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DHS Tries To Hide Mobile Scanner Details
OverTheGeicoE writes "The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year (PDF) with the US Department of Homeland Security, whose Transportation Security Administration has been investigating the use of x-ray scanning technology for covert use in more public places, like train stations and even ordinary city streets. TSA has tested interesting devices like the Z Backscatter Vans both privately and on members of the general public. EPIC recently received new documents from DHS. Some of the documents are almost completely black from redactions."
The YouTube video in the first link is already yanked.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
in trucks running around in the general public, but this might help to alleviate congestion at already borked up Mexican border crossings. I'm in SD, and I regularly hear of 2+ hour border waits during local traffic reports. Maybe this will help to speed up checks for vans and trucks. -- Oh, and Fuck the TSA.
http://epic.org/foia_notes/foia_doc_20_snap.PDF
Apparently "(5)(b)" is the only thing we're allowed to know about this project. What the hell?
I'm walking down the street with a concealed handgun (perfectly legal in 30+ states) and the DHS van shows I'm packing heat. Next thing I know I'm on the ground with a knee in my back and automatic weapons pointed at me. Is this how it's going to work? Because if that's how it's going down, I see no reason not to overthrow this government now before it gets much worse. I'd rather live under anarchic self-rule than this nanny-state bullshit.
Because It Kept You Safe on 9/11!
The government agency responsible for eroding the Constitution would not be open about what they are doing? Preposterous!
Write your congressional leaders today and demand the TSA be 1) immediately defunded, and 2) disbanded all together. If you really care, expand your note to include the entire DHS.
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Is there a sensor that could detect if one of these technologies is in use? I'd love to outfit my vehicle with a TSA Detector so I can know when my rights are being violated on the go, so I could post a photo of the offending scannervan on the Internet.
All of this has gotten out of hand. This is a major over-reach, not to mention creepy as hell.
Are there any backscatter detectors? Or should I just assume that every black van on the road is there to irradiate me?
How much do I get for participating in these medical experiments. Better yet, how can I opt out?
God I hate the DHS.
Are they also planning to have pat-downs in major cities? Pretty soon, everywhere you go you will either have to go through an X-ray or get patted down, all for "security."
Palm trees and 8
Go and look up what KGB stood for, in translation to English. The Department of Homeland Security is it. In Soviet America, jokes tell Yakov Smirnoff. (probably to lie face down in the "party position.")
"The ZBV produces electronically generated xrays that detect substances containing low atomic number elements such as carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen.
These elements are often present in explosives and other contraband..."
not to mention lumber, tofu, soil, cucumbers, coal, ice cream, books, mayonnaise, ham, and blankets...
this is simply unacceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if people started carrying personal x-ray detectors. If you expose my children to x-rays while they're just walking in a public place, I have a serious issue with this. I can't even imagine what's gonna happen if a parent discovers their children have just been exposed.
They're using their grammar skills there.
coat a photo-diode in zinc sulfide. voila! detector
They're using their grammar skills there.
Yawn. (b)(5) refers to:
(b)(5) EXEMPTION - Privileged Interagency or Intra-Agency Memoranda or Letters
This exemption protects "inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums of letters which would not be available by law to a party ...in litigation with the agency." As such, it has been construed to "exempt those documents, and only those documents, normally privileged in the civil discovery context."
so, it's probably information that's irrelevant to the FOIA request.
your safety comes second and the governments ability to detect terrorists comes first, is because the death of US citizens is well known to be uncontroversial and tolerable, even on large scales such as katrina.
What is absolutely intolerable is terrorism, because terrorism undermines the governments control of the populous. its one thing if an earthquake kills three thousand people, but its entirely different when a single terrorist accomplishes it...the terrorist draws unwanted attention to the united states government, its foreign policy, its structure and its members position in the class system.
this is also incidentally why governments are loathe to negotiate with terrorists, regardless of the validity of their positions; a single person or idea should never be allowed to upset the balance of power as it stands.
Good people go to bed earlier.
It is particularly silly since you know his pussy ass won't actually do anything, he just wants to whine and play tough guy on the Interwebs and act like that accomplishes something.
Personally I'm not worried. There is no way my state government would play nice with that shit, since state law does allow for carry and that is their right to decide. I also doubt the TSA would be quite that stupid to try, because they know they'd get all kinds of sued for it by the state they tried it in.
That looked a lot like PBS's Pledge Enforcement Van, too.
#DeleteChrome
I'm walking down the street with a concealed handgun ... I see no reason not to overthrow this government now before it gets much worse.
I really hope this contraption picks thwarts your plot. We've had enough dipshits with guns "overthrowing the government".
One of you gun-toting lunatics already shot a congresswoman in the face and killed 10 innocent bystanders. Wasn't that enough for you people?
We live in a democracy, moron. If you don't like the government then vote for someone else. And leave your gun at home >:-(
As a cancer survivor, it appears that I will need to start to wear tin-foil outfits from head-to-toe for health reasons whenever I use public transit or visit government buildings and other "risky" place. Thank you Obama, this will really encourage me to reduce my car usage and carbon footprint.
Doctor Oz does not consider these scanners to be safe for the following 4 groups: cancer survivors, pregnant women, children, and elderly, and he recommends that they should avoid being scanned at airports.
http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/dangers-radiation-exposure-pt-4
Check around 4:10, also at 1:30 as well.
Eek! I don't like receiving radiation! For the purpose of protecting U.S. citizens against this new X-Ray attack by the DHS, how does one remotely disable an X-Ray backscatter machine? Focused beam of high intensity X-Rays directed at the backscatter's receiver?
So what am i to coat my car with so that these scanners cant see thrrough it? Im sure there has to be something is it lead just like an x-ray?
WTB lead lined EVERYTHING!!! pst
it's from the Tao Te Ching, and it applies to the FOIA.
you dont get what you want, but you get pieces of a puzzle, and slowly, over years, you piece the puzzle together. we are still finding out things about Nixon and the Pentagon Papers, we are still finding things out about war crimes in Vietnam, we are still finding out things about the Nazis, and about Stalin and the soviet Gulags and the NKVD.
the FOIA is a tool. its not perfect, but its one of the best tools we have.
forgive me for paraphrasing Carl Sagan about science in that last sentence.
Didn't the Germans X-ray the Jewish men standing in line at the post office in the 1930s? Perfectly harmless my behind.
this is also incidentally why governments are loathe to negotiate with terrorists, regardless of the validity of their positions; a single person or idea should never be allowed to upset the balance of power as it stands.
Exactly how is one supposed to negotiate with a person or group who has no clear or rational motivation or who's goals are something horrible like genocide? There is no one who has been able to clearly articulate why some crazy people flew a pair of planes into the World Trade Center. We know *what* they did. But there is no clear answer to *why* because it was not a rational act by people with rational goals. Furthermore, if the demands of the terrorists are something that plainly cannot be accommodated or condoned (for example kill all non-muslims) then there is no basis for negotiation. For negotiation to occur there has to be a middle ground and with terrorists there almost never is one.
Nation states may be complicated but their behaviors are typically rational or at least comprehensible. Terrorists on the other hand typically have little clear purpose beyond the barbaric acts they commit. They may say they want something but it's almost always something either impossible or psychotic. A suicide bomber pretty much never accomplishes anything productive unless his/her sole goal was to become a murderer.
any day now... any day now.
---
"gee, I feel safer already."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Doctor Oz does not consider these scanners to be safe for the following 4 groups: cancer survivors, pregnant women, children, and elderly, and he recommends that they should avoid being scanned at airports.
Doctor Oz is also on record as promoting homeopathy and other unproven "alternative" treatments. Just because someone says it on TV doesn't mean they know what they are talking about or that it is accurate.
Personally unless I see some studies from extremely reputable journals like Nature, I don't consider them proven safe for any group. They may be reasonably safe but they may not be as well and DHS just saying "trust me" isn't good enough. I'm actually glad I rarely need to fly anywhere these days.
the government is seeking to protect the citizens from the terrorists by killing the citizens first by irradiation, before the terrorists can kill them, thereby dealing a crippling blow to the terrorists' plot.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
They should be easy to find. Just look for an SSID of 'DHS_MOBILE_SCANNING_VAN' to pop up in your wireless access point list.
Have gnu, will travel.
I wonder how many lawyers have already figured out that any suspect that has evidence brought against them, evidence obtained with this technology, already has in hand an admission by the authorities that the suspect was subjected to x-rays against their will? Hell, even a probable cause statement for a warrant would require the admission of use of this technology.
Every prosecution could mean a reciprocal civil lawsuit for damages associated with X-ray exposure. I think it would be justified. If nothing else, it would bring the issue to into the realm of public awareness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray#Health_risks
There is a huge difference between this tech being in place at an airport, where the person going through it knows the risks, and mobile scanning--there is no consent with mobile, covert scanning.
It should be illegal to even MAKE these things, let alone use them.
and you'll get more of the same. want a change? want your freedoms back, or at least want a start back down the road to freedom? vote for Ron Paul, and every other libertarian candidate running that you are eligible to vote for, otherwise, democrat or republican, you'll get nothing positive.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
An asteroid is going to hit us and the era of modern man will be over for those that survive.
Are you an undercover cop? No? So your weapon is for "protection" and not merely to make you feel like you have a ten foot long penis - why then don't you have it where it can been seen and let that help with protecting you?
Oh that's right, the tinfoil hat defence of "that's what they expect you to do so I have to hide it to keep them guessing". That's not going to make any sense unless you live in a bad spy movie.
As for part two - the weather in Somalia isn't bad at this time of year if you want to see some anarchy but concealing weapons there is just as insane if not more so.
Yes I know in the USA a gun is a substitute flag and any discussion of guns hits politics and patroitism instantly - but if we could consider it on the level on the tool itself civilians (ie. not law enforcement in addition to military for those with a poor education in English) legally carrying concealed firearms around is fucking stupid.
Let's be honest here. There are 2 types of terrorists/murderers. Foreign, and Domestic.
If a foreign terrorist can bypass our MASSIVE Defense and Intelligence budgets and get to US soil and commit an act of terrorism, or murder, we've gone in the wrong direction somewhere along the way to allow that to happen. I view this as entirely different from a US citizen disgruntled with the state of our society and Government, and committing an act of murder, or terrorism.
It's convenient to blur the line between foreign and domestic terrorism, especially when it comes to funding and policy, but what exactly are these roaming 'x-ray vans' intending to identify or stop? They're essentially radiating the public, probably increasing cancer rates along the way, under the guise of security from a threat advertised as foreign by nature, but domestic in its implementation for discovery and thwarting. They're essentially stating that every US citizen is a potential terrorist, and as such, we must scan you for your own protection.
The level hypocrisy and violation being displayed here would be funny if it wasn't so sad. I'm actually surprised we aren't seeing physical backlash about these steps. Are people really that daft when it comes to history?
What really blows my mind is how many people actually bought his bullshit and voted for the lying SOB. Yes, he is a lying SOB.
...You think we would've been better off with John McSenility and his crazy Ice Bitch?
Gods above and below. You know why people voted for Lolbama? Because if they hadn't, the economy would be worse, equality for all Americans would've been set back a hundred years, and instead of randomly bombing Libya, we'd be in a fucking ground war with Iran.
You betcha.
I bet they already have 4 of these roaming dc, & 2 running around wherever the president is going to be.
If you can see through the billion-dollar smokescreen, what you just stated is the entire premise behind government: if you repeat the same lie enough times (and loudly enough), they will believe it.
At all and at any cost. Oh, the humanity....
Windows assumes you are an idiot...Linux demands proof.
It also gives you cancer, if you happen to be one of the people whose houses are permanently monitored for a long time, thus eliminating the threat you might have posed.
Damn right the TSA is about rapping! TSA Gangstaz in da house!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7AWw7t5zj0
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I did a quick google search and came up with this
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=bd97a8f9b4c3bf8393ff69b58026ffb1&_cview=0
"The NexGenCI project seeks to significantly upgrade existing x-ray backscatter, whole-body-imaging, bulk detection portals already in use by the TSA"
Hello, D-503, welcome to the One State! A brave new world where wall of buildings are made of glass so that people are under constant watch, and free medical care (removes the imagination by striking a certain region of the brain with X-RAYS) are given to disobedient people. Don't we all have to give up our liberty for happiness?
you gun loving americans are the real problem. just shoot yourself in the head. it's your human right....