“The Chinese balloon is hardly alone in watching America from the sky:” Bard Alumnus Arthur Holland Michel ’13 for the Washington Post
Arthur Holland Michel ’13, Bard alumnus and a senior fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, writes for the Washington Post that the Chinese balloon spotted over the United States—just one of the many instruments observing the Earth from the sky—is an important lesson in the increasing prevalence of surveillance technology. “If the Chinese stratospheric balloon spotted floating about a dozen miles above the northern United States is indeed a spy craft, as the Pentagon claims, it’s hard to believe that it was meant to chart its course in secrecy,” Michel writes. “If anything, it was more likely dispatched precisely for the purpose of being seen.” In Michel’s view, the psychological impact of the balloon may hold more weight than its actual presence, as the sky is already filled with aerial equipment designed to collect information, from satellites to spy planes to drones. It is not “solely the prying digital eyes of nefarious foreign balloons and spy sats that the public ought to be concerned about,” he continues. “In the past decade, aerial surveillance has quietly become a common practice among domestic police agencies at every level of government.”
Post Date: 02-07-2023
Post Date: 02-07-2023