Big Brother is Watching You, Harford County!

from the Washington Post

Military surveillance aircraft slated to be set aloft over suburban Baltimore this year were built to have the ability to distinguish between humans and wheeled vehicles from a distance of at least five kilometers, according to documents the Army has newly released to a privacy group.

But the documents contain such heavy redactions that it is unclear how precise the resolution is for the video systems on the blimp-like aircraft, nor is it clear whether the cameras can be equipped with facial recognition systems capable of identifying individual people, said Julia Horwitz of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, based in Washington.

“There is a lot of potential for privacy abuse if a surveillance device can identify a human at five kilometers away,” said Horwitz, the consumer protection counsel for the group, which is fighting a legal battle for information about the surveillance aircraft. Five kilometers is about 3.1 miles.

The Army last year announced that it was bringing its JLENS system, short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, to be tethered on land owned by the Aberdeen Proving Ground, for a three-year test of its capabilities. The test is scheduled to start in October.

Calls to the public information officer at Aberdeen Proving Ground were not returned Wednesday afternoon. Army officials have previously said that the surveillance system is intended to spot missiles and other threats to national security, not monitor the activities of people living or traveling below along the busy I-95 corridor.

The JLENS system – which includes a pair of white, 243-foot-long balloons tethered to the ground -- can stay in the air continuously for up to 30 days and is designed to spot missiles from a distance of 340 miles. Its radar systems also can detect what security experts call “swarming boats,” the kind of small, agile watercraft that, when loaded with explosives, can threaten ships.