Slashdot Mirror
Connecticut Resident Stopped By State Police For Radioactivity
Okian Warrior writes "A Milford, CT man was pulled over when a state police car radioactivity scanner flagged his car as being radioactive. The man had been given a cardiac exam using radioactive dye, and had a note from his physician attesting to this, but it raises questions about the legality of the stop. Given that it is not illegal to own or purchase or transport radioactive materials (within limits for hobbyist use), should the police be allowed to stop and search vehicles which show a slight level of radioactivity?"
Did they shoot him, claim it was self-defense, and ship his remains to Gitmo? Or did they check out his story and send him on his way?
Seems like a non-story to me.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What is hilarious and immensely sad is that the poster thinks that police stopping radioactive people is the where the current battle lines over privacy and the first amendment rights are in the US.
Dude...have you been in a coma or something???
The headline makes it sound like the police searched his car, but the article doesn't say that.
Assuming there was no search and the officer simply asked him why the car was radioactive and was satisfied with the explanation, this sounds like an example of the system working.
I'm actually very impressed that these detectors are widely deployed and sensitive enough to pick this up.
Should the police be allowed to stop and search vehicles which show a slight level of radioactivity?
Seriously? What kind of donkey are you?
You're living in a Police State that monitors its citizens and foreigners to an extent that developing countries can only dream of, molests travelers before they can board a plane, hosts a fourth of the world's inmates, locks foreigners for a decade without trial on tropical islands, and recently murdered one of its own citizen without trial... And you're fucking worried about your car getting searched because it's slightly radioactive? How about wondering what kind of turd bought the cop a radioactive detector?
So, basically, some defense contractor bribed a few key state officials and got them to convince everyone that taxpayer money should be used to outfit the police cars with (very expensive and profitable) radiation scanners.
"Up and atom!"
The goggles, they do nothing!
I am not from USA, but from ex USSR. It's not that we have radioactive waste everywhere lying around, but there could possibly be some "over the level bolt" lost somewhere in some abandoned base. So if that bolt happens to end in your car, I would be happy if police stopped me, and checked why my car was radioactive.
More to the point - if somebody transports nuke, they better get stopped.
I didn't know S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was based on real life. The more you know .-*
Yes, because if we don't stop and search everyone, the terrorists will win.
This is a bullshit argument. People are killed over terrorism, but the level is not significant enough to justify clamping down and restricting the civil liberties of everyone. A police state is not an adequate response to terrorism.
Intelligence services, smart police forces, not supporting oppressive governments, and letting your people continue to be free and productive are more effective deterrents to terrorism than a checkpoint at every block.
If your nuke radiates as much as your body after a medical exam, then you either got ripped off by the arms dealer or should probably get a different doctor.
> Given that it is not illegal to own or purchase or transport
> radioactive materials (within limits for hobbyist use),
Yes, but if they're sufficiently radioactive to be detected from across the street, and you didn't bother to put them in a shielded container for transport, I don't think getting pulled over and asked a couple of questions is necessarily entirely out of line. It is worth noting that the radiation was leaving the vehicle and having an impact on the external surroundings, which is how the police knew about it in the first place. Now, in the case of the dude who'd just had a medical scan with radioactive dye, that was fundamentally unavoidable (unless he wanted to stay at the hospital until it wore off, which could be rather expensive). Nonetheless, the police didn't stop him out of randomness, or because they were busybodies, or because they had something against him personally, etc. They became interested in him because of radiation that was emanating from his vehicle. That's not (or at least not entirely) a private effect. It's a public effect.
If you're transporting radioactive materials for hobbyist use, and you want them to be private (so that they will not get police attention without a warrant, for example), you could always just keep them in a shielded container, so that the radiation remains private. Frankly, that's probably a good idea even at home (whenever you're not actively working with your hobby). Think of it in the same way as keeping your dog on a leash.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
That is not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is should government be allowed to do ANYTHING trumping citizen's rights that has been granted in 1776 in the name of security or any other names.
The question to ask is whether a country of free men, which US of A declares itself to be, "the most free country in the world", should continue a practice of "preventing" crime, from the one hand, and start fullfilling people's right to think and act within the limits of the law, no matter how close are they to those limits, and, from the other hand, should the aforementioned country start punishing people for crimes swiftly, without any delay, thus enforcing the responsibility of people for their action, which is the other obligatory immanent nondetachable side to the aforementioned rights.
That is the question.
As for the type of questions you have posed, they have been leading the country nowhere. Scratch that, they haven't been leading the country nowhere, they have been leading away from original rights of the people to lesser and lesser rights. They have been leading country away from its original state to 1984 state.
It's time to reverse Martin Noemuller fable back and instead of warning others about "what do you do when they will come for you?" it is time to call people "let's stop them from coming after anyone". It's time for stopping calling for "stopping" the process where it is now, because, face it, the point is rather arbitrary, isn't it? It's time for starting to call for reversal of the process back to the origins of the US
In every persistent ideology, that is the one that had existed for even only slightly longer than 236 years, there always have been restoration/revival movement and if this country wants to claim to have any ideology beside the animalistic ideology "compete and survive", it must prove itself by having this type of movement as well.
Wait... There was a number of people that were doing that all the time, actually, scratch that, I know exactly, what that number is, it is nine at any given time of recent history. Correction: they were supposed to be doing that in our name, on our behalf, but they have been failing to do that miserably and silly us, we made a mistake of giving them a total carte blanche to go with that with impunity by removing any accountability of their actions.
This is all theoretical and rhetorical, because, face it, there is no ideology left in US except the one I characterized.
So stop asking your silly questions like:
and move on. It does not matter if you actually have this local small most likely Pyrrhic victory in this particular case. Without the principle of following the principles, without people who are ready to sacrifice their 401k, their MTV, their suburban houses, and unltimately, and very essentially, their lives for those principles, you will be just going from question to question.
Do you know why people had more rights in the most despotic countries of the past? Of course, not because the despots respected their rights in any way.
People of the past had those rights because government could not technically stomp on them, they did not have the means, the force, the technology. Now the government respect those rights only superficially more than their despotic brethren of the past, in reality it systematically and slowly takes away all rights of people except the right for panem et circenses. Oh, that "right" to circenses is fulfilled on full blown scale. There should be some kind of Moore law for the number of "channels of shit".
Now the
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
As a cardiac patient who has had isotope stress tests, and as a working chemist, let me state for the record that there is nothing "slight" about the level of radioactivity of a patient after one of these tests. Low level rad wastes, radioactive ores, uranium glass, all are slight levels of radioactivity, and measured as millionths of a Curie. The isotope used for stress tests is injected at 30,000 times higher levels, and the radiation emitted, gamma rays, penetrates through things like clothes, bone, muscle, and car doors.
The isotope used has a very short half-life so that two days after a test, there is very little radioactivity left, Right after a test a patient has a level of radioactivity that would scare the gloves off a rad-safety worker. If you point a Geiger counter at one of us, it doesn't click, it -whines-.
They pulled over a vehicle that was hot, and in other circumstances would represent a substantial safety hazard. More power to them.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
My father recently had major surgery, and when he went to the USA, he was pulled over by police due to being radioactive, and had the cops go over the entire car. I assumed this shit was normal.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Hahaha... this made me laugh.
My father-in-law had undergone a medical treatment for colon cancer where they implanted a dozen small pellets of radioactive material around his tumor.
Well he & his wife drove to Canada on a trip and crossing the border INTO Canada was no problem.
However, upon trying to re-enter the U.S. at the Border some radioactive detection system went off, an automatic barrier went up in front of their car and soon a dozen armed police were surrounding their car.
Needless to say a 78 yr old man and his wife were a bit shaken by the experience and my father-in-law was questioned for an hour and their car searched/scanned before they were permitted to continue.
I am grateful that our Border can detect this kind of stuff down to the microscopic levels because a terrorist would certainly have more on them than what was in my relative's butt...
Good thing my father-in-law is a totally funny guy and his retelling of the incident had me in stitches for hours.
Bullshit.
"Reasonable Suspicion" would mean the Officer(s) was(were) guessing,
Reasonable suspicion isn't guessing. Reasonable suspicion is a >50% chance that a crime has taken place.
and the inconvenience of a "terry stop" is a very minor cost to pay
for the greater public safety.
What is the treat to public safety from a low level of radioactive material? Has anyone tried to determine this?
Let me do it then. There is no threat. This is just a useful fear that politicians like to exploit. The real threat is of the police encroaching on the rights of citizens which is occurring today, unlike the myth of radiological terrorism. If you don't feel this is true then please describe the attack vectors and sources of radiological materials that could cause significant damage.
Even if a "hobbyist" is transporting within CFR 40.13, for a detection to occur within a cruiser at a distance means that "something is spilling out"
or "radiating dirty" and that is not suspicion but probable cause.
No it doesn't. It could also mean than a citizen who hasn't violated any laws but received radiation treatment is driving down the road. There is no probable cause whatsoever. In fact, there is no case history of hobbyists transporting radioactive materials in such a grossly unsafe manner to set off police detectors. This implies that low setoff thresholds would likely be lawful citizens who received radiation treatment, which argues exactly the opposite direction as probable cause.
Be vigilant and observant, but not paranoid and irrational.
Really? You say that after your paranoid and irrational post?
A low level dirty bomb made from medical grade material would be very effective indeed. All you have to do is spread some radioactive material in a very busy public spot (sports stadium, political building etc) and then call it in. The resulting media and political panic will cause far more "terror" than the situation warrants, and the threat of lawyers in the future will make the cleanup ridiculously protracted and expensive. "Terrorists" don't create the terror these days, politicians and the media do. If the actual threat was in any way related to the fuss made then we'd make a much bigger deal over road safety and a cure for cancer.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Here in New Mexico this is a way of life. The military checkpoints that the Border Patrol has set up everywhere routinely check for such things as radioactivity. When a chemical stress test is administered in cardiac units in Las Cruces, for instance, the patient is given a document describing the isotope used, the procedure administered, and contact information. The patient is then briefed on what to expect at the military check points. Having gone through such a test I can affirm that the monitoring system works. Alarms go off when you approaching the questioning zone - you are ordered to drive your vehicle to a segregated area - Border Patrol Agents with geiger counters surround your vehicle - if you are lucky, some idiot will babble spanish as you incessantly (as if spanish speaking and radioactivity had something to do with each other) and eventually they will clear you to return to your home. All of this so the people of Kansas and Oklahoma can feel safe - I don't care if the cowards feel safe or not.
I don't. I expect once the terrorist has a nuke, he's going to be able to set it off. If you catch him short of his target, you just get a nuclear detonation in a less populated place. If you catch him in New York Harbor, you're already totally fucked.
And it is. As Lord Acton (yes, a Liberal) pointed out, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And you need merely look at what government does with power when it gets it to see that any power will be abused. Special wiretapping laws supposed to be used only for terrorism get used for totally unrelated investigations 90% of the time. The NSA teams up with AT&T and other phone companies to monitor everything. The TSA... just about anything the TSA does. The government has the power to do border checkpoints... so they set them up dozens of miles from the border and claim they get 100 miles of rights-free zones. Reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on speech become "free speech zones" surrounded by chain-link fences. The list goes on...
The police state is HERE. Most people don't value freedom at all, happily (or at worst grouchily) submit to any demand the state has, and think something is wrong with YOU if you object.
No, that is "preponderance of evidence," which is the *standard of guilt* in civil cases. Reasonable suspicion, in contrast, is a low standard of proof in which a reasonable person could reasonably believe that someone has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity, and depends on the entire circumstance. Seeing someone driving down the street emitting radiation from their vehicle, a reasonable person could conclude that something criminal is going on: either the person is transporting radioactive materials unsafely, or their car has been exposed to radiation, in which case the car and its driver could unwittingly pose a public safety risk, or it could be a bomb or other contraband. These are all *reasonable* conclusions one could draw from the fact that there is "a car driving down the highway emitting some nontrivial amount of ionizing radiation," there is reasonable suspicion that a crime may have been committed.
That's enough for a traffic stop, for the officer to investigate. Which he did. And when he stopped the guy, and told him he was setting off radiation detectors, the guy said, "Yeah, I was injected with radioactive dye today for a health test, and I have this letter from my doctor, who actually warned me that this could happen." He provided that letter to the doctor, and he went on his way. Because there was no probable cause for an arrest - no probable cause supporting the conclusion that a crime actually had been committed.
Now, if there was probable cause (like, say, a bunch of wires and what appears to be a remote detonator sitting on the seat, or the police ask him to step out of the vehicle and frisk him and find a weapon), they'd be able to search the vehicle without a warrant and arrest him if they found probable cause to believe he was committing a crime.
After that, he would need to be found guilty by a preponderance of the evidence (irrelevant in this case, but if it were a civil case that would be the burden of proof), or beyond a reasonable doubt (in a criminal case).
Each of these is a *higher* standard of proof than the last. Reasonable Suspicion, Probable Cause, Preponderance of the Evidence, and Beyond Reasonable Doubt.
You do not have to satisfy the standard of evidence for legal trials to make a traffic stop, or make an arrest. You DO have to satisfy that standard of evidence, and even more, show beyond reasonable doubt, that he is guilty to get a conviction.
No, there's reasonable suspicion. Enough to initiate a traffic stop and investigate what's going on. Probable cause would be required for an arrest, which did not happen.
Which would, again, create a *reasonable suspicion* that there is something illegal going on - since hobbyists have always been safe, and there's about a dozen possible reasons a car would be giving off radiation, and only one of them is "the guy may have been injected with a radioactive dye," a *reasonable* person could conclude that there is a likelihood of a crime being committed.
And probable cause is only needed to make an arrest, not initiate a traffic stop. This implies that radiation detected is very uncommon, and so when something very uncommon and known to be unhealthy to humans is detected, it is, in fact, reasonable to be suspicious that something illegal may have occurred, and to investigate the source of the radiation. And that's what happened.
they notice you weaving, driving erratically, speeding, emitting radiation, taking a slug from a Jack Daniels bottle, running a red light, rolling through a stop sign
One of these things is not like the others...
Maybe you can point to the one which isn't illegal, sleuth!
So terrorists would either shield their payload perfectly or not at all--there's no chance that they'd only shield it down to the level that would be emitted by somebody who recently received an injection of a radioactive dye? That seems like pretty shaky reasoning to stake people's lives on.
And people who have recently received some kinds of radioactive tracers or radioactive implants for cancer treatment can be pretty hot. It is not uncommon for patients to be cautioned to keep their distance from kids and women who might be pregnant. Isotopes used for medical purposes mostly decay rapidly, but particularly early on, they can emit well above background. I knew a scientist who discovered after a test that he could not enter the room with his lab's radiation scintillation counter without screwing up the results.
"Probable cause" does not mean "proof beyond a shadow of doubt." You can legally be detained if a cop notices you driving with bags of white powder in the front seat, even though you may only be a baker transporting powdered sugar to your bakery. Stopping the occasional person who is emitting unusal levels of radioactivity for a benign reason hardly seems an overwhelming intrusion on civil liberty. An unusually high level of radioactivity could be an indication of crimes other than terrorism, by the way--unsafe transport of radioactive materials, for example
To be fair, those kinds of roadblocks are illegal in certain states. If I stay in the US for much longer I would very much like to move to one of them. Stopping and interrogating people who have done nothing wrong is true police state behavior. An absolutely disgusting human rights violation.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.