In Breach of Trust, I utilize space-based surveillance as a tool to monitor objects, places, and people. In chapter 11 of my book, I write:
“Only the Secret Service and Eagle Eye 4, hundreds of miles above, observed Laura [Paige] enter the Billings’ residence. The three-story villa was set back in the steep Sausalito hill. Laura was impressed with the Mediterranean styling and the extensive use of marble. The earthen stucco and burnished steel exterior tickled her senses, transporting her to days gone by spent on the island of Santorini, Greece, with its prevalence of stucco buildings and blue domes. It must look impressive from Google Earth, she surmised, glancing skyward.”
“Only the Secret Service and Eagle Eye 4, hundreds of miles above, observed Laura [Paige] enter the Billings’ residence. The three-story villa was set back in the steep Sausalito hill. Laura was impressed with the Mediterranean styling and the extensive use of marble. The earthen stucco and burnished steel exterior tickled her senses, transporting her to days gone by spent on the island of Santorini, Greece, with its prevalence of stucco buildings and blue domes. It must look impressive from Google Earth, she surmised, glancing skyward.”
Prevalent today are the use of drones for both surveillance, such as I described above, as well as for prosecuting missions. In the Hollywood movie [1], Eagle Eye (2008), for example, drones equipped with hellfire missiles operate as an eagle eye for Western forces trying to stop terror groups operating out of Kenya. This movie also makes use of hummingbird drones (ornithopters) for local aerial surveillance and even smaller bug drones (insectothopters) deployed for in-house aerial surveillance.
Such satellite technology can also be leveraged to record phone conversations. I wrote in my murder mystery:
“NSA’s newest ghost satellite, Eagle Eye 4, captured the entire conversation from geosynchronous orbit. The Heney voice call was picked up and decoded and the image of his convoy’s trek from Corte Madera to Sausalito was stored as a digital file. The download to Langley was successful and the result was re-coded and directed to Ed Wall’s encrypted IP address, a computer that was currently residing in DHS’s Oakland office under his watchful eye.”
Such satellite technology can also be leveraged to record phone conversations. I wrote in my murder mystery:
“NSA’s newest ghost satellite, Eagle Eye 4, captured the entire conversation from geosynchronous orbit. The Heney voice call was picked up and decoded and the image of his convoy’s trek from Corte Madera to Sausalito was stored as a digital file. The download to Langley was successful and the result was re-coded and directed to Ed Wall’s encrypted IP address, a computer that was currently residing in DHS’s Oakland office under his watchful eye.”
Similarly in Eagle Eye, a supercomputer named Ariia has the ability to “listen into any phone conversation, cut the conversation, or call any phone it wants.” Since the dawn of the millennium, governments have been using wiretapping to find terrorists in order to win the war on terror. Chris Haugen adds, “While you would think this is invasion of privacy and illegal, it is not. In the time of war the government is allowed to listen in on any citizen. The NSA is using something that you could say is like Ariia. It listens to every phone conversation and later analyzes the information to see who can be a threat.”
And this is a tool of surveillance that I weave into Breach of Trust. My Eagle Eye 4 targets a specific threat and deals with it, while in the movie Eagle Eye the supercomputer gets the information from thousands of recordings and sensors and determines the course of action. “In real life,” Haugen explains, “the computer gathers the information and the NSA and the government handle the rest.”
When it comes to spying [2], you can be eavesdropped upon via your electronic devices (smartphones, televisions, computers, automobiles, etc.) or by way of a dedicated surveillance network (such as my fictional Eagle Eye 4) or be tripped up by a distributed collection of your own private communications (recorded voice calls, sent and received E-mails, social media posts, and video clips).
In my book and in Hollywood, it’s “the tyranny of technology” that fuels the paranoia of being watched by Big Brother.
[1] Eagle Eye raked in $178 million at the box office after debuting in the number one position when released in the fall of 2008.
[2] “To make Eagle Eye possible,” Ira Winkler, a former NSA analyst, in 2008, said, “everything would need to be interconnected—something that,” according to Winkler, “is a long way off. People used to be so worried that the NSA simultaneously collected all communications, could read faxes, translate things on the fly, keyword search all cellphone calls,” he says. “Can you do individual pieces of what they're talking about? Yes. But is there enough computing power, and is there really the interconnectivity required? The answer is: 'No way in hell.’” But . . . a lot has changed since ten years ago.
And this is a tool of surveillance that I weave into Breach of Trust. My Eagle Eye 4 targets a specific threat and deals with it, while in the movie Eagle Eye the supercomputer gets the information from thousands of recordings and sensors and determines the course of action. “In real life,” Haugen explains, “the computer gathers the information and the NSA and the government handle the rest.”
When it comes to spying [2], you can be eavesdropped upon via your electronic devices (smartphones, televisions, computers, automobiles, etc.) or by way of a dedicated surveillance network (such as my fictional Eagle Eye 4) or be tripped up by a distributed collection of your own private communications (recorded voice calls, sent and received E-mails, social media posts, and video clips).
In my book and in Hollywood, it’s “the tyranny of technology” that fuels the paranoia of being watched by Big Brother.
[1] Eagle Eye raked in $178 million at the box office after debuting in the number one position when released in the fall of 2008.
[2] “To make Eagle Eye possible,” Ira Winkler, a former NSA analyst, in 2008, said, “everything would need to be interconnected—something that,” according to Winkler, “is a long way off. People used to be so worried that the NSA simultaneously collected all communications, could read faxes, translate things on the fly, keyword search all cellphone calls,” he says. “Can you do individual pieces of what they're talking about? Yes. But is there enough computing power, and is there really the interconnectivity required? The answer is: 'No way in hell.’” But . . . a lot has changed since ten years ago.