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DHS Eyes Covert Body Scans
CWmike writes "Documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) suggest that the US Department of Homeland Security has signed contracts for the development of mobile and static systems that can be used scan pedestrians and people at rail and bus stations and special event venues — apparently at times without their knowledge. Under consideration: An Intelligent Pedestrian Surveillance platform; an X-Ray Backscatter system that could detect concealed metallic and high-density plastic objects on people from up to 10 meters away; a walk-through x-ray screening system that could be deployed at entrances to special events or other points of interest, which could be installed in corridors and likely scan people walking through it without them knowing it, EPIC said."
If the technology is out there to do this safely and securely, how could it possibly be a bad thing. These being used at major gatherings - Olympics, Superbowl, World Cup - all round the world these should be able to be used given the current state of the world we live in.
This was an obvious extension to the FUD factor being created by DHS.
What these guys clearly want is the right to search any and all persons without their knowledge and without anything remotely resembling probable cause. Right now, they can at least claim that you consent to being searched when you decide to board a plane. But this is something different, because you do not consent to a search when you walk down a street.
Now show me your papers please.
I am officially gone from
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
:(
They will probably use the olde Family guy argument -
Peter: Brian, are you suggesting that 9/11 didn't change everything?
Brian: What? No, I was just...
Peter: 'Cause 9/11 changed everything, Brian! 9/11 changed everything!
DAMN
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
You know, I've given blood for this country, but I always thought that if things really got bad enough, I would have to finally take the plunge and expatriate. It always seemed to be an idea right up there with "if my whole family and everybody i cared about was dead, I would become a vigilante hero until I finally died in one last blaze of glory against the police". A fantasy.
But now I read stuff like this and have to laugh, because now that it looks like things might actually get that bad, bad enough to consider leaving, there's nowhere to expatriate to.
They're only giving credibility to the tinfoil hat (underwear?)-wearing crowd.
give a man the power of God.
(I don't remember the exact quote)
Yeah, I'm sure covertly x-raying people will go down really well with pregnant women. I don't care if they say backscatter x-rays emit a safe level of radiation that poses no risk to a fetus. I wouldn't trust it. First, I'm not convinced they've done adequate studies. Second, I'm not going to trust an x-ray emitting device that is neither medically certified nor operated by trained medical professionals.
What would they do if they see something?
The backscatter system is designed to penetrate the outer layer of the skin. Experts have written to the US Government with concerns only to be answered with "it is too low power!" But the fact is that these machines cause cancer, the only question is how much cancer and if we're happy with killing one additional person every year, ten, or over a hundred?
Luckily it is impossible to show cause/effect between these machines and the cancers we know they will cause. Thus we can go on irradiating ourselves for many generations to come. I'd be very concerned if I was a frequent flier. You're a guinea pig. But now they want to expand this ineffective and unnecessary security theatre into the general populous? Very scary thought.
With the documented relationship between cancer and X-Rays over exposure, having ppl around X-raying you at random is certainly not comforting.
This will make it difficult to get to Hawaii and avoid the Running Man show......
Hack into one of those systems, put the pics on WikiLeaks and pass the popcorn.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Inevitable, I suppose.
While this sounds great, lets not forget that X-rays constitute harmful radiation. Why do you think the dentist hides behind a lead filled wall when he takes an X-ray of your teeth? I used to work with radioactive materials and I had a safety inspector describe radiation exposure to me as such: every second you are exposed to X-rays, you buy a ticket to the lottery; every second you are exposed to stronger radiation (alpha, beta, gamma) you buy multiple lottery tickets, only this lottery you do not want to win. This is why they don't take X-rays every time you go to the dentist, or why you should not fly often when you are pregnant. It all adds up. I realize that these scanners are for my safety, but I would like to be informed if there is a scanner in use, so that I can make the decision whether or not it is worth it for me to risk cancer or birth defects for my future children in exchange for attending said special event. This is why I always opt for the pat-down over the body scan at the airport.
If you obscure your scan in an airport (say, wrap your stuff in metal foil or put some of those fancy sheets of steel with the 4th amendment cut into it) you get denied access to the plane. OK, that's easy, and it makes cop-sense that you're opting out of your flight if you don't consent to the search. And I guess the same logic could apply to major events and the like, though I can see people having even less patience for the security theater on their way into something fun.
Wonder how they'd take to that just walking down the damn street, though, especially since the chances of blocking the scan on accident are greater in Real Life than in an airport. Knowing the way these assholes think, they might just try to slap you for obstruction of justice or some shit.
I'm starting to think we'd all be better off if there was a virus that specifically targeted cops and security types.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
Jan, 2010: Netherlands and UK.
Aug, 2010: Sale of vans with backscatter devices to U.S. law enforcement agencies
So this is the EPIC FOIA confirmation.
At first I read it as "DHS Eyes Covet Body Scans".
That works too.
And why aren't these people in jail? Really from what I have seen reading experiences, it is obvious that the TSA people definitely enjoy looking at certain people more than others and can even be caught joking about it. It's not really their fault, because many of them are young people, and in their shoes I'm sure I would enjoy scanning that really cute blond too. But this is more about the sex crazed government guys sitting on their poles. Many of them are whining about pornography, that homosexuality is a crime, how dare you cheat on your wife, when it comes out they are doing the same thing.... How about that "family values" governor who ran to Argentina for his mistress. Congresscritters in general seem super hung up on sex and anything to do with it. Just look at what an outrage Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction caused... Or the outrage over the video games.... I really can't believe that they are going along with letting the TSA take all these nude pictures of people. Really they are all a bunch of spineless cowards, just attach think of the children or terrorism and then wooops....
Really my issue is the health. I'm not even a fan of the dentists. I put up with the normal x-rays, but when my dentist got the machine that goes around your head taking picture after picture, I changed dentists. I'm not about to start getting x-rayed all the time. Even if the power is low, if you start adding hundreds of scans per year, you end up being over exposed. And if they do it without you knowing, how do you know how much you are getting? Without data on how much people are being exposed how can you tell if the scans are causing cancer or not? This is my main issue, we know x-rays cause cancer or else the technician would not leave the room when taking them. If they are so safe, they should make a law that every time a TSA agent takes an x-ray of someone, they should have to x-ray themselves.... Then even if they keep using the devices, the TSA goons will start dying off...
You know those WiFi-sensitive T-Shirts from ThinkGeek? Maybe it's time for something that responds to X-radiation...
Seriously. Irradiating people without their knowledge - what could possibly go wrong? Including children.
There are scientists who are concerned that the govt guys have their numbers on safety wrong - in fact they have the right numbers but they are interpreting them wrongly. Take the backscatter X-ray approach for instance. The total radiation dose divided by the total body volume is low - however in fact that's not true. Because the radiation doesn't penetrate the whole body, its energy gets dispersed only in a few millimeters at the surface of the body - and in those few millimeters, the volume dose is hundreds of times higher than what the govt says is safe.
Skin cancer anyone?
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
Okay, let's just consider this for a bit. Storage costs are dropping like a lead balloon. Chip costs as well.
Soon the idea that people are filming their lives constantly will be a fact rather than a story.
Image processing of said films and audio will allow us to ask our devices where we put our keys, and they will answer (think cheap massive storage meets IBM's Watson).
Our cars will drive themselves (seriously, 40,000 deaths per year because people can't drive well consistently WILL be converted into less than 400 deaths per year because automated cars have limits). First the cars will just kick in when they have to to save our lives, then they will just take over the job. And they will be able to record where we have been, and be able to discuss where we want to go within that historical and geographical context (car meets Watson).
But then things get sinister. The TSA/FBI/CIA/... will be able to record all sorts of things, and ask about what people have been doing. (Video surveillance meets Watson). And there is going to be piles of video for "Surveillance Watson" to think about. Think traffic cameras, hummingbird sized drones, parking lot cameras, etc.
People are going to go into a rage here about the radiation. But what happens when we figure out how to simply understand the changes to the background radiation just because people are walking about? We have all sorts of RF to use, all materials give off a certain amount of radiation, and we are walking through all of it. We have all sorts of sonic sources to process. The bottom line is that passive sensors will *at some point* be able to do what requires active radiation sources today.
Today the limits on processing random data streams limits what government can do with all these sources of information that produce tons and tons of junk for each ounce of "useful-to-three-letter-org" information. The law is increasingly irrelevant when it comes to restraining what these organizations do. What has saved us is that it is just too hard to process that much data.
But at some point it will NOT be too hard to process that much data. We need to make the law RELEVANT in restraining how we are observed, because even if I am wrong about the details I gave above, I am not wrong about the trend. The fact is that technology is going to be increasingly on the side of those that want to know everything about us even if they have no right to gather that information. And we will increasingly see this used to punish those that oppose those in power.
That earned a +1 and an Anon Reply.
Captcha expelled
Lean against the wrong wall for a minute, get cancer.
USA
The problem from my perspective comes in with the fact that at every individual level of the process from decision making to grunt work involved with the installation of these horrible things there is a high incentive to cooperate with the install while the liability for blame if they turn out to be unsafe is nearly inapplicable to any of said individuals themselves.
From the execs who are making money on the deals to install these things to the politicians who are gaining the ability to show they're "doing something" about homeland security by pushing for the installs to the techs who have to themselves physically install them and monitor them but only do so in order to keep their jobs and feel personally safe because they can warn their friends and families about where the devices are all installed it is near certain that if there WERE any health safety issues inherent to the technology nobody in the general consumer-level of the public would have a chance of finding out about it until it was too late.
*sigh*
Luckily for me the market is so bad I can't really afford to spend the money on going anywhere these things are likely to be installed anyway. If they try to install one on the front door of my apartment though everyone involved is going to have a *very* bad day.
...these should be able to be used given the current state of the world we live in.
Thank you!
See, I was just starting to have faith in humanity. Faith that maybe, just maybe, humanity has some sort of rationality. That people can think for themselves and have their own opinions.
See, I think people are stupid. I think people can be swayed with propaganda and bogus arguments from the media and government and think they're being intelligent, rational, and that they're not dumb enough to fall for the rhetoric and garbage that's spoon fed to them by the electronic media.
I have been right all along.
I know, you think I'm just a ranting raving AC who thinks there's conspiracies going all around him.
No, I don't. That would imply that there's someone or some organization that's smart enough to pull that off. I wish that were true believe it or not.
What's really happening is pathetic government bureaucrats protecting their pathetic jobs.And politicians catering to morons, such as yourself, to get re-elected.
There are politicians protecting their interests by catering to the money. You have bureaucrats setting themselves up for seven figure jobs after their government appointed position; like Chertoff.
Nope. Just little people screwing all of us to get their bigger piece of the pie.
Thank you again for proving me, once again, for being right.
If the technology is out there to do this safely and securely, how could it possibly be a bad thing. These being used at major gatherings - Olympics, Superbowl, World Cup - all round the world these should be able to be used given the current state of the world we live in.
Assuming that these were cheap, and completely safe (ha!), you still would be completely wrong in your thinking. You should not be doing this because simply have no right to do this. Do you frisk down everyone who comes to visit you at your house?
More to the point, what do you hope to accomplish by doing this? What problem are you solving? Is there some sort of problem where people are bringing guns into sporting events and shooting the place up, because l have yet to hear of an instance of this sort of thing happening. Or, are you just buying into the bullshit that the world is an inherently dangerous place to live, and more rent-a-cops with metal detectors will fix it?
"He who trades liberty for security deserves neither"
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Is there data published anywhere that tells exactly what sort of radiation -- what energies and intensities -- these machines emit?
Rather than the TSA telling us they are safe, we should be able to figure this out for ourselves.
Health issues aside...
When you put someone into the scanner, it's reasonable to assume the image the TSA agent sees on the screen is of the person standing inside. But with 10, 20, or how many people walking through a scan tunnel at once, it's likely a matter of time before someone figures out a way to jerk the equipment into thinking the guy 6 feet to his left has contraband on his person. Kind of like how a shoplifter will walk through the electronic sentry at the exit, just as someone else walks through; the odds are 50-50 an untrained flunky will think the shoplifter is the other person.
... But I think if somebody wants to look in my bowels, they should at least have to talk to me first.
Hmm...last I knew, 9/11 didn't change the actual US Constitution one iota. Last I knew it took 38 states in agreement to do that.
Yes I know that's not being followed in practice, but until such time as the Constitution gets formally amended, I shall continue to assume it's the law of the land, and I'm prepared to face the risks involved.
I see a line of lead-lined clothing, or perhaps backscatter resistant underwear. I mean, if you *never* know when you're being scanned, you have to assume you're being scanned ALL THE TIME.
Didn't the former CEO of SUN say "get over it, you already have no privacy" --- if only he knew how right he was.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Your droids.
They'll have to wait outside.
We don't want them here.
void theoremProver(){
print "this product is correct"
}
Hm... looks like they are finally about to create real life 'x-ray' glasses. You can bet these will sell like hot cakes... I can just imagine how much radiation the average person will be exposed to when every perv has one. Five years from now the hottest people start dying from cancer at accelerated rates and everyone will wonder why.
Ok. You can stop this bizarreness now. I'm on candid camera, aren't I? This is just too much for the real world. (Not to mention "the Land of the Free.)
I've been thinking I'm on candid camera for a while now, but I haven't said anything out loud, so you've been ramping up the ridiculousness. You can stop now.
how can the radiation of these devices be detected? can it be done cheaply?
What we need is some fashion guru to bring out a line in underwear with something in it that inadvertently blocks radiation.
I think I saw something about such recently.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Better give everyone a full body cavity exam too.
The latest generation of scanners do that remotely as well.
For an extra charge, you can have Homeland Security tell you the gender of the baby you're going to have and how well your shoes fit.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
DHS' $80-billion plus budget depends on keeping the people of the USA terrified. The small-timers would have to be blithering idiots not to leave that to the professionals.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Consumer-grade wearable x-ray dosimeter with alarm.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Great market opportunity HERE! Whether it works or not, (Yes, the scammers will be the ones first on the market!) people will be buying these just like the radar detecrors. Maybe even an APP for that, too! (GPS - "You are 2 blocks from a scanning station! Turn right now!!)
The American College of Radiology and the Radiological Society of North America have already expressed concerns about the levels of radiation given to patients in the normal course of medical practice. They've already recommended limiting scans to cases where absolutely necessary, where you can justifiably state "getting this scan is worth increasing the odds my patient will get cancer."
Of course, the reality is worse. Dr David Brenner, head of Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research is reporting the machines are likely to routinely emit 20 times the radiation reported in the spec and are flat out a major public health risk. Dr. John Sedat, Professor of BioChemistry and Biophysics at the University of California San Francisco and a member of the National Academy of Sciences sent a letter to the White House with the following:
“it appears that real independent safety data do not exist There has not been sufficient review of the intermediate and long-term effects of radiation exposure associated with airport scanners. There is good reason to believe that these scanners will increase the risk of cancer to children and other vulnerable populations.”
By the TSA's own numbers, which are undoubtedly low, they calculate more people will die from the eventual cancers than have been killed by all the terrorist acts in the world put together.
OK, so that's one side of the argument. What does the DHS have to say? Where are the medical professionals willing to certify these machines as safe?
Turns out, there aren't any. No medical professional of any kind has yet been willing to sign their name in public stating that these machines are safe. The only people saying so are the vendors who won the contract, and even they refuse to state unequivacably that the machines are safe, falling back instead on "We've built the machine to your spec and they should perform as ordered."
No one, not even the maker of the machines, is willing to certify them as safe.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Mobile Cancer, brought to you with .... your tax money !!!
But, its for your security, so it cant be bad. Mutations etc. who cares. as long as we are safe, noone would care a third ball growing out of their hiney or a schlong dangling down their forehead.
Read radical news here
There is no way this is NOT a violation of the fourth Amendant. For fun; imagine when the separated X-ray operator viewing an undercover cop, etc, add your own target and watch the civil rights antics ensue. Mix in states with concaled carry laws (like here in Alaska where you can carry a firearm concealed just about anywhere)
They come in the dark, only in the darkest.
this is awesome! much better than google's street view.... www.bodyview.us.gov
I can see new lines of undergarments with foil shapes woven in. A large cartoonish bomb with the word "bomb" on it, or more TV-style cylinders wrapped around the torso. Maybe a fake dong down to your knees in pants. Explatives directed at scanner screeners, etc.
Also a great time to start investing in personal geiger counters, assuming backscatter xray is in their detection range.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
Mod parent up.
As someone who worked in medical imaging, I'll add there is no documentation of what exposure you are getting, when you got it, etc. At least in a hospital, they make sure they don't X-ray you too much.
TSA does not have your health in mind, else these scanners would be FDA approved. Unlike a hospital which would get sued into oblivion if they ever used something not FDA approved.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
for starters as it would pretty much violate the Fourth Amendment.
Not a problem. The Supreme Court has ruled the 4th Amendment unconstitutional.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The constitution is just some old yellowing, tattered set of documents written long before we even had typewriters let alone computers. It may as well be some stone tablet uncovered from an archaeological expedition for all it matters now. The founders' mistake was in putting the same kind of faith in it that you are now. Maybe if natural language had been more precise so that founders' intentions couldn't have been twisted into exactly the opposite of what they had intended or interpreted out of existence entirely by a group of judges. Maybe if thinking for themselves wasn't seen as such a chore for most of the human population. Who knows? What should be obvious to almost anyone by now is that governments grow out of control. Always. And no damn piece of paper is ever going to stop that. He who has the guns, rules. Full stop. Also, the founders' screwed up in believing in their whole "balance of power" system. It just doesn't work. It is only natural for all the "branches" to work together. They are not natural enemies, but natural allies. So finally it has come to this. It was inevitable. OBL just sped it up a little. The only way this could ever be stopped now is through a real revolution with blood running in the streets. A civil war between those who value freedom and those who hate it. It's too bad that Egyptians and Libyans have far more courage than we do. We, the modern descendants of those terrorist-revolutionaries who fought and died for real freedom, are not worthy of their noble experiment. A republic--if you can keep it. We couldn't.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Amending the Constitution is so difficult, comrade. Better if we merely ignore or reinterpret the Constitution per our whims. For the good of the country, of course.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
I still have a little vague hope that people are starting to wake up and smell the coffee. But I suspect that you're absolutely correct.
At what point are people going to say enough is enough? How long is everyone going to kow-tow to bureaucrats for a false perception of "security" (whatever that may mean).
Personally, I think this is offensive, and oppressive impingement upon our freedom to a basic right to walk around freely without threat of being accosted at every corner by government. The scanner situation is a poster child for bureaucracy run amok and going way too far. Government bureaucrats are not free to do whatever they want and spend our money willy-nilly as they please especially with the express purpose of looking up our skirts at every available opportunity.
At what point are we going to start making decisions either at the ballot, or with our feet?
Maybe it is time for me to get back into making chainmail. If the backscatter x-rays can only go through a few milimeters of skin, I do not see how it could penetrate a chainmail suit (with a suitably dense weave), kind of sucks that I would have to walk around with 30 lbs of metal under my clothes all the time, but then, with the extra energy needed for walking around with the added weight, I might actually lose some weight! eheh
I have a permit to carry a "concealed metallic and high-density plastic object". So do many others. What good will this knowledge do the gov't?
Have gnu, will travel.
Gonna post a scenario here... One that I necessarily don't believe in.
In the next few years, these machines are deployed nation-wide in airports and in the general public. In the years following that, cancer rates start to increase at a geometric rate, variable to any given population density with geographical relationship to the deployed machine.
As cancer rates get to levels several orders of magnitude higher than was existed prior to the widescale machine deployment, from out of no where an unknwon pharmaceutical company announces they have a treatment for any cancer and are ready to bring it to market. The result of which lands them unheard of profits, since the US, by proxy, was manufacturing disease and treatment for Corporate profit.
That could never happen. People aren't that greedy!
The crazies were actually right after all. Note: If a public entity is debating rolling these out, then a PRIVATE entity may have already done so.
Time to get out my tinfoil....jimmy hat.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Hey... guess what? The limitations of the Constitution only apply to government. Private securiyt firms operate under a entirely different and less restrictive set of rules. What if Homeland Insecurity were to outsource the operation of this equipment?
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/19/x-ray-vans-security-measure-invasion-privacy/
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Your chance of being injured or killed in a Random Terrorist Attack(TM) is already ZERO (since it is not a repeatable event), so this tempest in a teapot is just that.
No need to avoid NYC or anything (unless you really hate the best Chinese food, pizza, hot dogs, etc. you could ever lay your hands on).
Yeah, right.
Well, actually, it isn't. DEATH before Fear. No, wait. Illusion before actuality! How many people die in automobile accidents every year? 41,000 (Source: NTSB) Why do we still drive again?!
Yeah, right.
Better not jump to conclusions.
We need a pre-pre-pre security checkpoint. Something that every good citizen can have in his or her home to verify loyalty. Like a Swibble.
Yeah, right.
I can't believe I wore a uniform and served my country only to have the likes of you want to piss away all of our freedoms (without a fight!) because you're scared of a HYPOTHETICAL situation.
What a waste. I should've let the Communists hordes win, but Noooo, I had to slog it out in the friggin mud, sand and muck, freeze my *** off in a @*($&# GP-Medium and sweat my **** off humping Alice and Pig all over the &#*($ place for what?
Yeah, right.
The designer then had the nerve to say something like, "it's not that I'm against searches, because they're something I think we have to do.."
WHY??
why are they something we have to do?
Do we really have to?
It happened and is happening in the Middle East. It can happen here, too.
Yeah, right.
I'd respond saying. Correct, 9/11 changed nothing. You changed everything and are breaking the law.
The TSA just have your children in mind. Just ask their new chief Pedobear Gropenfeel.
~X~
New startup company hi-tech fabric company, making spandex-like body suits using MetalWeave cotton, impervious to Xray radiation.
It's the future!
Real world example.... Say you fly somewhere. You only get scanned once in a day right? Well, not at Newark. If you need to go from concourse A to C, there is a shuttle. But if you go from A-B or B-C, you have to go through security again. Mere hours after your last scan...
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
The US government spent the 7 years following 9/11 keeping people terrified. If you read that as the government doing the terrorist's job, you possess properly working higher brain function.
/. crowd, but these high tech electronic gizmos don't work. People have made it through screening with handguns. And as people have said since the get-go, people don't even need to get past the security check to terrorize at airports (presumably all terrorist targets are air travel centric).
In fact, the US reaction went way beyond anything "the enemy" could have hoped for.
The alleged mastermind said directly that the attack was intended to bring financial harm to the US. The US responded with trillions of dollars of wartime debt. As a token of appreciation, the US threw in recruitment benefits that will help terrorist organizations for decades. While they were at it, the US government stomped all over rights of the its citizens. Heck, why not? As if that wasn't enough, they also work very hard at keeping the terror of 9/11 alive, playing with "threat levels" whenever the people don't seem terrified enough.
The truly astounding thing is how much money they are continually throwing at things that do not improve security at all.
This will not play well with the
Maybe gizmos act as a deterrent, "Ooh, surely their superior technology form an impenetrable barrier, lets just give up trying" but I doubt it.
Many people have been arguing for more effective, lower tech solutions that actually will work. Dogs and pigs can detect an enormous range of aromas, don't need to see a nearly undressed image of your body, don't need to physically touch your naughty bits, and don't expose you to radiation.
If the government goal was effective security, wouldn't they use the very inexpensive and very effective dogs rather than the machines that cost millions and are not effective?
What would be more intimidating, a refrigerator-sized machine or a pack of hungry looking German Shepherds sniffing at your pant leg?
Performance must be inherent in every aspect of the system. It is not an afterthought, but always thought. - me
Where is a young Ralph Nader when you need one?
I do recall seeing some system just like that!?!
That's right, I Totally Recall seeing just that!
http://forums.miamibeach411.com/attachments/f5/3423d1273504514-tsa-worker-attacks-co-worker-who-mocked-his-small-penis-revealed-body-scanner-fullbodyscan-jpg
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
I really worry about my girlfriend who is a frequent flyer because all the places she frequents have these damn machines. I'm just so sick of these things. You'd think after all the bad press and exposure of outright lies that these things would be dying down somewhat, not going on further.
I don't even know what to make of TFA. How can they possibly justify the violation of our 4th amendment rights with these machines? And worst of all, why do we as a people put up with it?
I and thousands of Americans have an explicit permission to carry concealed metallic/plastic objects. Heck four states let anybody carry and 48 states let people carry with a license. So what the hell do they assume is their right or ability to scan citizens for doing something legal to begin with much less at all? Are we going to have to have papers? Hey, it would be simple and cheaper if they just forced everyone to wear some sort of symbols on our sleeves representing who we are, right? At least we wouldn't die of cancer.
The foundation of the Department of Homeland Security is based on illegal presumption ungrounded in fact.
So, it is no wonder Napolitano and her illegal minions and serfs perform lawlessness 24/7/364 ... Oh, She forgot that non-leap years have 365 days and leap years have 366 days. Don't scold her ... what she doesn't know will kill her ... and that will be the "extra-legal end of her.
Hay Barak-O-Vision, want to say cool 100 billion?
Flat-line DHS and Napolitano.
Oh Oh Oh! Barak-O-Vision got no mo balls.
-308
... how to make the questionable crap we post today permanently go away on demand so it doesn't come back to bite us in the ass in the future?
If this person wasn't even aware that data could be erased from the internet, you can bet it hasn't occured to them that there are far more dangers in having data that doesn't go away eventually on its own. That edgy statement you made that initially made you look cool to your friends in 6th grade might land you on some company or government blacklist, making it near impossible to get a job because some Watson-derived human resources bot assigned you a risk assessment perentage that can't be overturned by human hands any easier than getting off a sex offender list even when the case that landed you on it was later overturned, etc...
Oh, and have fun when those watson bots aren't just assessing you by your own actions, but by your associations, both directly (communication) and indirectly (shared philosophies derived by each person's actions linking you to people you never heard of). I'm sure there are at least one or more serial killers out there even you might be linked with based on interests alone.
8==8 Bones 8==8
If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. Those who are against this need to be investigated, they are probably terrorists.
And as far as the 4th ammendment goes, well I would rather be safe and secure than at risk from being blown up in one of the numerous terroist explosions which occur daily in the US. I trust our government, they only want what is best for us. We can always vote them out if they turn bad and start being dictators, right?
For fucks sake, this has nothing to do with security. All too many people are happy to be protected from the terrorist bogeyman. Where is this fucking terrorism? Oh that's right, giving up all our freedoms is what has protected us from the terrorists, but we have to keep going. Sadly the changes the government is implementing are gradual and "justified" so the average person won't notice a damn thing until we're in full blown Nazi Germany. Even the Nazis didn't have the potential to erode our rights the same way modern technology affords. The debate shouldn't be as shallow to only talk about the radiation. Yes, the radiation levels are not known, but real the issue here is the trampling of the US Constitution or what is left of it. They won't even have to stage another false flag attack for a while because people are bending over backwards to give up their freedoms as they "have nothing to hide." You do have something to hide, youre life, something that is not the business of the government. When you have such a large government with such little oversight the potential for corruption is boundless. It goes far beyond politicians taking bribes. The media serves the government agenda so well by keeping people debating the irrelevant issues, who's gonna take congress, "the Democrats" or "the Republicans?" We as a nation care about missing children if they're young blond girls. Even more important, what do we think of the latest celebrity train wreck? We don't mind the exploitation of other nations to maintain our entitled higher standard of living. We don't mind the mass murder of people in the Middle East because War is Peace. You don't support the troops? People aren't really concerned with the way the world works until the changes come to their doorstep and slap them in the face. Governments only take freedoms, they never grant them. Any rights given up are always permanent until there is a full blown revolution. We are forced to drink fluoride which accumulates in the body and causes sterility, our skies are sprayed with mercury and barium among other metals, and the media conveniently does not talk about it. If it's not on Fox News people don't know or care about it. There is more going on in the world than we are being fed and at very least people should check alternative media and do some investigating of their own. 9/11 would be a good place to start.
Even Orwell would be stunned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States
This is against law as decided by SCOTUS. The Fourth Amendment can not be subverted by advanced technologies that are not available in the public domain. If thermal imaging counts, I imagine that mobile radiation scanners do as well.
Of course, the Feds could just observe without being able to use any of the evidence gathered. That is still frightening.
Use them on the doors to the senate so all senators have to go through to get to their job. You also need one on every corridor of the two houses.
After all, these people CAN be targets of lone gunmen, we've just seen and they are high value targets.
IDIOTS
What's the worst that could happen? Oh I don't know...
A grandma loiters next to their secret x-ray wall/truck and the next day all her hair falls off.
A kid loiters next to their secret x-ray wall/truck and gets massive burns on his body and junk.
A puppy takes a nap next to their secret x-ray wall/truck and dies.
The radiation reflects off of a nearby reflective-at-that-frequency surface onto someone else.
Something resonates at those frequencies and starts a fire.
etc.
I WILL NEVER FEEL COMFORTABLE SITTING ANYWHERE IN A CITY AGAIN.
Thank you America.
I don't care about CCTV, I don't care about massive surveillance; as long as it's used to stop truly heinous crimes and not to play big brother, it may even be a good thing. Surveillance doesn't take away freedom. Fear of retarded bureaucracies hurting you and family members takes away freedom of assembly.
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom... of the people peaceably to assemble"
I DO care about being uncomfortable sitting... anywhere in a city... or driving next to large trucks... or being stuck in a line in Customs, etc.
We're entering one ugly fucked up future where people who had certain types of surgeries will have to get used to being interrogated and searched every time they enter a major event wherever they go. Where people can see you and you entire family naked all the time. Carry something that resembles a gun? You'll probably be on a government list somewhere. If this is a representative democracy, why do these things happen? Our leaders are bought and paid for by people selling such security theater. I don't get how people can justify spending money on this crap when people in this country still don't have access to publicly financed healthcare for every single citizen, regardless of their ability to pay. We're willing to protect the public from a bomb, but not cancer? Where is the logic in that? Oh, that's right, Senators and politicians want to feel safe when they go to a baseball game.
How hard is it, I wonder, to build a simple gadget that is small enough to wear as a ring or tie-clip or similar small object and which turns on an LED when it detects emissions from one of these "Backscatter X-Ray" machines?
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Too bad that this technology already exists, and is likely out driving past pregnant mothers right now... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iABPKd0vFxQ
Driving a car is not a right. RIDING in one is. The right to travel is a constitutional right, and it is NOT just a right extended only to walking with your two feet. The government cannot say "Clint, you're not allowed to take a taxi". Comparing the PRIVILEGE of having a driver's license with the RIGHT to be a PASSENGER in a plane is a false comparison. And one that's dangerous for people to be mis-thinking about. An accurate comparison would be comparing the privilege of having a driver's license to the privilege of having a pilot's license. Not everyone gets to operate any vehicle they want. But yes, you do have a constitutional right to go from point A to point B. And that right isn't just for feet.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The thing with all the scrutiny is that it only provides the illusion of safety. The backscatter machines, whether safe or not are not universally applied, neither are they infallible. This whole process is to accustom the American populace to humiliation and unreasonable searches so that more rights can be taken later.
As long as you accept these things in the name of safety, we will continue sliding down this slope.
if the cops are using uncalibrated radar guns you can get three points. if the DHS guys are using uncalibrated backscatter detectors you can get stage 4.