Crabtree Publishing Company HIGH-TECH DEFENSE SCIENCE JAMES BOW TECH TO PROTECT
MAKING IT SAFE On a monitor a police officer watches a suspicious package lying in the middle of the floor Someone has called in a threat The building has been evacuated People have been warned to stay away by loudspeakers and also by text messages on their phones Everyone is safe but now police must deal with what might be a bomb Fortunately the police officer is not risking her life She is in another building Using a remote control she guides a bomb disposal robot toward the suspicious package Technology makes people’s lives easier Cars and planes make us move faster Computers and the Internet make us more knowledgeable Special cameras allow us to see things our eyes cannot New materials make possible things we could only imagine before By experimenting we look for ways to make our tools easier to use and more powerful As technology changes so do we We start to do things differently Some of the most important tools we have are the things we use to defend ourselves New technology can help armies fight wars and police stop criminals Not all progress is good however Weapons are designed to kill The smarter these weapons become the more people they are able to kill sometimes by mistake Advances in police technology raise questions about our privacy Cameras can look everywhere and see everything Some people may say that if we have nothing to hide we have nothing to fear However technologies can wind up in the wrong hands and be misused 4 TECH FOR BETTER OR WORSE
Technologies have helped our armies and police forces save lives New technologies allow officers to stop suspects without killing them They can help emergency services and governments deal with the aftereffects of war by making bombs safe and the land free of chemicals that could destroy crops They can use satellites and computer surveillance to watch suspects to prevent crimes from happening before the police get involved Video cameras allow an officer to see what a bomb disposal robot is seeing A F-16 Falcon flies in a military exercise New technology is tested in drills and simulations that are close to real life 5 SEEING THE ADVANTAGES
