DARPA is moving project ISIS into its demonstration phase.  ISIS (Integrated Sensor Is Structure) is a military project with goals to launch an autonomous statospheric-based airship equipped with supercharged sensors for surveillance.  The lightweight structure will hover high above earth for years and be capable of tracking objects as small as a child from up to 300 km away.

But, the idea of hovering surveillance structures troubles privacy groups like the Anti-Satellite Sympathizers.  A.S.S. founder and president Neil Kaminskigee said the following: “It’s just one more step towards a totalitarian police state, in which every square inch of earth has a dedicated ‘surveillance camera’ to watch over citizens.”

Others see this as another step towards floating airbases and cities.  Population control organizations have promoted the idea of permanent, stratosphere based structures to help alleviate overcrowding on the surface of our planet.

Read the press release from DARPA here.