Citizens of Maryland who are worried about their privacy won't be fans of the U.S. Army's most recent project, which will have two giant surveillance blimps floating over Baltimore next week.
The blimps were built by defense contractor Raytheon under a project called JLENS (Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor Systems) with the goal of defending Washington, D.C. and other major cities on the East Coast from possible cruise missile attacks, according to Business Insider.
The Army currently has the blimps tethered at its Aberdeen Proving Ground located 25 miles north of Baltimore, and they will hover over Interstate 95 for three years.
Radar imaging will be used to look out for attacks, with one blimp always scanning in 360 degrees in a circle that will stretch from North Carolina to central Ohio to upstate New York, and the other looking for more specific targets. This technology will allow JLENS to track missiles, drones and aircraft in a 340-mile radius.
The blimps measure 80 yards in length with a volume of 600,000 cubic feet, which will make them easy to spot in the sky, the New York Daily News reported.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is among many that are concerned about the impact these blimps will have on privacy.
"If we're going to have massive blimps hovering over civilian areas, or within radar-shot of civilian areas, then we need some very ironclad checks and balances that will provide confidence that there's no domestic surveillance going on," ACLU privacy expert Jay Stanley said in an interview.
JLENS spokeswoman Maj. Beth Smith, however, says the blimps don't come with any cameras, which will only allow military officials to track missiles and boats, the Daily News reported.
"JLENS does not operate under privacy rules," Smith said. "It is a military radar and as such carries no electronic optical or infrared cameras, nor does it have acoustic or electronic surveillance capability. There is no ability to 'listen' to cellular or radio traffic, nor can it optically 'see' any ground objects."
Raytheon said radars are unable to identify details about objects on the ground, such as the make and model of cars, because of how the technology is designed, Business Insider reported.
"Along similar lines, they can't tell who is driving the vehicle or see a license plate," the company added.
While adding infrared cameras to the blimps remains a possibility, neither Raytheon nor the Army has indicated plans to make such an adjustment.
