>Long "alphabet-soup" article with:
Some of the projects funded under the ESRP (European Securities Research Programme) so far have a legitimate, civil objective -dealing with radio-nuclear fallout and protecting critical infrastructure, for example. The majority, however, deal with surveillance and the development of military technologies of political control that offer little guarantee as far as 'security' is concerned.
10 of the first 24 projects funded by the EU concern surveillance of one kind or another, most of them using technologies that are in no way limited to counter-terrorism. For example, PROBANT, led by French aerospace and defence contractor Satimo, concerns the 'visualisation and tracking of people inside buildings' including 'arrays of sensors, modulated scattering, pulsed signal techniques, advanced data processing, biometric measurements'.
Two projects involve surveillance from space. These can be seen in tandem with the development of the EU's Galileo satellite system (the EU's first major 'public-private partnership' in which the major financers are EADS, Finmeccanica, Thales and others), Galileo's planned uses include the monitoring of all road travel by satellite - the basis for the 'road pricing scheme' proposed in the UK.
Another EU funded project will see Dassault Aviation, Europe's leading exporter of combat aircraft, funded to coordinate what is basically an EU feasibility study on the use of UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) for 'peacetime security' (and more specifically 'border surveillance'). Dassault in fact launched Europe's first 'stealth UAV' in 2000.
According to a report to the US Congress in 2005 the UAV accident rate is 100 times higher than that of manned aircraft. It will be interesting to see what the Dassault-consortium recommends.
Projects concerning 'biometric' identification systems are also being funded...
complete article: http://www.anti-imperialism.net/lai/texte.php?langue=3§ion=CMBA&id=24552
by Ben Hayes | Transnational Institute
Posted by Stubbornson at May 31, 2006 05:29 AM