Intelligence Community Feels It Might Be Time To Start Stuffing Surveillance Gear Into People’s Pants
from the making-America-safer-with-inadvertent-dick-pics dept
Who among us has not considered shoving a camera into our underwear… but for the greater good… on the public’s dime? No need to raise your hands. We already know where they are.
The only thing better than lots of surveillance is even more surveillance. That’s the unofficial tagline of the Intelligence Community, as headed up by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The IC has its own version of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) called IARPA (the only thing that changes is the “Intelligence”).
DARPA has given us things like headless robot dogs capable of climbing stairs and being abused by their handlers. IARPA has likely given us useful, abusable things, too. But now it’s giving us this, as reported by Adrianna Nine for Extreme Tech.
The US intelligence community has invested $22 million in a project called SMART ePants, which aims to produce underwear and other garments that help the wearer conduct surveillance operations. Though fully washable, each garment is expected to contain audio, video, and geolocation recording devices.
Yes, they actually called it “SMART ePANTS.” And that’s not the only acronym in play here. Let’s just get the alphabet rolling here. The ODNI press release announcing this IARPA project that puts surveillance in pants — SMART ePANTs, that is — has this to say about the envisioned uses of its proposed surveillance underwear.
The Smart Electrically Powered and Networked Textile Systems (SMART ePANTS) program represents the largest single investment to develop Active Smart Textiles (AST) that feel, move, and function like any garment. Resulting innovations stand to provide the Intelligence Community (IC), Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies with durable, ready-to-wear clothing that can record audio, video, and geolocation data. This eTextile technology could also assist personnel and first responders in dangerous, high-stress environments, such as crime scenes and arms control inspections without impeding their ability to swiftly and safely operate.
Lots being said here. Not much of it is coherent. While it may be useful for agencies to track employees during their interactions in “dangerous, high-stress environments,” it seems far more useful for these agencies to have always-on surveillance gear that doesn’t make it immediately apparent to the surveillance targets that they’re being surveilled.
And let’s stop pretending this is about “first responders,” who are usually fire department personnel and/or emergency medical technicians (EMTs). It’s not like these people have been crying out for more passive surveillance options, much less wearable tracking devices with cameras attached. The addition of the phrase “first responders” is supposed to soften the harder edges of the proposed $22 million, always-literally-on surveillance gear by pretending it may occasionally be useful to people mostly uninterested in becoming active or passive participants in government surveillance efforts.
On top of that, it’s unclear how wearable surveillance tech will “assist” personnel and first responders (other than by sending out geolocation data in case everything suddenly goes sideways). The press release gives the impression it might save the lives of professional lifesavers, but never bothers to explain how stuffing surveillance tech into shirts, pants, or underwear will do much more than provide documentation of first responders’ deaths and/or recordings of every interaction they have with anyone they encounter while performing their duties.
At the moment, the project is still just an experiment. But there’s no reason to believe the IC — and the law enforcement agencies who really wish they were anything but cops (you know, like maybe soldiers! or spies!) — isn’t interested in spy gear that can not only be tailored for specific operations, but tailored to fit the operative wearing them.
Filed Under: darpa, odni, smart clothing, smart epants, smart pants
Comments on “Intelligence Community Feels It Might Be Time To Start Stuffing Surveillance Gear Into People’s Pants”
That gear will be useful for if worn by every cop, and if it cannot be turned off. The cops may not find it useful, but the rest of society will.
Re: Pantless Cops Violate Citizen Rights
I look forward to the news stories about cops taking their pants off before abusing people’s rights so as not to have a record of the abuse.
Re: Re: "There ain't never a catch, all you got to do is snatch—"
Cops aren’t in the habit of dropping their drawers before they abuse people. They walk up to the rolled-down car window, rip open that Velcro fly—krriiiiisshh—
Pray to not hear the sound.
Free pair of Smart ePants with every purchase
Soon, underwear will be free from Amazon. *sponsored by your trusty intelligence agency. “for your safety”
Don’t most people voluntarily stuff surveillance gear into their pants?
So many scatological jokes, so little time.
Re:
No shit?
wearing a wire
This is an alternative to “wearing a wire” isnt it? I dont think anyone objected to undercover police using gadgets to get recordings of criminals before this.
buzzzz
who doesn’t want electricity next to their junk that you can’t turn off, eh?
As long as they only stuff the surveillance gear into their own pants, I guess we’re OK. But when they start stuffing other people’s pants, then we got problems.
Marketing
They really need a Marketing Division. Or how done N.Y. Marketing Firm. Military acronyms don’t sell well.
If only there were geolocation and fitness tracking devices already on the market and available for even the general public to purchase, just think of the money that could be saved…
Alas there isn’t, so bring on the hefty government research grants/funding!
Re:
It isn’t gonna stop until they’re got nanomachines, son.
They surveil in response to crime, and I wish I wasn’t ripping off Metal Gear Rising for this.
So, the updated old joke will be: “Hey, is that surveillance gear in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?”
Re:
“Why yes, it is surveillance gear in my pants. I can only get it up if I have surveillance gear in my pants, see…”
size discretion advised
If that’s how the Intelligence Community wants to surveil me, then they’re going to need a bigger camera.
The jokes practically write themselves.
I want a summer outfit, with MESH networking!
And heater sleeves,
And shoe cams and trackers, gps and pedometer.
And a pony. T-shirt. With antennas and batteries and power hookups.
And pants with pockets to hold my little round candies.
Truth will out
This technology may finally expose the lies of all those people who’ve been blaming the dog.
There’s this far right loon of a politician here that always questions the masculinity of his opponents, frequently referring to their penis size as compared to his allegedly mamba jamba. The left warmly nick-named him the “dick wiz” or “dick sommelier” in a free, contextualized translation. “Manja rola” in Portuguese.
The surveillance freaks, often in the authoritarian end of whatever political spectrum, always have this fragile masculinity. Damn Freud.
Re:
Alleged would be better and other minor issues etc etc
Peek-a-boo undies
These spooks are way behind the times! The Stasi in East Germany had bra cameras in 1985!
See here: https://www.spymuseum.org/exhibition-experiences/about-the-collection/collection-highlights/bra-camera/
Wow…
DARPA Gave us the internet, networking, stability in rocket engineering.
LED lighting, microchip processing.
There are civilian uses to this stuff: even ePants.
I can think of two big ideas right off— tracking your kids at an amusement park, and monitoring for the elderly.