Читать книгу THE LIFEBOAT STRATEGY - Mark Nestmann - Страница 35

Big Brother is watching you from above, too.

Unmanned robotic devices (airborne and landbased) can monitor your home or office day or night from a distance. They can also eavesdrop on your wireless communications. For example, there’s NASA’s High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft. Equipped with optical and infrared camera systems, HALE can stay airborne for days at a time.

The MQ-9 Reaper, from General Atomics, is a much deadlier robotic vehicle. It can climb to 50,000 feet and can carry up to four armor-piercing missiles and two laser-guided bombs.119

If a controller presses the right button, the Reaper can obliterate you. This capability has been widely used against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Fortunately, it hasn’t yet been used in the United States, although unarmed versions of the Predator, the Reaper’s predecessor, now patrol the U.S. border.120

But if the Congressional Research Service (CRS) gets it way, armed unmanned vehicles may soon be flying over America’s cities. A CRS report suggests replacing manned fighters flying combat air patrols over U.S. cities with robotic vehicles armed with air-to-air missiles. 121

Technology now exists that permit spy satellites to see through clouds, buildings, and underground bunkers, purportedly as an anti-terrorist measure.98 Current policy – but not law – prohibits the government from disseminating satellite data to local and state police authorities. That policy is naturally subject to change, courtesy of the “War on Terror.”123