Military Refines A ‘Constant Stare Against Our Enemy'
The rapidly increasing surveillance power of unmanned aircraft gives U.S. officials an option beside s troops
By Julian E. Barnes November 2, 2009 Pg. 1
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to dramatically increase the surveillance capabilities of its most advanced unmanned aircraft next year, adding so many video feeds that a drone which now stares down at a single house or vehicle could keep constant watch on nearly everything that moves within an area of 1.5 square miles.
The year after that, the capability will double to 3 square miles.
Arg.
Phi Beta Iota: Here we go again. For twenty years smart people and varied presidential and congressional commissions have been telling the U.S. Intelligence Community they are “severely deficient” in everything that matters (and now CINCPAC is saying the same thing with respect to China), and here we have some genius in the Pentagon–with the best of intentions, no doubt–doing the wrong thing righter. Next they'll tell us they can stare at goats and kill them from behind a video console. Technical Stare is NOT equal to Engaged Brain, never was, never will be. There are two problems here: first, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) does not know how and lacks the power to create a 21st Century global intelligence grid; and second, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, whom we happen to like, is on automatic pilot and so obsessed with the tactical technical that little things like global coverage, near-real-time processing, and multinational information-sharing and sense-making, appear to be neglected. Read Wikipedia's Contextual Overview.
Below is the final word on this matter:
