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Police in Virginia Want Spy Blimps to Protect Ports

Documents released to Motherboard and MuckRock indicate that local government agencies, like police in Newport News, are considering unmanned balloons as surveillance tools.
Image: via US Defense Imagery.

Police in Newport News, Virginia are feeling slightly deflated. Last August, FEMA denied the department’s request for $240,000 to purchase a “tethered aerial surveillance balloon system” to keep tabs on the Port of Hampton Roads. The citizens of Newport News will have to find a way to get to sleep every night without a helium-buoyed camera floating overhead.

Between coverage of Predator strikes and domestic surveillance drones, most people think of unmanned aerial vehicles as remote-controlled craft with fixed wings or propeller blades. But pilotless lighter-than-air vehicles were used in combat as early as 1849, when the Austrian military assaulted Venice via 200 bomb-laden balloons.

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More recently, the US Armed Forces have used unmanned surveillance blimps—aerostats—extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has plans to deploy a $2.7 billion system moored in Maryland to monitor the East Coast: per its specs, the JLENS (Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System) system will be able to track vehicles up to 140 miles in any direction.

But documents released to Motherboard and MuckRock as part of the Drone Census indicate that local government agencies are beginning to consider unmanned balloons as potential surveillance tools.

In June 2013, the Newport News Police Department pitched its balloon idea to FEMA’s Port Security Grant Program, which awards funds to both public and private entities to protect the nation’s maritime infrastructure. The department asked for a total of $240,000: $210,000 for the balloon, which carries both high-res and thermal camera systems, plus $22,000 for two cranes to secure the rig to police boats, and $8,000 worth of helium. The application did not indicate how high the blimp would have flown, the system manufacturer or the specifications of the onboard camera system:

Hampton Roads in southeastern Virginia is a major seaport for both commercial shipping and military shipbuilding. In particular, the blimp grant application highlighted the Northrop Grumman shipyard as a critical epicenter of battleship and aircraft carrier production worthy of advanced protection. Newport News also promised to use its tethered balloon to better monitor the adjacent Surry Nuclear Power Plant and a handful of nearby bridges and tunnels.

The department touted the advantages of constant surveillance-by-tethered-blimp. Per their application, the Aerial Balloon Surveillance System would strengthen port security against natural disasters and terrorist attacks by “providing surveillance and intelligence gathering capability in a rapidly deployable platform.” Newport News police were confident that the system would have an “unequivocal impact on the port’s resilience and recovery capabilities,” and even reduce adverse impacts “on the economy and civilian psyche” should disaster strike the port.

But in August, after reviewing all applications for port security grants, FEMA announced that Newport News had received just $25,000. For now, at least, the tethered aerial balloon surveillance system remains but a lofty idea for Newport News. Department officials declined to comment on FEMA’s decision, save to confirm that the grant application was not approved.