Spy in the Sky Monday

The US Pentagon And DARPA Are Conducting Wide-Area Surveillance Tests Using Experimental High-Altitude Balloons Across 6 Midwestern States

Millions of Americans across the Midwest this summer are being subjected to surveillance from above as the Pentagon experiments with the use of surveillance radars attached to high-altitude balloons.

U.S. Southern Command commissioned the project for the stated purpose of creating a “persistence surveillance system” to deter drug traffickers and perceived “homeland security threats.”

Civil liberties advocates were distressed at the newly-reported project on Friday, which the Sierra Nevada Corporation obtained a license to begin on July 12 and end on September 1.

“The deployment of this kind of surveillance capability in the United States is incredibly alarming,” Mana Azarmi, policy counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, told Common Dreams. “Persistent government surveillance, such as that facilitated by this technology, raises many civil liberties concerns and should not be permitted in the absence of a warrant.”

Julia Conley @ COMMON DREAMS