The Bush administration is planning to give domestic law enforcement agencies increased access to powerful spy satellite technology. But some lawmakers and civil liberties groups say that the program may invade the privacy of Americans.
The Bush administration has approved a plan to expand domestic access to some of the most powerful tools of 21st-century spycraft, giving law enforcement officials and others the ability to view data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors that can see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground bunkers.
Insurgents could be using satellite images from a popular website to mount attacks on British and American bases in Iraq, according to defence experts.
The striking images of London subway bombers captured by the city's extensive video surveillance system and a rising sense that similar attacks could happen in the U.S. are renewing interest in expanding police camera surveillance of America's public places.
In light of the recent wave of terror attacks in the UK, Turkey, and Egypt, biometrics technology is increasingly being discussed as a means to tackle terrorism, not to mention fraud and theft.
Pressure is building for greater use of video cameras to keep watch over the nation's cities -- particularly in transportation systems and other spots vulnerable to terrorism -- after the bombings in London.
With CIA backing, a U.S. company has developed a method to parse electronic documents almost instantly and diagram all of the sentences inside, helping turn chatter into information that is relevant and usable.
Vigilante groups are tracking down terrorist groups on the web and taking down their websites. Some law enforcement and intelligence experts are concerned that such actions are counterproductive by removing a potentially valuable source of intelligence.
A system that detects both metal and non-metallic weapons using terahertz light has been developed by technology firm TeraView. Terahertz light is regarded as the last unexplored frontier of the radio wave and light spectrum, and can also be used in a variety of ways such as medical imaging.
The author argues that privacy advocates are hindering development of sophisticated pattern-analysis and data mining tools for detecting terrorist networks.