What if the enemy won, and kept the Police State Infrastructure? Do you think you have to do something "wrong" to have something to hide?
    1776 > 1984

    The FAILURE of the United States Government to operate and maintain an
    Honest Money System , which frees the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, is the single largest contributing factor to the World's current Economic Crisis.

    The Elimination of Privacy is the Architecture of Genocide

    Belief, Money, and Violence are the three ways all people are controlled

    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Our central bank is not privately owned.

  21. #18
    Gee, no thumbs up in the thread title, and no gushing praise from the shylls? Are they perhaps starting to see that the whole immigration thing is nothing more than a stalking horse for trump expanding the police state? Or are they still too in awe of their Authoritarian Idol to make the connection?
    I have an autographed copy of Revolution: A Manifesto for sale. Mint condition, inquire within. (I don't sign in often, so please allow plenty of time for a response)

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by invisible View Post
    Gee, no thumbs up in the thread title, and no gushing praise from the shylls? Are they perhaps starting to see that the whole immigration thing is nothing more than a stalking horse for trump expanding the police state? Or are they still too in awe of their Authoritarian Idol to make the connection?

    +++++++++++++++++++++++ REP



    Sadly, unless they are complete mental retards, they know exactly what is going on and what it leads to. They continue to try to brainwash us and the readers of this site, tell us that we are leftist anarchist communists, all while snickering to themselves.

    Take Sword-SHILL, for example.
    ____________

    An Agorist Primer ~ Samuel Edward Konkin III (free PDF download)

    The End of All Evil ~ Jeremy Locke (free PDF download)

  23. #20

    A New Surveillance Tool Is Coming to U.S. Skies

    (Bloomberg) -- An Arizona company developing a new type of high-altitude, long-range surveillance platform just completed a 16-day mission during which massive balloons floated over four western U.S. states, all part of an effort to someday keep them aloft for months at a time.

    World View Enterprises Inc. builds what it calls Stratollites, a system designed to offer the type of coverage satellites afford but without the need to launch incredibly expensive rockets into space. Effectively unmanned balloons, the untethered platforms operate with surveillance equipment payloads of as much as 110 pounds (50 kg) at altitudes of 50,000 feet to 75,000 feet, the company said, far above commercial air traffic.

    They will be able to monitor mines, pipelines, transit infrastructure—and perhaps the contents of your fenced-off backyard—in hyper-accurate detail.

    The company plans to start selling its commercial product early next year and has spoken with several potential commercial and military customers, Chief Executive Officer Ryan Hartman said Tuesday in an interview. World View sees its customer base as companies that operate critical industrial and commercial infrastructure.

    The platform, navigated remotely using a unique altitude control system, can provide imagery that’s superior to orbiting vehicles, Hartman contends, because “we’re five times closer to the earth than the nearest satellite.” He said “our imagination is sort of our limit with regards to where and how these systems can be used. Certainly there is a market in target surveillance and reconnaissance on a global scale.”

    “There’s a very real potential here that these kinds of systems will lead to a pervasive aerial surveillance.”

    Given that satellites have the capacity to read license plates, World View’s product may have implications for privacy and civil liberties. Asked if the company would sell access to police departments, Andrew Antonio, director of business development for World View, said “flying a Stratollite is no different” than how “domestic law enforcement agencies leverage aerial technologies like helicopters and aircraft.”

    Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, isn’t so sure.

    “Everything depends on how expansive it is and how high resolution it is and how wide of an area it can surveil,” Stanley said of World View’s Straollite. “There’s a very real potential here that these kinds of systems will lead to a pervasive aerial surveillance of cities where our every move will be tracked.”

    He pointed to a sweeping 2012 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that limited police power to track people using GPS devices. The reasoning used by some of the justices in that unanimous ruling could easily be expanded to other types of surveillance technology, Stanley said.

    Jeramie Scott, senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Domestic Surveillance Project, said that while high-altitude surveillance balloons may have beneficial uses, “they will also pose a serious threat to our privacy and civil liberties.

    “The balloons will likely drive down the cost of surveillance, making persistent aerial surveillance of all our public movements a real possibility,” Scott said. “Traditionally, our privacy in public has been protected by the limitations of technology and the exorbitant costs of tracking everyone’s public movements, but surveillance balloons potentially remove these barriers.”

    And the threat to privacy isn’t just from law enforcement misuse, he added. “Without safeguards, companies will seek to monetize the data that can be collected about individuals as they move about in public.”

    World View’s own test showed that the ability for surveillance technology to linger overhead for long periods of time, covering a wide swath of America, is indeed in reach.

    ...
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/surve...080010177.html
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  24. #21
    Mods, delete.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Suzanimal View Post
    Mods, delete.
    Why?
    "The Patriarch"

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    Why?
    Dupe thread. SS beat me to it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Paul View Post
    The intellectual battle for liberty can appear to be a lonely one at times. However, the numbers are not as important as the principles that we hold. Leonard Read always taught that "it's not a numbers game, but an ideological game." That's why it's important to continue to provide a principled philosophy as to what the role of government ought to be, despite the numbers that stare us in the face.
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    This intellectually stimulating conversation is the reason I keep coming here.

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Every day...
    There's no such thing as "off the grid" anymore.

    We're being governed ruled by a geriatric Alzheimer patient/puppet whose strings are being pulled by an elitist oligarchy who believe they can manage the world... imagine the utter maniacal, sociopathic hubris!



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.3D View Post
    Imagine what happens when one of those things loses altitude and a commercial aircraft runs into it.
    OMg! It would be a nightmare!



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