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Full-Body Scanners Deployed In Street-Roving Vans
pickens writes "Forbes reports that the same technology used at airport check points, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on US streets where law enforcement agencies have deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs. 'It's no surprise that governments and vendors are very enthusiastic about [the vans],' says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. 'But from a privacy perspective, it's one of the most intrusive technologies conceivable.' Rotenberg adds that the scans, like those in the airport, potentially violate the fourth amendment. 'Without a warrant, the government doesn't have a right to peer beneath your clothes without probable cause,' Rotenberg says. 'If the scans can only be used in exceptional cases in airports, the idea that they can be used routinely on city streets is a very hard argument to make.'"
I wonder what they will change. The amendment or make the use of these illegal.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Ok, how many "violations" have these scanners found that could be linked to something serious. No, some guy who carries a pocketknife daily who forgot to take it out at the airport is not a real threat.
There are three reasons why we haven't had any "terrorist attacks" since 9/11
A) Terrorists are stupid. Its not easy to carry out an attack.
B) People are smarter. Pre-9/11 if your plane got hijacked you simply complied with the hijackers, landed in Cuba, and were on a flight back home later in the day. Today, if someone would try doing that, they would be stopped by the passengers. And unless there was a plane full of terrorists, the number of average passengers are much, much, much higher.
C) Terrorists are rare. There aren't billions of terrorists everywhere, yes, there are a few, but the number of normal people outnumber them by far which makes stopping them very easy.
9/11 was a one shot deal and only was successfully carried out because prior to that the standard operating procedure for dealing with a hijacker as a passenger was to let them do whatever they want and try to survive because they weren't crashing the hijacked planes in buildings.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Law enforcement considers the beach based vans critically important to beach safety.
Who am I to argue? To all of you fools who believe it can't get any worse, I can only say, step outside the door. You haven't seen shit.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
"The Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs, as the company calls them, bounce a narrow stream of x-rays off and through nearby objects, and read which ones come back."
A doctor needs informed consent to do an X-ray because of the risk from radiation. Why do these people think that they can irradiate people just because they want to? At least, as I understand it, at the airport you can decline to be irradiated and get searched the old fashioned way. With this you have no right to decline, or even knowledge that it happened.
As technical people, when we instil fear about something, people will listen.
Sure, right up until they figure out that we, like everyone else whom they thought they trust, have also been lying through our teeth. At that point they bring out the pitchforks, and rightfully so. Remember that old saw "we have seen the enemy, and he is us?" We have to be careful not to adopt too many of the tactics of those currently in power or we, in the end, are no better. The ends do not justify the means
The reason that lay people tend to trust those with knowledge is because they don't have the ability to tell if that educated person is lying or incompetent, and because of that have no choice but to hope the expert knows what the Hell he's talking about. We've all been in that position at one time or another in our lives: having to trust someone that knows substantially more than we do about something important to us. It's rarely a pleasant position to be in.
Are you really telling me that it's okay to deliberately lie to people, abuse their trust in a big way, simply because it's for their own good? Because we assume that it's for their own good? That's precisely what our government and our corporate leaders have been doing to us for years. So far as I'm concerned, if we're so far gone as a society that we can't fight this with reality, with facts, with what is, then We the People don't deserve to survive anyway. In any event, that's not a campaign of which I would choose to play a part. Furthermore, you will have to accept that there will be some deaths involved should you be successful in this, as people who might otherwise have received a medical X-ray or CT scan refuse them out of fear. There are always consequences to fearmongering and ignorance peddling.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Some rich libertarian should buy one of these machines and a van, and start roving the streets building their own image archive. And then they should link the photos to Google Street View. Fair is fair. No assumption of privacy on the streets, right? Besides, this kind of information can be useful for ordinary citizens. For instance, I can see how many gun/knife/crack-pipe toting people are in a given area and make my own decision as to how safe that neighborhood is. And since I'm not the government, there's no Fourth Amendment concern.
There is something wrong with you if you need the government to run up and down the street with mobile scanners to ensure you didn't leave your child in the car. Forgetting your child in the car while you go to work shouldn't even be possible. How absent minded could you be?
if this isn't some sort of joke you should be neutered and have your children taken away.
That's true. I was very angry and did not think through the consequences of this idea.
Oh, make no mistake ... it irritates the Hell out of me too. Let's face it: power can be an intoxicant just as powerful as any psychotropic chemical compound, and is just as ripe for abuse. Personally, I believe the Drug Enforcement Agency's efforts would be better directed at politicians than drug users. Find the ones who are abusing the power to which they've become addicted and are abusing, and get rid of them.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
There have been THOUSANDS of terrorists attacks since 9/11, try Iraq and Afghanistan. What about Madrid and London? Those don't count? Because they don't strike were YOU claim they should strike? Here is a hint: THAT is how terrorism works. Strike ANYWHERE with the implied threat that it could happen ANYWHERE.
There have also been attempts on US targets, FOUR at least. (Shoe-bomber, nigerian via dutch airline, car on times-sqaure, fort hood shooting) 1 out of 4 succeeded. Stupid attemps? No, just unlucky ones. 9/11 got lucky, very lucky. 3 planes hit their target, one didn't. That is NOT exactly a high success rate but it was high enough. But can you bank on that? Never had a fire in my adult life != do not need the fire department.
People are smarter? Doubt it if you are the example. Not exactly blessed with logical thinking skills are you? You go on how about 9/11 could only happen because the terrorists did something DIFFERENT and then completly assume a next attempt will be foiled because we know what to do now... so the terrorist are not capable of changing the rules YET again? Who says the NEXT 9/11 will be the same? Madrid, London and the fort hood shooting were not. Why touch the airport at all? I can think up of thousands of different attacks especially if the attacker doesn't value his own life. No doubt so can the terrorists.
They are rare? Yes... getting rarer all the time with the thousands of suicide attacks. Odd that they don't seem to be running out at all. Could it be that with a population in the billions, any fraction of a percentage still gets you tons of people? And yet all these billions of people who are not terrorists did NOT stop 9/11 or London or Madrid or Fort Hood or the countless attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan or the attack in Mumbai and god knows how many more.
There is a very real risk that in the fear of terrorists we do exactly what the terrorists want, which is to life in terror.
But sticking our head in the sand like you do is NOT the answer either. You are a silly person who has banked his entire idea that there is another group of a dozen muslim men waiting with box-cutters to fly aircraft into buildings and that you, you who cower already on a forum at the thought of a terrorists, will fight them off with the old lady next to you.
The people in the fourth plane tried that. Why don't you ask them for tips... oh wait, they ALL died didn't they? So much for your brilliant plan to foil the evil terrorists. Maybe we should leave it to someone smarter. Shouldn't be hard, by my estimate there about 6 billion smarter people on this planet then some guy who thinks terrorists have to strike in the same place twice in the same way.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You cannot protect the rights of the people by violating the rights of the people.
Just think, perhaps a secret police scan while mom was pregnant is why the kid ended up autistic. Or got cancer. Won't the police please think of the children?
On the other hand, if you are posting as a teenager in your mom's basement, please just ignore this for another 5 or 10 years. Someday it will be important to you.
As a teenager living in his parent's house, I find the issue extremely important to me. The preservation of free society against incursion of moralism and safetism is one of the most important aspects of sustaining oneself. In fact, as a parent, it should be more important to you than it is to me, because your child's life depends on it. The ultimate progression of a non-free society (which these vans and your idea are) is the genocide and killing of the undesirables. Wether your non-free society is based on the worship of government, race, health, the environment, or the greater good over the rights of the individual, the ultimate result is the killing of the undesirables. Your idea might save 100 or 1000 children in the short run. However, it, combined with all the other ideas for protecting people will lead to a genocide killing millions, as well as the war to overthrow that genocidal government. The most dangerous people are those that seek to protect us.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Some of us read it. And its a good story about some very sad tragedies. But also very rare. So we are trying to figure out why you posted the link. Sure, it would be great if one of these roving vans just happened to spot a kid sitting in a hot car. It would also be great if random police raids would occasionally catch some kids just prior to their getting into the cleaning chemicals or daddy's gun safe.
What it smells of is a "think of the children" justification for losing some more rights.
Have gnu, will travel.
There is a background level of environmental poisons that is more or less unavoidable, and there is an average yearly exposure level due to environmental exposure. As such, there are certainly quantities of poisoning that are negligible compared to environmental exposure.
There is a background level of pain that is more or less unavoidable, and there is an average yearly exposure level due to environmental exposure. As such, there are certainly quantities of pain that are negligible compared to environmental exposure.
This is why it's ok for me to spike your daily coffee with minimal amounts of poison and lightly slap your face every other month. Moderation is all.
Then the proper method would be to change those parts of the Constitution that have become obsolete, not to violate them.
Civilized society needs to follow established rules, not let a bunch of petty dictators act as they see fit.