Sunday, 12 July 2015

realism - How realistic is the surveillance in the movie "Enemy of the State"?

Technology will have moved on in even the 15 years since Enemy of the State was being put together, and much of that movement has been in precisely the areas you mention.



For example, this paper includes a chart showing how satellite camera resolution continues to improve, and this article confirms the increased military use of "drone" (unmanned) planes, which are more often configured for surveillance than attack.



Police forces in the UK are or soon will be using small drone helicopters that will be too high up and quiet for you to hear, but easily capable of seeing when you illegally drop a cigarette butt on the pavement.



According to statistics, the average [UK] citizen is caught on CCTV cameras 300 times a day, and according to that BBC link, analysts expected a tenfold increase in the next five years after 2002 when that article was written.



I can't find a source, but I recall reading a few weeks ago of plans install dozens of sensitive directional microphones in Wembley Stadium, that with a bit of trivial processing power will enable operators to focus on a whispered conversation while 90,000 other people are shouting "Goal!"



You might also consider Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 movie The Conversation, where Gene Hackman brilliantly portrays a paranoid and personally-secretive surveillance expert. I'm not convinced the technology at the time was actually as good as what was portrayed, but it's much better today.



You don't have to be particularly paranoid to see the direction things are headed. Many "possible" technologies are never really taken up, but surveillance equipment is definitely on a roll.

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