Combat Zones That See, or CTS, is a project of the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency whose goal is to "track everything that moves" in a city by linking up a massive network of surveillance cameras to a centralized computer system. Artificial intelligence software will then identify and track all movement throughout the city, effectively placing the entire populace under 24 hour a day surveillance. The United States of America — also referred to as the United States, the U.S.A., the U.S., America, the States, or (archaically) Columbia—is a federal republic of 50 states located primarily in central North America (with the exception of two states: Alaska and Hawaii). ... The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. ... Artificial intelligence (also known as machine intelligence and often abbreviated as AI) is intelligence exhibited by any manufactured (i. ...

CTS is described by DARPA as intended for use in combat zones, to deter enemy attacks on American troops and to identify and track enemy combatants who launch attacks against American soldiers. The potential civilian applications of this system were readily apparent to civil liberties activists, who decry the project as ominously Orwellian. Orwellian describes a situation or idea similar to the fiction of George Orwell; particularly his political novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. ...

See also:

• Information Awareness Office

The Information Awareness Office is a branch of the United States Department of Defenses Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. ...

External links:

• DARPA BAA 03-15 (http://dtsn.darpa.mil/ixo/solicitations/cts/index.htm) official project description and bid solicitation
• Big Brother Gets a Brain (http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0328/shachtman.php), the Village Voice, July 9-15, 2003