Mobile Surveillance Systems

This article caught my attention after it was referenced in a YouTube video on The Last American Vagabond's channel. It's only a short article so I'll quote it in full:

KROMEK EXTENDS DARPA DEAL TO DEVELOP VIRUS THREAT SYSTEM

May 27, 2020 @ 10:14 by Steven Hugill 

A technology firm known for helping thwart terror plots has secured a deal worth more than £4 million to further develop a system capable of identifying virus threats. 

Kromek has been awarded a contract extension by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – an agency of the US Department of Defense – to extend its focus on mobile bio-surveillance apparatus. 

Bosses at company, based on Sedgefield’s NETPark, say its miniaturised system will detect viruses and bacteria and be placed on vehicles to identify threats. 

They say the unmanned kit will have capacity to run all day and be suitable for use in high footfall areas, such as hospitals and airports. 

The work comes after Kromek completed the base period of a previously-announced deal with DARPA to develop a vehicle-mounted biological-threat identifier. 

The total contract period runs until June 2021. 

Dr Arnab Basu, Kromek chief executive, said: “We are delighted to be awarded this extension by DARPA. 

“The technology developed under this programme is capable of sample collection to comprehensive analysis of threats present in air in an autonomous manner.

“By sequencing the genetic code, the device can not only identify threat pathogens, but also be used to identify the particular strain to aid triage and treatment selection, in addition to being able to track mutations of the pathogen. 

“As the system can be vehicle mounted or placed in high footfall areas, such as hospitals and airports, the location where the sample is collected can be mapped to a GPS position. 

“The transfer of data to a central server allows a picture of pathogen levels across a city to be built up enabling decision makers to react rapidly to any evolving pathogenic threat.” 

Kromek, a Durham University spin-out company, is well known for its flagship D3S family of products, which can identify terror threats including ‘dirty bombs.’

Its portfolio also includes medical sector equipment, which is used to diagnose and treat conditions such as osteoporosis, and airport security scanners.

What emerges from this article is that the fear factor is going to be ramped up as regards the danger of infection from deadly pathogens. The future promises mobile bio-surveillance from moving vehicles and static bio-surveillance in high footfall areas. Even if alarms are not deliberately set off, the possibility of false alarms would seem to be highly likely. The alarms will add to the anxiety of city dwellers.

Such bio-surveillance systems will be the perfect tool to aid false flag bio-terrorism attacks. Alarms will go off all over a city and panicked citizens will have to comply with whatever health and safety measures are put in place by the local authorities. Citizens may end up in mandatory quarantine simply because they were too close to an infection site when the alarms went off. Tracking apps on mobile phones will increase the possibility of transient contact with an supposedly infected person and thus trigger an alert. In the end, it will be simpler to just stay at home if at all possible.

Anything that can be ordered online will be ordered online. For those who are lucky enough to be working, employers will make working from home the norm whenever it is feasible. Online education will replace physical schools and universities. This is social engineering on a massive scale.

In smart cities, whenever citizens venture out, they will be surveilled and their behaviour monitored just as the air around them will be surveilled and monitored for pathogens (real or imagined). City living will become so claustrophobic, rule-ridden and oppressive that some will opt for the freedom of the countryside and leave their smartphones behind. The majority will simply increase the dose of their preferred "soma". Even musical services like Spotify can become a form of soma as this blog post (SOMA, SPOTIFY, AND THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF MUSIC CONSUMPTION) proposes.

The alternative is to grab your guitar and go "up the country". There's a chance that communes and communities may spring up that turn their back on technology and try to exist beyond the reach of Big Government, Big Pharma and Big Medicine.

I'm goin' up the country, baby don't you want to go?

I'm goin' up the country, baby don't you want to go?

I'm goin' to some place, I've never been before

I'm goin' I'm goin' where the water tastes like wine

I'm goin' where the water tastes like wine

We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time

I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away

I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away

etc ...

Of course, leaving the city and embracing a sustainable lifestyle in the country is not an easy transition for a lifelong urbanite like myself. However, I was given a book as a birthday present back in the late 80's. It was Permaculture, A Designers' Manual by Bill Mollison. Bill passed on at the age 88 in 2016 but he bequeathed his wisdom about sustainable living to posterity.

Surprisingly, despite my peripatetic lifestyle over the past thirty years, the book remains on the bookshelf in my study. I must confess to only having skimmed its contents but if I ever do decide to go up the country, this is one book that I will take along and read most thoroughly. Once the 5G towers appear in the street, it will be time to go for sure. Hopefully however, the rollout of 5G services here on the outskirts of Jakarta will not happen anytime soon.