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Concept
Mass surveillance industry
Summary
The mass surveillance industry is a multibillion-dollar industry that has undergone phenomenal growth since 2001. According to data provided by The Wall Street Journal, the retail market for surveillance tools has grown from "nearly zero" in 2001 to about US13.5 billion in 2012 and is expected to reach US$39 billion by 2020.
Fueled by widespread fears of terrorist attacks, the future of surveillance is particularly promising in the field of video content analysis, where computers analyze live camera feeds to count the number of people, register temperature changes, and automatically identify suspicious behavior via statistical algorithms. The following terrorist attacks have led to a significant increase in street-level surveillance:
Shortly after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, police commissioner Edward F. Davis requested the installation of more cameras to boost street-level surveillance. The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, said that the bombings are a "terrible reminder" of the importance of acquiring surveillance technology.
In the aftermath of the 2001 September 11 attacks, U.S. cities spent billions of dollars in federal counter-terrorism funding to deploy video sensors in public areas.
Private intelligence agencies are non-governmental corporations involved in the collection and analysis of information. Prior to the 9/11 attacks, such tasks were mostly performed by governmental agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the gathering of intelligence was rapidly outsourced by the U.S. government to private intelligence agencies, which function as independent contractors.
According to The Washington Post, about one in four U.S. intelligence workers are contractors, and over 70 percent of the budget of the United States Intelligence Community is earmarked for payment to private firms.
Official source
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