Researchers at Texas A&M University’s Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute have attached radiation sensors to the backs of cockroaches. They hope public-safety officials will one day send the souped-up insects into situations that are too risky for humans.

As part of its budget for the upcoming fiscal year, Pentagon research agency Darpa is launching the “Transparent Earth” project which will create real-time, 3-D maps that display “the physical, chemical and dynamic properties of the earth down to 5 kilometer depth” by 2015. The new maps would help explain and predict volcanic eruptions and earthquakes but would have military utility in detecting, targeting, and destroying hard and buried underground facility (UGF) target.

The US Department of Homeland Security is fielding sensors on the border with Mexico in an $8 billion project called the Secure Border Initiative network. It will use a range of surveillance tools including remote-controlled optical and infrared cameras, ground surveillance radar and acoustic and vibration sensors to detect humans, bug-eyed robots with human-sensing radar, and magnetic sensors to detect vehicle movements and weapons.

The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.

In a recent talk, Jonathan Zittrain argues that crowdsourcing technologies have the potential to be used by repressive governments to aid in government surveillance.

Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations. The drone intercepts mark the emergence of a shadow cyber war within the U.S.-led conflicts overseas. They also point to a potentially serious vulnerability in Washington's growing network of unmanned drones, which have become the American weapon of choice in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Department of Homeland Security has spent $230 million to develop better technology for detecting smuggled nuclear bombs but has had to stop deploying the new machines because the United States has run out of Helium-3.

HP Labs has announced a project that aims to be a "Central Nervous System for the Earth" (CeNSE): a R&D program to build a planetwide sensing network, using billions of tiny accelerometers that detect motion and vibrations, and later, ones for light, temperature, barometric pressure, airflow and humidity.

In the last few years, patterns in brain activity have been used to successfully predict what pictures people are looking at, their location in a virtual environment or a decision they are poised to make. The most recent results show that researchers can now recreate moving images that volunteers are viewing - and even make educated guesses at which event they are remembering.

The Pentagon plans to dramatically increase the surveillance capabilities of its most advanced unmanned aircraft next year, adding so many video feeds that a drone which now stares down at a single house or vehicle could keep constant watch on nearly everything that moves within an area of 1.5 square miles.