> there are very few technologies that can reliably detect things like people, while ignoring things like various animals (or heat from jet engines, etc.).
If a 100MM taxpayer funded system can't tell the difference between a jet engine heat output and a person's heat signature, then someone should be criminally liable for defrauding us.
And as far as differentiating a deer from a human, it should have detected the moving object, sent the images to a person sitting in front of a computer, and he/she could have classified the object.
First off, the 100MM was a total expenditure across several airports, for multiple aspects of their security systems. It was not all spent on the fence perimeter system at JFK.
JFK is a complex airport, I'm not aware of the specific length of the perimeter they are covering there, but it's likely between 8 and 15 miles of perimeter fence line. You need something with a high degree of reliability and false alarm immunity to make this work. This is especially true because the fact is that the probability of a real terrorist incursion is pretty low. So, the guards aren't going to stay actively engaged with reviewing alarms for very long if essentially 99.9% of what they see are all false alarm/no-action events.
If a 100MM taxpayer funded system can't tell the difference between a jet engine heat output and a person's heat signature, then someone should be criminally liable for defrauding us.
And as far as differentiating a deer from a human, it should have detected the moving object, sent the images to a person sitting in front of a computer, and he/she could have classified the object.