Remote Sensing in Homeland Security

http://www.nimsonline.com/nims-training-plan.html

On September 11, 2001 the United States was attack by members of Al-Qaeda, a terrorist organization based in the Middle East. Four passenger airliners were hijacked that morning, two were flown into the World Trade Center in New York City, another into the Pentagon, and the final aircraft crashed in a Pennsylvania field. Both towers collapse hours later resulting in a total of 2,977 lives lost, not including the 19 hijackers. As a result of the attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush established the Department of Homeland Security, effective November 25, 2002.

The Department of Homeland Security consists of multiple agencies that were stand alone agencies before they were centralized. These agencies include United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Transportation Security Administration, United States Coast Guard, and the United States Secret Service. The main difference between the DHS and the Department of Defense is that the DHS primarily protects American citizens from within and just outside U.S borders. The DOD is primarily military actions abroad.

Both the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense use remote sensing applications to protect the United States from threats on foreign and domestic soil. Border crossing, airport terminals, ocean ports, and military base defenses all use remote sensing in one way or another in every day operations. Just recently a new remote sensing technique was developed called Terahertz (THz) wave technology. Terahertz wave technology can see-through clothing and package materials to see what is hiding inside. Satellite imagery from satellite sensors such as GeoEye-1, WorldView-1, WorldView-2, Quickbird, IKONOS, aerial photographs and LIDAR are all used to monitor certain locations.

Matt Tormey

Salem State University

Masters of Science Geo-Information Science

Professor Stephen Young

GPH909 Remote Sensing

Last Modified November 9, 2010

Works Cited