Drone footage overwhelms analysts

[unhappycamper]

Drone footage overwhelms analysts
By Eli Lake
The Washington Times
8:01 p.m., Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The U.S. military is fast running out of human analysts to process the vast amounts of video footage collected by the robotic planes and aerial sensors that blanket Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terrorism.

Speaking at an intelligence conference last week, Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he would need 2,000 analysts to process the video feeds collected by a single Predator drone aircraft fitted with next-generation sensors.

"If we do scores of targets off of a single , I now have run into a problem of generating analysts that I can't solve," he said, adding that he already needs 19 analysts to process video feeds from a single Predator using current sensor technology.

The unmanned Predator and Reaper drones are the primary weapons the military and CIA deploy against al Qaeda's leadership in Afghanistan, Pakistan and, more recently, Yemen.

It's a classic conundrum for U.S. intelligence: Information-gathering technology has far outpaced the ability of computer programs — much less humans — to make sense of the data.

[donco6]

1. How many analysts do you need to bomb wedding parties?

Oh . . . they DON'T want to bomb wedding parties. My mistake.

[WhiteTara]

2. well see

now we're getting some job growth! :sarcasm:

[Swede]

3. This looks like a job for Skynet.

nt

[mmonk]

4. That is because the data is all inclusive.

It does not narrow down terrorism or terrorists. Then it can have the opposite affect in that it can slow down detection.

[ixion]

5. that blanket Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terrorism.

'fronts'

What a ridiculous word to use in describing our ludicrous war on the abstract.