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."
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.
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.
The Government's new definition of debate: you keep talking amongst yourselves, we'll keep implementing.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
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
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.
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
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
http://www.lessemf.com/personal.html
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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!
Never said they were evil, just hypocritical...just like every other right-leaning and left-leaning news org.
The reason Fox gets so much flak is because it bills itself as being "fair and balanced", when it is neither. MSNBC says "We're full of shit. What're you gonna do about it?" There's no difference in their presentation or intention...the only difference is one admits it and one attempts to paint itself as the opposite of what it is.
Living With a Nerd
When the organization itself contributes to the Republican party, all "news" is suspect.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
What really pisses people off is not the bias of Fox. CNN, MSNBC, Fox, ABC, CBS all are biased. The real problem about Fox is that people watch it. No one watches the others.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
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.)
You appear to be confused. The OP was discussing the organization itself (that is, who ultimately controls things), not the private citizens employed by the organization. You then quoted statistics about private citizens giving.
If you can't see the difference, consider what it would mean to an employee that the organization that signs their paycheck, and determines whether they'll be employed tomorrow, is invested in one party winning over the other.
You're comparing apples and oranges.
There was this. Granted, that's in an advertisement, but still...
And I'm not hypocritical. I despise all of the major news services, something I indicated in my OP.
Living With a Nerd
"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.