Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by BeauHD on from the there's-a-first-for-everything dept.

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.

3 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. voluntary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The screening process is voluntary, Wiggins said, but customers who choose not be screened won't be able to ride on the subway."

    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

    1. Re:voluntary by Evtim · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ya know, everything under communism was also voluntary.

      You could choose not to go to the official liberation day parade to wave the flag with the swastika, sorry the hammer and sickle...you could choose not to go every Saturday to work on digging trenches (that's true, they asked for one day per month voluntary labor for the state.....imagine a surgeon digging a trench and that does to his hands)...you could choose not to enter the Hitler youth, sorry the Komsomol....you could choose not to salute to the portrait of the fürer, sorry the dear leader...you could choose not to participate in the daily five minutes of hatred against the filthy Jews, gipsies, faggots, sorry filthy capitalist and imperialists....you could even choose not to show your papers...so how do you like them labor camps, sorry Gulags, hm?

      Fascinating!

  2. won't help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This won't help for the guy who punched me in the face and ran, in broad daylight, at the busiest station in LA.

    This won't help for the fact that even though he looked right into the camera, because I didn't write down what the exact car # it was (I still don't know where this number is supposedly posted), they couldn't pull the tape.

    This won't help for the fact that the piggies suck at their job.

    This won't help. But it will cost a lot of money and violate a lot of people's privacy. So good idea, eh?