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LA To Become First In US To Install Subway Body Scanners (apnews.com)

Los Angeles officials announced Tuesday that the city's subway will become the first mass transit system in the U.S. to install body scanners that screen passengers for weapons and explosives. "The deployment of the portable scanners, which project waves to do full-body screenings of passengers walking through a station without slowing them down, will happen in the coming months, said Alex Wiggins, who runs the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's law enforcement division," reports the Associated Press reports: The machines scan for metallic and non-metallic objects on a person's body, can detect suspicious items from 30 feet (9 meters) away and have the capability of scanning more than 2,000 passengers per hour. On Tuesday, Pekoske and other officials demonstrated the new machines, which are being purchased from Thruvision, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom. In addition to the Thruvision scanners, the agency is also planning to purchase other body scanners -- which resemble white television cameras on tripods -- that have the ability to move around and hone in on specific people and angles, Wiggins said. Signs will be posted at stations warning passengers they are subject to body scanner screening. The screening process is voluntary, Wiggins said, but customers who choose not be screened won't be able to ride on the subway.

6 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sounds like Total Recall! by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's an IR camera, apparently ("Terahertz waves" is a fancy term for high-frequency IR), so no. Metal objects block IR radiation or radiate differently and thus are visible.

  2. Re:Another reason to love telecommuting by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Informative

    Images of the front and back of every type of transport are kept.
    Driver and passenger faces are kept as they enter a city and on the drive back after work.
    All cell phone network use is detected and collected too.
    Face, method transport and details on the type of in use communication.
    Lots of CCTV in all city areas then fills in the gait and face. Daily movements to work and what is done while working in the city.
    Domain Awareness System https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    History from the UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  3. "Waves," huh? by pots · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Thruevision website says that it's a passive camera which operates in the 250 GHz range. That's infrared. No safety concerns, thankfully, and judging from the pictures no privacy concerns either. They're basically just like pictures from a visible-spectrum camera, only monochromatic and blurry. I'm not sure how this is supposed to be useful...

    Does anyone know how this is supposed to work? Maybe a gun or a bomb or other large object would be colder than the rest of your body? So it would show up as a cold spot?

  4. Re:Safety? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is a passive camera that captures THz (IR) radiation emitted by human bodies. It doesn't produce any radiation, only captures it.

  5. Re:What's next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    So subways are "voluntary", as is using the public libraries. Court houses need scanners for "safety". Walmart is "a private business". Oh, and interstates are also "voluntarily", you can take an alternate route (or walk).

    The US has no right to roam. Vagrancy is illegal in most places. Walking along highways and freeways is illegal. Railways too. Very, very little of the area within the US has any form of public transit.

    Even the word "alternative" should remain in quotes.

  6. Re:voluntary by crgrace · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Nazis had an actual thought-out plan to use starvation to kill. Usually communists starved people due to incompetence (although not always, for example in Ukraine).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_Plan/