Project Angel Fire, a program from the Iraq War, is being brought to the Homefront in the form of Persistent Surveillance Systems. Through this company, small planes equipped with cameras view an entire city and record everything that occurs in snapshots that can then be used by the police to track down criminals. Though several policemen and military veterans attest to the usefulness of the programs, it is suggested that the technology is not used to monitor our own citizens due to the issues surrounding individual privacy. Though there is no direct right to privacy in the Constitution, the act of recording a person’s entire life sets a steep precedent from which a country cannot recover. American citizens have already condemned the government for its daily intervention in the infamous NSA scandal, so having an official stance of viewing the personal lives of individuals would be as just as invasive strategy as before.

Ross McNutt’s system of surveillance, a small plane outfitted with a camera, used in the Iraq War to catch bombers is now being used in America by police to solve crimes. Though some individuals may voice concern for personal privacy, the benefits of the program not only outweigh the costs, but are focused to the point that privacy is not being invaded upon. First, the police have already been able to use the cameras to solve crimes from robbery to homicide. The sheer presence of this technology is predicted to reduce the crime rate in Dayton, Ohio by 30%. And, as this information is streamlined through the company at the request of the police, the personal lives of individuals are not under observation; the acts of criminals are being investigated by the system. The safety produced by the program already shows promising benefits, ones that can be effective across the nation.

Presented by RADIOLAB, “Eye in the Sky”(a Podcast article) exposes the issue of surveillance as perceived by different populations. While some may protest that surveillance systems can infringe upon the privacy rights of the American citizenry, others may acclaim the use of modern surveillance as necessary toward the reduction of crime, especially in zones afflicted by crime such as Dayton, Ohio and Juarez, Mexico.

In “Eye in the Sky”, a group of citizens speaks against the implementation of a surveillance system capable of tracking object and human movement through a set of cameras implemented on the bottom surface of a police helicopter. This group emphasizes that this powerful surveillance method can be detrimental to the privacy of an individual within his or her property. Today, in the Digital Age, businesses, organizations, and individuals rely on the use of technological devices such as smartphones to communicate with others, complete tasks, make monetary transactions but also to assess crime and healthcare needs. In light of growing technological improvements, however, it is valid to fear that a device or a widely implemented surveillance system may expose one’s identity, whereabouts, and personal communications.

The Podcast article also puts light upon situations where the use of advanced surveillance helped to dismantle gangs or locate war enemies. In a striking example of this occurrence, the aforementioned set of cameras tracked the movements of suspicious vehicles to locate a gang cartel in Juarez, Mexico responsible for 1500 murders. The cameras themselves do not have the capability to zoom in on to someone’s face. On the end of an operator receiving images from the cameras, people and objects are seen as shapes and dots, and one may only track their movements. In the end, the surveillance system proved to be helpful, without unveiling the identity of innocent civilians.

The radio introduces a Persistent Surveillance System which uses planes with cameras to video the whole city. There are obvious benefits of this system: In big and populous cities like New York, there are crimes like homicide, rape and assault happening everyday. Compared to traditional police operations, this system can go back in time and locate the criminals in minutes, hugely retrenching the cost of manpower and resources. More importantly, when a crime organization is too big to tackle, this ‘sky eye’ is essential in providing comprehensive details of criminal members’ traces in order to crack the crime cartel at one stroke. Furthermore, as common sense indicates that people would not dare to commit a crime when they know police are watching them, this system can not only trace malefactors, but also deter potential criminals.

However, many people object, on the grounds that as conventional wisdom shows, the system would soon trickle from military use down to ordinary people’s daily life. Because of the cameras,we will actually live under total exposure. With access to this volume of information, this system actually asks us to give an exorbitant level of trust to government which, as history can prove, may bloat to totalitarianism or even worse. In addition, not everybody can stick to moral choices. For instance, J. Edgar Hoover, with unparalleled status and power as the first director of FBI, committed personal assaults, blackmails and even assassinations in the name of protecting people and fighting crimes, the same excuses might given by any government. Now, with government’s loosened policy about surveillance and the abusive actions by special agencies, handing more information and power to government is unimaginable.

In sum, though the benefits of this system are concrete(decreased crime rate) and the weaknesses are conceptual(invisible privacy invasion), we still need more careful consideration.

It has been common today to dismiss the idea of having the government use technology to closely inspect the public in promotion of its general welfare due to the right of privacy among the citizens in the United States. However, recent scenarios where technology benefitted communities’ safety suggests that the loss of certain privacy rights may not be such a bad idea. Searching for a way to improve the war efforts in Iraq, Ross McNutt and his team invented a way to go back in time to a crime scene by sending a plane with a camera in the sky to supervise the area 24/7. Once this technology was promoted and implemented in the cities with high crime rates, the effects were dramatically apparent; In a matter of minutes, a homicide cases were pin-pointed to its source. In sum, the opportunity of immediate justice for the victims is far more important than giving up some personal privacy if it means better protection of the public.

The rights of privacy have been viewed as a divine entitlement to all citizens of the United States. However, with the increased sophistication of technology, privacy which has once been thought of being an absolute right is now becoming more conditional. Although Ross McNutt’s technology has been effective in the Iraq war efforts and is useful in protecting our society, there must be a limit on the amount of privacy that an organization can take from the citizens in the merits of “general welfare”. While it is successful in solving crimes at a faster rate, the issue lies in the possibility of even more privacy restricting technology that may arise. In addition, while crime rate may initially decrease, the initial change may revert back to its original condition due to the fact that criminals will just adapt to the new conditions and find other ways to commit crimes more discreetly. Having the ability to closely inspect the population doesn’t justify whether or not it is something that we should do.

In the Past year there have been 10,000 part 1 crimes in Daton, Ohio. That means 10,000 murders, rapes, and assaults. Ross McNutt believes project Angelfire can change all that. The project is a plane with a high-powered camera strapped to its base, photographing and storing every moment of a day. He has proven that this system works. It has let police and law enforcement agencies remove dangerous people from the street in hours. It could also be used to track known criminals and discover more about their associates and colleagues than we would have found out through traditional policing. Though this may feel like a loss of privacy, the only people who should really fear this surveillance are criminals. For the average person, this technology just means a safer city with better, more targeted policing.

Here, many people would object that we couldn’t trust a government with this level of power. They would suggest that this technology is wide open to misuse. This level of access and knowledge would leave every person with a private life open to blackmail and stalking. It would only take one person with low-level clearance and all your daily habits could be sold to the nearest tabloid. So though this type of technology might stop crimes, it would also set a dangerous precedent. With technology advancing so much, we need to decide how much privacy we as a people need and how much access to our personal life our government deserves.

Side Note: I do not have the class textbook yet, so I am not sure of what format I was supposed to follow.

In the present violent and chaotic world we live in, incalculable crimes are taking place day in and day out. Innocent lives are being taken or forever altered. Wouldn’t it be a miracle if this could somehow all change? The airplane surveillance proposed in “Eye in the Sky” sounds like an answered prayer. In a matter of seconds, complex crimes that could have otherwise never been solved could be figured out and brought to justice. This idea may seem like an invasion of privacy but should, in reality, pose no threat if there is nothing to hide. The ramifications of this ingenuity could bring about an altogether safer environment and brighter tomorrow. There could be an end to the dreadful 5 o’clock news stories that make leaving the house a nightmare. If we have the technology to saves lives, why not use it?

The naysayers of this innovation argue that the loss of privacy is just too great a price to pay. Technology this advanced in the wrong hands can start off being innocent but develop into something less than desirable rather quickly. As stated in the podcast, “There [is] no way you could trust government with this volume of information.” Putting this much power in the hands of the government would begin to actualize the, formally thought, fictitious world of Orwell’s, 1984. It is also possible that criminals would simply adapt and learn to work their way around the new system, such as committing murders in more heavily congested locations to avoid being seen/tracked. Though it seems like a brilliant safeguard, a handful of lives saved in the expense of countless other lives does not sound like an ideal tradeoff.

The podcast “Eye in the Sky” talks in detail about project Angelfire concocted by Dr Ross McNutt and his students. Project Angelfire is a persistent surveillance scheme wherein a plane equipped with a high resolution camera takes a photo of a city every second. The issue with such a powerful technology is that it is always vulnerable to abuse. Regardless of the purpose of its introduction, those in authority are bound to misuse the technology to spy on the daily lives of people and conglomerates will crave for this information for the most effective form of advertising yet. This project may also backfire as intelligent criminals can infiltrate the system to acquire data on their targets and commit crimes that may be seemingly impossible to crack.

This of course, isn’t to belittle the significance of implementing a security system like Angelfire. It offers many immediate solutions to current issues for the few latent problems it may cause. Also, the biggest concern the public had with the implementation of this technology was the breach of their privacy. The dispute of people’s right to their ‘privacy’, however seemingly convincing it may be, is in actuality a null argument. Even with today’s tools, government can, if they’re willing to, spy the movement of an individual through monitoring one’s credit card usage, internet access, mobile phone, public transport usage, ‘speed cameras’ installed at various junctions and the list goes on. Privacy is a term that is no longer relevant in the 21^st century and those who believe their daily lives are concealed from others ought to be disillusioned. So in effect, Angelfire will not be breaching people’s privacy any more than other technologies have been doing so far but instead will be offering a more effective solution to crime rates and traffic issues.