ARGUS-IS: Hayley Nicolich and Griffin Magee

               In 2007, DARPA was awarded a contract with a budget of $18.5 million to develop the Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System, more commonly known as ARGUS-IS. Recently, a limited amount of details regarding this military surveillance system were released to the public. This technology, designed by Yiannis Antoniades, has incredibly innovative and impressive capabilities. ARGUS is actually composed of 368 5 megapixel cell phone cameras in a mosaic-like form which are mounted to a drone. The video stream from each of these chips is blended together to create an incredible 1.8 billion pixel real-time video stream, capturing areas up to 15 square miles in a single glance. The resolution is so defined that an operative can zoom in from 17,500 feet to clearly view an object as close as 6 inches from the ground. Not only does ARGUS-IS stream video at a rate of 600 gigabytes per second, but it also is capable of storing a million terabytes, or 5,000 hours of high definition footage per day. And this is just what the government has allowed us to know so far. 

             Whether or not the implications of the ARGUS-IS are cool or terrifying is disputable. First, let’s delve into the positive aspects of this technology. The fact that this imaging system can transmit 600 gigabytes of data per second is a huge leap into the future of wireless data transfer technology. Although it is unclear what this means for everyday Americans, it is not unwise to assume that this will impact the speed at which we are able to transmit data on a societal level. ARGUS-IS is also obviously beneficial for its very purpose: to make military reconnaissance more reliable. With this technology, American military operatives will have the ability to gain more reliable information from further away. There is also a possibility that ARGUS-IS could be used in the field of law enforcement to do anything from locating criminals to finding missing persons. 

             The fact that some pieces of the sensor are still considered classified information raises suspicion, and fairly so, in the minds of many Americans. The use of this device on American soil presents an array of problems, most of which arise from the potential for conflict with rights guaranteed in the United States Constitution.  The Fourth Amendment offers protection against warrantless searches and seizures, which in recent years has been extended to include the use of GPS devices to track citizens.   Now, one of the features of the ARGUS-IS is its ability to isolate and record the movement of specific objects in its field of view.  Because this type of technology is unprecedented, no legislation has been passed with regards to its use in America, but it is certain to be found to conflict with the rights assured in the Fourth Amendment.  The unsettling nature of this device is not limited to the infringement upon Constitutional rights, however.  In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the amount of surveillance that each citizen is placed under every day.   The addition of the surveillance ability of the ARGUS-IS would only be another step towards a George Orwell-esque future in which we are constantly monitored and controlled by “The man”.