Surveillance, Monitoring, Tracking

New York City opens counterterrorism center

The $100 million project was launched after 9/11; the facility would eventually receive video footage from 3,000 cameras posted in and near the financial district, an area of about 1.7 square miles

Russia to buy UAVs from Israel

Russian officers were impressed with the performance of Israel-made UAVs used by Georgian forces during the August conflict, and decided to sign a contract with Israel to buy the systems

Shape of things to come

Quantum calibration shows way for super-secure communication

Scientists at Imperial College London have used a new approach to calibrating quantum mechanical measurement directly to calibrate a detector that can sense the presence of multiple individual photons; the ability to sense the presence of individual photons is an important requirement for the development of future long-distance quantum communication devices and networks

New York City's subway security system hobbled by problems

In 2005 New York City signed a $265 million contract with Lockheed Martin to install a sophisticated security systems in the city's sprawling subway network; the deadline for completion was August 2008; the cost has now risen to $453 million, and the completion date pushed to December 2009; a new, critical state comptroller report says even "that date may be overly optimistic"

Raytheon reaches 300th RAID system

A Raytheon's milestone: The Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment (RAID) system provides surveillance support for use in both war and peacetime; the U.S. army now has three hundred of them

Briefly noted

Obama preparing comprehensive technology policy... Germans advance surveillance bill... Report warns incoming administration of of "future military failure"... Senator Clinton welcomes more than $18,000 for Long Island Fire Department

UAV-based anti-missile defense appears doomed

DHS's Project Chloe envisioned a UAV-based system to defend commercial airlines against shoulder-fired missiles; Northrop Grumman tests show the system to be more complex, and costlier, than originally anticipated

New UAV can fly safely close to the ground

UAVs are useful, but they cannot fly close to the ground because they cannot avoid hazards such as buildings, trees, and power cables; Carnegie Mellon researchers develop a UAV capable of "seeing" -- and avoiding -- such obstacles

Canadian universities study the two sides of the Internet

Terrorists and hackers use the Internet to spread their nefarious programs; some governments use the Internet to spy on their citizens; Dalhousie is working on a way to spot criminal behavior, while U Toronto keeps censors at bay halfway around the globe

U.K. to set up massive national drivers' surveillance scheme

The United Kingdom is often called the Surveillance Society, what with the hundreds of thousands of CCTVs on street corners and along highways. The Labor Party government wants to take a step further as plans were revealed for a pay-as-you-drive tax using the ability of cameras to monitor motorists' every move. The Sunday Express's Kirsty Buchana writes that hundreds of monitoring stations would be used to track cars every five seconds -- with daily itemized accounts of all trips made by Britain's thirty million drivers. The monitoring equipment needed to target road users round-the-clock is revealed in Labor's tender document for controversial road pricing. Tories branded it as "sinister," and accused the government of being "at war with the motorist." The document will also fuel fears of a mass expansion of Big Brother state and raise concerns about the security of detailed information being collected on millions of drivers.