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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."
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
But the safety of the machines is still somewhat in question. The government says they're fine, but researchers in the field aren't quite so sure. You can't just go around radiating people. Beyond the obvious privacy concerns, there are health concerns as well.
"Safely" is the key word, imho. There's no reliable data (ie, not provided by the manufacturers of the devices themselves) as to the level of x-ray exposure and the long term effects of repeated exposures. There's no way to know how "safe" they are until longitudinal studies can be completed and that takes a long time. In the mean time, it's "take our word for it." I'd rather not.
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.
So who says someone couldn't just walk up to the giant gatherings *outside* a stadium and blow those people up? Or release a highly poisonous chemical into the water system for the stadium? I doubt such a system would actually do much to increase security. I know they haven't done much for the air-based transport in the US.
Additionally with 'concealed' scanners you would be receiving and unknown and uncontrolled level of dosage. Where a paranoid nutjob that never leaves there home until they go on a killing spree will get no radiation zaps from these toys, the home team supporter may get hundreds or more in a year. Can you find any competent radiologist who would say that's acceptable? I really doubt it. Heck, I had one balk at giving me a fourth x-ray that year (it was still spring), how do you think they'd feel about someone getting zapped 5 times in one football game or court hearing? (Imagine the units were installed in stadiums, airports, bus/rail stations, malls, government buildings, schools, etc. Invisible things are place more than the same visible item because people don't raise a fuss since they don't notice them.)
Worse yet, what if someone stopped and stood in the scan location. Yes, the scan location will be unmarked. You don't employ a 'covert' scanning device and put up a big flashing sign that says "stand here to be covertly x-rayed". And yes, people will do it if it's an entryway, they'll even do it in a doorway. You want to know how many people I've seen get hit by automated doors closing because they stood in the doorway itself where the sensor couldn't see them? Let's just leave it at a lot. Think about it, how often do you see people standing in entryways and the like, not caring if they are blocking the way for others. Even though you might like the idea of a little revenge on them, is possible death and other somewhat less serious health issues an appropriate punishment for being obliviously impolite?
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