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Police Nation-Wide Use Wall-Penetrating Radars To Peer Into Homes
mi writes At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside. The device the Marshals Service and others are using, known as the Range-R, looks like a sophisticated stud-finder. Its display shows whether it has detected movement on the other side of a wall and, if so, how far away it is — but it does not show a picture of what's happening inside. The Range-R's maker, L-3 Communications, estimates it has sold about 200 devices to 50 law enforcement agencies at a cost of about $6,000 each. Other radar devices have far more advanced capabilities, including three-dimensional displays of where people are located inside a building, according to marketing materials from their manufacturers. One is capable of being mounted on a drone. And the Justice Department has funded research to develop systems that can map the interiors of buildings and locate the people within them.
...and wasn't the conclusion that we were waiting on a ruling through the courts?
If a police dog is considered equipment, and cannot be used without a warrant when dealing with homes, and if other law-enforcement devices whose specific purpose is to detect into homes have been ruled in the past to need warrants, then wouldn't it follow that once this does reach the courts, it'll be found inadmissable because of a lack of warrant?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Huh, controversial use of tax dollars (and a very small percentage of tax dollars) implies that all taxes are bad? I didn't realize we took the worst reported use as the standard use.
Like Bernie Madoff proved that capitalism didn't work? Or that plane crash in San Fran meant planes were dangerous? Or a particularly cold winter means global warming isn't real?
And even then, when used with a warrant, I see this as preferable to a bunch of cops rounding corners, getting scared and shooting.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Have they tried ringing the doorbell? I could supply them with a device to do that at, what, half the price of these doohickeys.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
... of innocent law-abiding civilians.
Because the criminals will have these www.instructables.com/id/Radio-Jammer/
Nothing to see here... move along, SNAFU.
Sent from my ENIAC
The problem isn't the ability of the device. The problem is the lack of due process.
For instance, if we know we've got a hostage situation, this kind of thing is entirely appropriate, and no judge should hesitate to enable it via a proper warrant. That doesn't mean the police should be free to use it at any time, at their own discretion.
Same thing goes for any other search tech that enables normal privacy boundaries to be crossed on a whim.
Search is like any other weapon in this way: a critical issue is how it is to be used, both in what the rules are, and in how well the rules are obeyed.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Title: "Police Nation-Wide Use Wall-Penetrating Radars To Peer Into Homes"
Summary: "it does not show a picture of what's happening inside"
P.S. Layout's still fucked. If you're too dumb to fix it just revert to the old one already.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
the issue is that the police in this country have shown that they cannot be trusted. this tech will be abused just like stingrays are used in the grey area.
plain and simple, any "search tech" should require a court order (clear, not FICA) to be used and if the tech is used without one, the cops who carried it out, the superiors and the department as a whole should be held accountable to the highest extent possible. Last I checked we still have a 4th amendment
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Argument one will be that these devices are in no way in contradiction with the fourth amendment because nobody with RF-permiable walls can have a reasonable expectation of privacy in anything they just leave lying around in the open like that. It's not different, aside from wavelength and a few hundred thousand dollars worth of hardware, from leaving things right next to a giant window, right?
If that one fails (sadly, this can be rated as only 'moderately' probable), its utility against Drugs, Terrorists, Pedo-terrorist-drugs, and similar threats to the community will be trotted out. If (again, sadly, this can be rated as only 'moderately' probable) the judge points out that 'utility' is actually orthogonal to 'legality' we will move to argument three:
The devices will be transferred to the jurisdiction of an entity with substantial clandestine activity(DEA, say) and all information pertaining to its use will be classified, and all information derived from its use will be laundered by 'parallel construction'; and any FOIA requests, evidence requests by defense attorneys, and similar uppity behavior will be referred to a blank denial on the grounds of 'potentially compromising classified sources and methods'.
The cops need a warrant to use these things is because of an interesting Supreme Court decision from 2001.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States
The traditional "liberal" and "conservative" wings fell apart and Ginsburg joined Scalia in the majority. Scalia's decision specifically addressed future technologies like this. It's strange how he's really good on privacy issues and really bad on everything else.
No police anywhere in the world can be "trusted" to stick to legal methods in doing their jobs.
Such is their job:
If anything, American police are, probably, well above your average bribe-taking empty uniform...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
10 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled, in the case of IR devices, that, although they were passively observing, government needed to get a warrant to use them. Technological adgancements shall not obviate expected constitutional protections. People expect privacy and advances that did not exist then cannot take advantage of loopholes like that.
So, I hope these people are getting warrants, or I expect to see hundreds of law enforcement officials going to jail.
By the way, as people move more and more of their lives into virtual, online arenas, they take with them the same expectation of privacy. The Supreme Court should similarly require warrants for all that, too, closing the loophole that, since it's at some coompany, "you have no expectation of privacy."
People create this virtual presence for their own convenience, not so government can have a virtual warrantless panopticon.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I understand that chicken-wire has an extremely high radar cross section, as it's a regularly spaced array. I wonder how hard it is to see behind such a screen. Of course the attenuation varies by the spatial dimensions, A fun bit of calculation would be to find what the right size(s) of chicken-wire you need to block such instruments given their frequency ranges (assuming ISM band?). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
I first read about how strong a return you get from chicken-wire from Stimson's book "Introduction to Airborne Radar" ..which is a pretty easy to read with a lot of colorful graphs, and is mostly targeted to fighter pilots, with blue boxes around the more complicated math for the more interested students. Most books ether have no math/calculus, or are geared toward graduate students. This particular one is a good mix between the two that gives you intuition when reading the graduate books..
The problem, of course, is not the warranted use of such devices -- it is the routine unwarranted (as in "without a warrant") usage, which gives me creeps.
What is the "routine uwarranted use"? Is it similar to the "routine uwarranted use" of pat-downs for weapons during initial contact that the courts have ruled are justified? Is it similar to the "routing unwarranted" search of a room subsequent to arrest of an occupant? Is it "routine unwarranted use" if the devices are used to determine whether a space is occupied prior to executing a search warrant?
I notice you made a great leap from "fifty police agencies" to "police nation-wide". The latter implies large-scale use, while the former is a pretty small number. If I took a few minutes I could probably come up with fifty "police agencies" in just this and two neighboring counties where I live.
But "fifty police agencies use wall-penetrating radar" wouldn't be as good a headline.
While I dont disagree, we do have some of the better cops on the world wide scale. Id like to keep it that way. Giving more power to them has the opposite effect
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Highly concentrated beams of radio waves are known to cause cold pizza to become hot.
FTFY.
It takes a lot of RF exposure over a very, very long time to increase your chances of getting cancer by a statistically detectable amount. Despite decades of data, (and several very poor quality, highly-biased studies) there is still not a clear correlation between cell phone exposure and brain cancer*. During the course of a police action, the device will likely be on for a few seconds while they recon the inside of the building. For that to cause harm over that short amount of time, it would have to be emitting many kilowatts or even a megawatt of energy; and not only would the resulting burns be ridiculously painful, your heart would short circuit and your eyes would probably boil and explode. Cancer would be the least of your worries.
* If there was a link, cell phone usage is so prevalent across the globe that we should be able to trace a perfect curve that matches cell phone usage to brain cancer mortality statistics. But there isn't even a hint that brain cancer rates are changing due to phones. Toxins? Pollution? Asbestos? Smoking? Volatile Organic Compounds? All those have traceable curves that map exposure to human diseases. Cell phone exposure? Zero.
John
And if YOU had read the first link, you'd see that it includes the FBI & US Marshal Service.
So, yes, nationwide is an appropriate descriptor. So would 'large-scale use'.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
True. I'd like to add that another problem that is quickly ramping up in the U.S. is the militarization of the police force. We are heading down a path where the civilian police force will have near equal capabilities, technology, and weapons of the military. And if you don't think that's bad news, just ask Admiral Adama:
There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
Aluminum is not the greatest conductor, copper is better and then silver and gold
Actually silver and copper are better conductors than gold. But depending on the usage, gold can be a better choice because it doesn't oxidize (easily).
Absolutely not. When the burglers get these they will be able to see if there is anyone at home before breaking in.
This means I need to be able to create ambiguity or block things completely, without interfering with my mobile phone's reception. Stopping drive-by WLAN eavesdropping is not really something I'm bothered about.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
plain and simple, any "search tech" should require a court order
First, I would amend that to say "requires the same standards for judging the reasonableness as any other search." Searches don't require warrants, just reasonableness, and a warrant is one way of demonstrating reasonableness. Searches can be reasonable without a warrant, such as "hot pursuit." When the cops see the murderer flee into your home, they don't have to sit outside waiting while he butchers you until the court order comes through.
As far as the restrictions on this tech go, their use is already governed by the same standards. In Kyllo vs US the Supreme Court ruled that thru-the-wall imaging constitutes a search. So you can't do it without a warrant. This was the case about the helicopters with the IR cameras looking for grow houses. To my knowledge abuse of these cameras hasn't been an issue since.
I am no fan of the police state, but the stories I've seen about these radar devices is just clickbait for the tinfoil hat crowd (of which I am a proud member...I'm just not falling for this one).
The intended use of the device is good. The cops are going to enter the home anyway. They have a valid search warrant to do so. With the radar device, maybe they'll know there's just a baby sleeping in the front room, so they're less likely to throw a flashbang in its crib. That's wishful thinking, of course. They're still going in with overwhelming force. But hey, maybe we can hope knowing who is where in the house will allow them to subdue the subjects more quickly before they or the cops have a chance to shoot each other.
I know, I know, we would much prefer the cops not bust down doors with overwhelming force to serve search warrants, but that's another debate.
And if you're worried about improper use of these devices, then banning the proper use of the device is irrelevant. Use without a warrant is already banned. If you think they're going to ignore that ban, then they'll ignore the ban on possession of the devices at all, too.
Basically, nothing to see here. Move along.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I am well aware of — and generally agree with — the sentiment, but, in my opinion, the current concerns are misplaced.
Until these civilian police are also placed under the same command as the military, the police — along with their advanced weapons — will remain a counterbalance against some future Hugo Chavez...
Yes, the police agencies discussed in TFA are, largely, federal — and thus already under the Commander in Chief's authority. But the local police departments, that are "militarized" nationwide are not.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If a police officer walks by and he is able to look into your house because you did not close the window, it is legal. Right?
If he needs glasses to see he uses a device to better see, there still isn't an issue, right?
So this device is perfectly legal, right?
This is what you get when you think privacy is only about where you are. They will take it away, inch by inch. To me privacy is not about WHERE I am, but about WHAT I am. So it must include not only my home, but also my data, where I was when and what I was doing.
There will be reasons that this must be overruled. That is what due process should be for.
Privacy should be the first thing that you must defend. Without it all the other rights are useless. See how many amendments will keep standing if you take away privacy. And those that are not imediatly are gone will be easy to take away if the rest is gone.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Be careful here. Real careful. There is some truth to that statement but the implication is overbroad. It is the military structure that puts it's command away from local government. What you want is local civilian governmental control of the police, not federal control. Weapons and tactics are of little import and have been more than a little hyped.
It's the feds coopting local police by offering money, equipment, communications and help that is very concerning. Of course, it can work both ways - we have seen where local control of police causes real harm to members of the community and those harms don't get addressed locally. The entire civil rights movement would have been dead in the water if the US Federal government hadn't been there to 'overwhelm' the entrenched southern interests. No clear winner either way and checks and balances are crucial.
But guns and trucks are only a small part of this.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Your looking at the wrong studies.
Look at the studies of military radar operators from the 50s and 60s. They would stand in front of the radar dishes to stay _warm_ north of the arctic circle.
They have no detectable increase in cancer rates beyond what all electronic techs have. They can statistically see the cancer caused by flux, but see no increase from massive exposures to RF energy. Even better they are mostly dead by now, so the study is final. They were tracked to the grave.
The cops and a bunch of lawyers are trying to prove that basically any cop that gets cancer deserves even more money. Because they claim it was caused by radar guns. No statistical correlation.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
We currently use the military to train our police and their bosses (police chiefs and mayors) take their orders from governors (who also command the National Guard) and they take orders from Congress / the White House. So yes, they are under the same command as the military, just not as high of a rank.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Your arugument makes no sense... here is why...
The NRA and 2nd amendment "crazy types" as you call us, make the argument that regardless of what technology (surveillance or gun related), existed back when the Constitution was written and what exists now is irrelevant. It is what the spirit of the law written in the Constitution that matters. When it comes to guns, it means that citizens should be able to own modern weapons that are similar in spec to what the military of the time uses. Back then, the Military used muskets, so civilians had muskets, and now the military uses AR-15 type rifles, and why those should be allowed as well as other military type weapons. It's the purpose of "why" that matters, in case of insurrection, government tyranny, or foreign invasion, military type weapons would be required by the civilians that make up the state militia's.
Same interpretation to this type of technology, it doesn't matter if radar (or spy drones, or X-Ray devices) didn't exist when the Const. was written, what matters is the spirit of the 4th amendment, which discusses unlawful search and seizure without probable cause and a warrant describing the exact items that are being searched for. Technology is irrelevant, using this radar is a type of search, and is protected against in the 4th amendment. So is back-scatter X-Ray devices and other "pervasive" technologies that work from a distance like this.
So why can't police do it?
Because the police have the power to put you in jail
but that was infrared. You see, when it was visible light we didn't need warrants then a document was written that said they did. Then this infrared thing came along and they said that the constitution didn't cover infrared because it didn't exist when the constitution was written. Then the courts said that infrared requires a warrant. The interpretation is not infrared requires a warrant because a search is a search but because a court said so. Now we have this radar thing and it doesn't require a warrant because it wasn't around when the constitution was written and the court only said that infrared gets added to what was around when the constitution was written.
The point is not that they are in inviolation of the Geneva Conventions since as you point out they are not covered by them, it is that if a weapon is not suitable for even military use, why is it suitable for law enforcement?
Of course! And that's a perfectly normal — as long as the country remains at peace with itself.
Should another civil conflict unravel, however, these arsenals distributed nation-wide and under control of local authorities (each with his own agenda and loyalties) will be part of a problem for any usurper of central power, not part of his solution.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.