Slashdot Mirror
Inside a Full-Body-Scanning X-Ray Van
Velcroman1 writes "In August, Slashdotters learned that full-body scanners were roaming the streets in vans: '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. Fox took a ride in one of the $800,000 vans, videotaping the entire event — and continues the debate about security, privacy, and health risks."
You know we're in trouble when FOX is complaining about invasion of people's privacy, instead of cheering how this will help track down "dirty terr'rists".
Come on, tell me, what's the real purpose of this stuff? 8 million flights without a successful terrorist attack since 9/11. All attempts either simply failed or were prevented using pre-9/11 technology, yet we still get these naked body scanners.
Now we also need them roaming the streets? "Hey Joe, hottie on your six, make a turn and flip the switch boy, let's see what she's got!". Anything else doesn't come near a justification.
It's definitely a dumb idea to have these things just roaming the streets, and that's without even considering the privacy concerns. It's absurdly hard to actually identify items that only rarely occur, say weapons, in samples like this. The human eye just isn't that good at it. It gets worse the more samples you take. The only place I can see for this is scanning at the border where people being smuggled in would be pretty obvious. At the border, a search like this makes sense since by law it's necessary to declare many items that you bring into a country. Otherwise, not only is it mostly a waste of time, but a dead ringer for an unreasonable search. The article was light on just how prevalent their use is outside of ports and points of entry, so it's hard to say if there's any serious danger to the average person on the street. Also, health concerns are probably overblown. If the dose is in micro Sv, that's a small fraction of the regular background dose.
I got a catholic block.
people's paranoia about ominous large white vehicles is going to skyrocket again. but as Google did beyond everyone's eye by harvest wi-fi data and keeping it, again here, what will they do with these scans? "it was learned today that a city employee had started a p0rn website with the harvested body scans called ambiguousbodies.com. privacy advocates... don't exist." btw, what does the EFF even do these days?!
You know those wrist watches that measure UV and tell you when you've been in the sun too long? Add x-ray.
AS&E says the system is safe for operators and subjects, and that "one scan of the ZBV is equivalent to flying in an airplane at altitude for two minutes."
and my general understanding is even if you were exposed to a dosage from one of these machines, it would be equivalent to a chest x-ray or less," McCabe told FoxNews.com.
The above two are not the same. Assuming normal airline altitudes, it takes hours of flying to get the equivalent radiation dose of a chest x-ray.
"It was a secondary screening mechanism for trucks going into a loading dock
So if your job requires you to drive a truck into the loading dock every day, it better be much lower than "chest x ray" levels.
Some related discussion here: http://ask.metafilter.com/142917/Cumulative-backscatter-Xray-risk
[A public service announcement for the benefit of the slashdot community]
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
OUCH MY SPERM...expect the population to drop in a few years lol
I guess a tinfoil suit is not going to work, eh?
Remind me again why we haven't burned DC to the ground yet? How can ANYONE, of ANY political affiliation, see this shit and not be completely outraged?
I'm gonna start carrying a mannequin in the trunk of my car.
Forget the hat, it's time to start wearing tinfoil underwear!
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Why is this not considered an illegal search? How can the government get away with just x-raying people now?
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
This blurb in the article basically says it all...
While many dismiss / marginalize the threat of the drug war on people's freedoms, it's happening nevertheless. For example, there was a time when local police busting down doors was virtually unheard of - now it's common practice in all sorts of situations. Another is that people are now subjected to all sorts of demands, such providing government id / signing a form, to buy over-the-counter cough medicine. All in the name of the drug war - which is really a war against citizens.
For anyone who believes use of such technology to search people / private property will be ruled unconstitutional, think again - drug sniffing dogs are often allowed to search one's private property, such as one's vehicle, that's accessible from the street despite no "contraband" being in plain view.
One can practically count on such vans roaming the streets all throughout the U.S. in the near future "for your protection", but of course, much of the time, that won't be the real motivation.
Ron
The video includes several images of cars, showing suspicious cargo. No pictures of a scanned house, however.
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
In totally unrelated news, statistics show that tall, slender and well endowed women are more prone to being terrorists, not young middle-eastern bearded men.
~Syberz
... With tinfoil clothing? (or substitute your favorite x-ray opaque material)
Can I borrow $800,000 until payday?
I thought these backscatter devices used harmless microwaves, not X-rays? If someone drives an X-ray emitter past me they are going to find my boot up their ass.
Also I thought they could only see through clothing, not metal, so this excuse about looking for bombs in cars seems BS.
The government is right, you are wrong. Care to argue further? Lets talk while we bring you to Gitmo.
The best way to avoid terrorism is to live in fear all the time.
Of course, private business could generate just as much fear as the government, but with much lower cost to the private citizen...
Support deprivatization of the fear industry!
Brilliant. Truly brilliant
...tinfoil underwear?
Expectation of privacy. You implicitly allow search by entering an airport, but a billion court rulings state that the authorities cannot look inside your house or car without probable cause.
X ray tech counts as a search. What kind of legal advisor could ever sign off on this?
Besides, it's totally impractical. 15 seconds per scan? Useless in open traffic. Useless at a major event (15 sec x 10000 cars = 2 days in line to be searched).
Useless expensive and illegal. Thanks DHS!
Maybe its a good thing people shoot mainly digital today.
Would a real film photographer need a lead lined box for his film now?
So, let me get this straight... only people that have $800,000 or so to spend on these nifty trucks deserve privacy?
-chris
There is no ideology for which the masterminds and the Richelieus don't feel more surveillance is always well served.
Stereotypically:
Conservatives? Got to catch those criminals, protect property and keep an eye on the dregs of society
Liberals? Got to expose those miscreants that threaten social order, cohesion and unity
Religious? Got to find those sins against God because He prefers that we punish them instead of doing it Himself
Green? Got to be able to find out when someone pollutes or damages Nature
Fascist? Got to rule society and kick the ass of those antifascists
Antifascist? Got to control society and kick the ass of those fascists
Communist: No shirking on the job unless you can't help yourself
The I-don't-believe-in-surveillance-party: Got to... oh yes, this one, actually. Number of this party in existence in countries across the globe: 0
It's not about what the goon in the street wants, its what the masterminds at the top wants. Because we WILL get more surveillance we should rather find out how to deal with it. Maybe actually tin foil in walls is not a terrible idea.
Useless expensive and illegal. Thanks DHS!
Sums it up quite nicely.
If you RTFA you will see that this is all for your benefit. "state privacy laws would prohibit individuals or private companies from abusing the vans, while the Fourth Amendment prohibits law enforcement agencies from doing the same."
See? Now calm down and get back to work, peasant.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
When I clicked to read the slashdot comments for this article, the quote at the bottom of the page reads:
"I consider a new device or technology to have been culturally accepted when it has been used to commit a murder. -- M. Gallaher"
Equivalent to a chest x-ray? No thanks.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
They don't show homes probably because they know they would be destroyed in court if they did (Kyllo vs. US). The cars are on a public street so it is fair game.
I suppose now we will need tin foil underwear too
you have seen nothing yet!
Yup. Drive up to a school, now it becomes CP View, for your protection.
When the organization itself contributes to the Republican party, all "news" is suspect.
Does that apply to the Democratic party and news operations other than Fox, too?
Be careful how you answer: Reporters and news operation executives are NEARLY unanimous in contributing to Ds and not to Rs. >80% typically. (Plenty of documentation on that is available, thanks to campaign finance reporting laws.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Watched the video. Fox didn't get any pictures of actual scans taken while they were there. The pictures shown are from AS&E's usual set of demo pictures.
They should have had scans of the reporters. But the mobile system isn't certified for personnel scans.
It's not a significant radiation hazard beyond the recommended 9 foot approach limit. But there are reasonable questions about someone close to the scanning vehicle. The Hickam AFB study did not measure the exposure directly in line with the scanning fan closer than 7' from the vehicle. At that distance, the exposure is 35mRem/hour. Driving by a parked car equipped with standard dosimeters returned a zero dose reading.
I thought it was a little overly fearful when I first read it. But it seems he may not be far off the mark...
The Right to Read, by Richard Stallman:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Given that the 2nd photo in FOX's slideshow shows the driver looking into a laptop screen WHILE DRIVING, all I have to say is give me my tax money back!
Oh, and nice choice of propaganda photos, Fox "News"
I can see the Fox news crowd having a hard time what to think about this:
On one hand, it can be sued to catch those dirty, dirty immigrants.
On the other hand, it can see your guns in your car and spy on you in your house.
Which one do they hate more?
Look, I work in medical imaging, which includes X-ray imaging. I don't care what they say, the backscatter radiation imaging they are using is dangerous. Mark my words, if the tech become ubiquitous in airports, those with the most frequent fliers miles will have a greater incidence of tumorous growths.
Judge Judy is a nasty Jewish woman who plays a judge on TV.
... when I covered my body in aluminum foil.
Who's looking like the smart guy now?
Is there any type of official restriction as to who can buy these? As these become more common, it will be harder to keep track of all of them. How long before some pedophile/voyeur gets a hold of one of these and manages to convert it into an Ice Cream truck?
Won't someone please think of the children.
Brought to you by: "Al"toids - the curiously weird mint.
All the most violent and otherwise horrendous of Child-rape Porn and general CP and rape images posted on 4Chan is from the verry protected evidence collections that only COPS have access to. That should give you an idea of who and how the COPS want to shutdown: by posting their materials from evidence lockers into societies of free peoples like the *Chans bulletin-boards.
Why don't they just install the X-ray unit activation button right on the Gun pointing at your jaws? And what's with that Lead-plate vest? We don't need any of this, because what we can comprehend of having mere effects 10 years from the inception can't possibly effect our lives and outlook in the meantime. I intend to only live to the ripe-old age of 64, not 110 like those Tibetan Budhist Monks displaced by the similarly reasoned and rational Peopres Repubric of China..
Whoever is using these really should test the actual radiation output on pedestrians while scanning. I sure hope these agencies are not planning to BLINDLY trust the manufacturers specs on this. Now is the time to test this.
We made that mistake in Canada with the tasers which were in heavy use by authority/security, but we never tested to confirm their safety. A few public deaths later (and some less public)... and voila... our local and federal police now perform their own safety tests. Oh and the taser guns we zap each other with now are much more reliable (quality controlled).
It's just more effective, efficient, and reasonable for me to live in my car. And come to that train of thought, who doesn't live in their car? Do we magically die and put on a mask when we sit in a chair in our cars? I know people that "don't live in their car" yet have more appliances like refrigerators and air-conditioners and water-dispensers and cooking-wares while I am just moving my property from one location to perform my services at another. It is a jurisdictional issue to say otherwise, because local governments want everyone to reside and RENT from them so they can glean a tax on everything not in their grasp.
The future that resonates to us from the universe is everyone -- all of us -- will be levitating our Quarters independent of eachother, no different than a Boat-house. Freedom of association is being violated by the irrational and limited interpretations of malicious governments that do more to liquidate the verry heritage of a free people. Someone's got to work those minimum-wage jobs, and the Prison System is just waiting to con their Subjects into that Room-and-Board for Slave Labor position as soon as they print enough money that it is not effective for roaming privateers to do them anymore.
The prisons physically and literally may as well just change their name to the town they sit in and everyone else not jailed should just be kicked-out of the country: we don't want anyone working for us that is peaceful and non-violent because you all are a bunch of Christians and hip-theists in the eyes of a government that makes the most money when you do something wrong.
Warrantless search, unproven tech with probable biological damage, .... .. and do some house cleaning first.
I suggest we take a hiatus from talking about human rights in China, Cuba, North Korea,
> Remind me again why we haven't burned DC to the ground yet?
The last time that happened, it was the Canadians who did it...
"Hey, what happened to our backscatter van?"
"Well, we drove by a container full of parabolic satellite dishes, and our input stages were fried."
It's a dream I have...
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Remind me again why we haven't burned DC to the ground yet?
Because you're afraid that the Canadians will take the credit?
Am I the only one seeing the huge health hazard here? Give it a year and all hot women on earth will be dead from radiation!
multiply that by how many vans could eventually be in a city, and depending on your commute, soon the US public will be getting a few chest x-rays a week.
Bubba Dave,
Have you ever known any Jewish women? Have you ever known one who believes she is superior to everyone else? And is always angry?
I don't suppose there are many Jews in places where people call themselves Bubba.
There has been considerable talk about using private services to house prisoners. Private prisons run about half the cost of government-run prisons. However, in order to be profitable, they need prisoners. Consider what kind of lobbying might take place to not only make laws more strict, but to allow more ways to catch people breaking the law. If this sounds far-fetched, it has already happened with immigration.
If anyone else did something like this, they'd have to register as a sex offender.
by Executive Oder of Barak Hussain Obama!
WoW. Barak baby trols the southeast D.C. streets looking for minors, 2 to 3 years old to satisfy his sexual urgings.
Well.
I guess he does not like women ... least of which is his common law wife at present. So he wont get burned by "pleasing a staffer with a cigar/" Like Billy Be Clinton did. Snicker snicker.
Har de Har Har.
Does Barak baby enjoys signing assination orders? Does he really have the stomach to kill some one in cold blood. No. I"d say. Obama is a coward. Plain and simple. He will try to buy a murder, but never have the nerve to do it himseld. Why? He dosn't have the training! Neighter the guts. Neighter the manhood! Barak baby got no manhood. Po Po little wineer. Pitty pitty ... pitty pitty. Such a little man.
Toodles
My sperm
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
in the video the interviewee claimed that there was no more radiation than in "a chest x-ray". well, In a chest x-ray I get lead underwear to keep things from going too far, and I don't get x-rayed all that often. what happens when I get constantly chest x-rayed for the rest of my life? nothing good I wager. Use it on trucks going through the border, where you can stop and have the driver wait outside. Use it on checking shipping containers, use it on suspicious, driver-less cars and bags, but for the love of God(gods, Alllah, or lack thereof, etc) don't x-ray my junk indiscriminately.
Did no one else, when reading TFS, picture the Norsefire Finger vans roaming the streets eavesdropping on the citizenry?