IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2013 - 59

Why Bother?
Given the extensive investment
made in NTM and STM verification systems, why bother to
empower the interested public to
participate directly in treaty verification? Isn't it better and more cost
effective to leave this task to the
respective governments and intelligence professionals, acting on
behalf of their citizens?
The first argument against this
point of view is based on the principles of free choice, and individual
and collective liberty. The PTM
approach allows those members
of the public who have a particular interest in treaty verification to
allocate their resources (both funds
and time) towards PTM objectives. Just as a subset of the general
population elects to purchase fuelefficient vehicles, despite a price
premium, we similarly want to
empower those with a passion for
compliance verification to bypass
their government's resource allocation process. If people want to place
a CO2 sensor on the roof of their
home, patched into a wireless network, they should be able to do so
in a way that coordinates with the
worldwide efforts of like-minded
individuals. This same freedom of
choice logic applies to aggregations
of individuals, through NGOs or
special interest groups.
A second argument in favor of
PTM is competition. By providing
the public with relevant data and
information, they are in a position
to confront and challenge either
their own government or external
ones. The PTM effort will pressure both STM and NTM systems
towards higher efficiency, since
the managers of those government programs will be aware of
the PTM efforts. It also promotes
intellectual integrity by providing
an independent check on the NTM
and STM efforts.
The third argument in favor of
actively facilitating PTM is that
it is inevitable. The International
Monitoring System (IMS) that is

being established in support of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is
extensive and sophisticated, having
deployed and activated2 more than
80% of its anticipated total number
of 337 instrumental installations.
But tens of millions of people now
carry around a sophisticated computer - with built-in sensors, a
powerful CPU, data storage, GPS
geolocation, and wireless connectivity - that also happens to be a
telephone. The growth of smartphone ownership is projected to
continue to increase worldwide
well into the future. The number of
desktop, laptop, and home computers is also increasing, as the digital
quality of life improves across the
globe. "Ubiquitous sensing" is now
an established subfield, with associated conferences, journals, and
a critical mass of engineers and
academics. This observation is not
in any way meant to diminish the
importance of the IMS network,
but rather to point out the tidal
wave of latent PTM capability that
is sweeping the globe.
In addition to the growth of
ground-based sensors, scientific
remote sensing capabilities in orbit
are also increasing. Driven by
global climate issues, we should
anticipate a steady increase in the
number and instrumental capability of Earth-observing satellites.
These orbiting resources will produce a stream of images and data
that can be brought to bear on various treaty verification issues, in the
PTM context.
A fourth argument in favor of
PTM is its unique ability to contribute to military activity monitoring. As one looks ahead to future
progress in reducing the world's
nuclear arsenals, and perhaps
realizing the vision of President
reagan and General Secretary
Gorbachev at reykjavik in 1986 of
a world free of such weapons, the
arms control agenda will inevitably expand. with the entry into
2

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wINTEr 2013

force of the New Start treaty in
2011, the United States and russia have agreed for the first time
to actually count the numbers of
deployed nuclear warheads on strategic long-range delivery vehicles,
in addition to their much larger and
more easily identified launchers.
Verification of compliance with
this provision is beyond the capabilities of NTM alone and requires
onsite challenge inspections. Further nuclear arsenal reductions will
require additional means of access
including, for example, verifying
the existence and numbers of nondeployed warheads and any special
components being maintained as
a potential means to reconstitute
nuclear weapons. In such situations
the importance of activity monitoring will be greatly enhanced. This
is because it will require active
maintenance or refurbishment of
a number of limited-life components to maintain an effective rapid
reconstitution capability for any
reasonable length of time [6]. Public means of verification or societal
monitoring can be a significant tool
for monitoring such activities. They
can call attention to suspicious
activities, providing useful cuing
information to NTM resources.
The role of societal monitoring in
such cases has the potential to be
highly significant in the future, and
needs further study.
A final argument in favor of
PTM is technical agility. PTM
technical capabilities can evolve
and adapt rapidly, without being
constrained by the international
negotiations needed to implement
treaty verification revisions or
upgrades. Once signed, treaties tend
to last a long time. But the associated verification protocols seldom
keep up with technical developments [7]. By operating outside the
constraints of formal international
agreements, PTM systems can capitalize on technical improvements
and opportunities. Furthermore,
the PTM approach can implement
monitoring capabilities even inside
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2013