Automated Gun

TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2007

The Automated Border If you’ve been reading Subtopia for the last year now you’d know that one aspect of urban militarization we’ve been paying close attention to is the evolution of the border fence. It seems in the last year alone several key features have emerged bringing some security planners’ defensive wet dreams that much closer to fruition.

[Image: From a U.S. Border Patrol Remote Surveillance camera, in this research piece called VideoAutomated Video Security put together by the Southwest Research Institute.]

I’m talking about a completely futuristic border barrier where human personnel are entirely substituted by unmanned aerial vehicles, intelligent robots, networks of surveillance cameras and satelliteconnected border posts, self-adjusting light systems, ground sensors – essentially, technology which potentially could eliminate the physical constructs of an actual fence altogether; invisible walls, hidden checkpoints, secret surveillance landscapes, border security that – for all visible intents and purposes – has been designed to not exist, or, rather to disappear. In our own nightmarish speculations we’ve referred to the maturity of this frightening prospect as a nomadic fortress – a future border wall that not only aspires to curb the incomprehensibly tangled and intractable flows of global migration but that actually moves and re-adjusts itself, nomadically rearticulates its own geographic prowess, redrawing territorial boundaries, cinching contested borderzone real estate, snaking in the shadows of some Orwellian surveillatopia like something akin to the new Great Wall of sorts, only updated with all the latest technology; in today’s scenario, this could be perhaps the world’s first fully automated global border fence. The Great Wall of China, though without a single stone.

[Image: The Mini-Samson RCWS developed by developed by Israel Armament Development Authority Rafael and the IDF, via Israeliweapons.com.]

Well, recently there have been reports of the Israeli Defense Forces starting to deploy “robotic snipers” along the border with Gaza. These are autonomous vehicles that take video footage and relay it back to operators who then can scan the footage and control the armed vehicles to fire upon intruders or suspects. There is also the “see-shoot” program, developed by Israel Armament Development Authority Rafael, which, according to the same article is part of Elbit Systems' Ground Forces “modernization program,” which does the same thing by allowing these intelligent turrets to be set to shoot at certain targets. Scary-ass shit. Throw in advances in CCTV facial recognition, or cameras that actually vocally reprimand you, crowd movement pattern recognition, automated behavioral analysis, and you’re that much closer to having weapons along the border that are fully capable of acting on their own, firing without the aid of human determination.

[Image: South Korea is deploying Samsung's SGR-A1 "Intelligent Surveillance & Security Guard Robot" at key installations and along its border. An immobile robot, but one deemed sufficient for defending bases and areas along the Demilitarized Zone with North Korea.]

This is something the Saudi’s are apparently looking at for their future barrier along their border with Iraq. But, will we ever really allow the day for weapons systems to completely decide on their own who and what is and is not a legitimate target, and then to act on that? I don’t know – call me crazy but the idea of a massive surveillance wall stalking the globe’s conflicted borders with automatically programmed robotic snipers just seems like the creepiest thing ever.

For a more thorough breakdown of how this weapon technically works, using Sentry Tech and elctrooptical sensors, protected by retractable coverings, check out the piece in the ever vigilant Danger Room, which is where I first discovered this story.

More stories: Israel Wants Robotic Guns, Missiles To Guard Gaza Border Robots Take Over the Danger Zone Israel Deploying "See-Shoot" RWS Along Gaza Israel’s Novel “See-Shoot” Electronic Device Is No Substitute for Human Deterrence Bouphonia: Kill the Intruders! South Korea to field gun-cam robots on DMZ