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Now Police Can 'See' Through Walls
Bram writes "Just found an article about another way to invade privacy." He's talking about hand-held radar systems police can use to detect breathing, beating hearts or other motion through walls and other obstacles. Sounds like a declassified version of the Ground Support Radar [GSR] units we used years ago in the Army. I can see why police would want them, and I can also see why Bram considers them a privacy threat. Depends on how they're used, I suppose.
Dude, chill out.
Why do people like you immediately resort to name-calling and personal attacks when you see something you don't understand/fully agree with? I guess maybe that's why you posted as an AC; you're too embarrassed with yourself to fess up to it.
In my very abstract example, I never said the curtains were open two inches, or open at all.
If something is in plain view of the public, it need not be construed as a privacy violation to use what you see. It becomes illegal when someone must enter your home or otherwise make an active/covert effort to 'see' something they wouldn't ordinarily be permitted to see.
That's the point I was trying to make.
Dude, I'm sorry, but if someone rammed a plunger up my ass, hospitalizing me, you'd better be damn well sure I will not only sue the police department responsible, but I would be pressing charges against the individuals there.
I'm not saying abuses never happen -- I'm just saying that people are always ACCOUNTABLE for those abuses, which means they aren't LIKELY to happen.
Along the same train of thought, how in the world are they really going to abuse a radar device such as this? So they can tell if someone is inside your home; perhaps they can count the number of people there. Assuming they do that without a search warrant and without probable cause to suspect your life is in danger, this still isn't a big deal.
I'm sorry, but in any state of the union, laws WERE broken. There's probably a lot more to the story than you were told, or perhaps crucial information was lost somewhere between the actual source and the person that told you.
Game Over! We're in some fruity sh*t!
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When these devices become commonplace and perfected, firemen will end up with a near 100% success rate in locating people with these devices. There will no longer be a pressing NEED to do a thorough manual inspection of the debris because the device has found everyone they're going to find.
If you wrap your home up in aluminum foil (or whatever you use), how are they supposed to know that your house is shielded in this manner? They will trust their instruments, which worked on the previous house and worked on the next house and will be less likely to do a thorough manual search of the debris. Sure they'll probably do a cursory check, Just In Case, but as they begin to trust their equipment more and more, there will be much less emphasis on checking by hand.
Also what if you came home one day and a burglar was holding your wife and child hostage. You barely had time to get out a call for help before you were discovered and taken as well. Don't you think those radar devices might be useful for the police in a situation like that, for the purpose of locating, counting hostages, and getting you guys out safely?
There are a significantly large number of reasons why you would WANT the police to be able to use these devices on your home. In all honesty, there's not much they can really SEE with these things aside from movement, location, perhaps the number of bodies inside, etc. IMO, the gains FAR offset the privacy issues you guys seem so concerned about.
There's a difference -- these devices are hardly field equipment yet. Do you really think a cop is going to go into the barracks, somehow give a plausible reason for checking out the radar device, and then go cruising down residential streets and alleys counting the number of people inside the houses and writing down where each person is?
I mean come on, the privacy concerns here are minimal. It's not like you can get a full color video image of the contents of a room, or even really determine a person's identity.
The cop you mentioned above needs to be prosecuted and put in prison. Period. That is out of the scope of this discussion, IMO. I'm not saying cops breaking the law are unheard of, I'm just saying that there's no real REASON a cop would want to try and "abuse" these devices, simply because there's very little you can gain of a non-tactical nature, and the scarcity of these devices will make the cops that need to use them subject to justification and scrutiny/attention from their superiors. Cops aren't allowed to just check out any old piece of odd equipment on a whim.
"Yeah, Jim, I was wanting to take the bomb disposal trailer out to the lake tonight. Do you mind?"
"Yah, no problem, just sign for it here and make sure it's clean when you bring it back."
I don't think so.
Police forces have always been the first line of offense against citizens whenever the ruling government feels threatened
Uhh, I don't know what country YOU live in, but here in the United States, this kind of thing doesn't happen.
Besides, just because a person has a badge and a gun it doesn't mean they are free from criminal intent
I'm not saying cops are angels, I'm just trying to say that there are aren't enough reasons (personal/illegal/whatever) for a cop to WANT to abuse one of these devices.
First of all, they're not hardly perfected yet. The best you can do with them is catch some movement, locate people behind a nearby wall or in a nearby room, perhaps even count the number of people there. Do you really feel that cops are going to get anything out of this of a non-tactical nature? Do you really think cops are going to want to go driving late at night counting the number of people that are in the nearest room to the street?
Secondly, these are not standard field issue, and probably won't be for a while. There will likely be "special" cops that are assigned to one of these units (much like K-9 units) or there will probably be a small number of these available from the department to cops that have a justifiable need for one.
I really just can't imagine a cop wanting to use one of these devices for personal purposes. It seems like a whole lot of trouble and RISK (which was what I was trying to get at before) for VERY little gain.
All "radar" type devices are detectable, by definition. They emit a signal of some form (perhaps audio-frequency in the case of things like sonic ranging devices versus radio-frequency devices like conventional RADAR) and analyze the reflections. It's not possible to make something like this that is undetectable as you say.
Perhaps you didn't mean to use the word "radar"? Maybe this project is just a super-sensitive microphone/amplifier? A passive device like this is likely undetectable as you suggest, but it would hardly be anything like RADAR.
Posted by Synsthe:
There is no such thing as true privacy anyways, so if you're worried about this, I've got news for you: You're wasting your time.
Look back through slashdot history alone and read all the articles on it. Privacy is a relative term - sure, you can take a shower without being seen (hopefully), and sometimes you can get away with talking on the phone without being heard in the next room. But all the security/government/yadda yadda agencies out there can subvert that privacy anytime they wish if they wanted to.
So why worry?
It's just another tool the cops can use to hunt out the bad guys and make "the world a better place".
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
I also object to the idea of the media being able to get hold of such devices. Would you be happy if your local newspaper decided to monitor how often people went to the bathroom?
The police are the least of my concerns, for something like this. My other concerns are fairly trivial ones, anyway, but that one is so minute it doesn't bother me in the least.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
When I said this kind of thing doesn't happen in the US, I was talking about the original poster's comment that the police tend to turn into tools used AGAINST the people by a desperate government, which does not happen here.
Yes, I believe active RF "scramblers" are illegal in the US. FCC rules prohibit any device from knowingly/wilfully causing "harmful interference" to any other RF signal/device.
Then you should get X-Kryptonite, which will give you super powers (assuming you're an ordinary human being). Then you can either use your new powers to get rid of nosy cops, or build a Fortress of Solitude(TM) in some desolate area. Perhaps New Jersey.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I don't find any of the laws regarding how and when "sniffing" and "wire-tapping" can be done to be particularly privacy-invading. Thus, any true invasions of my privacy are illegal and I can prosecute those that do it.
If you guys that keep preaching "privacy invasion!" have actually been so invaded, please contact a lawyer. You will end up rich.
While I have nothing to hide, I am content living with the fact that if a cop *does* abuse this technology and I catch him, not only will he be in a world of hurt, but I stand to make a reasonable profit from my lawsuit.
He knows this; I know this. For that reason, I think the chances of my privacy being invaded (without just cause and/or a search warrant, obviously) are pretty slim, and the benefits gained by allowing law enforcement access to these types of devices FAR outweigh that extremely slim chance.
It's probably not legal where there are littering laws... Heh.
I simply assume I have no privacy unless I take ample steps to preserve it. I'm act as though I'm positive my ISP knows where I go on the internet. The company I work for knows what my emails say, someone IS listening in on my phone conversations, etc...
:) is web-based email accessable through anonymizer or something like that which does not require any other email address in order to register... If anyone's got any ideas... Let me know... I may even supply the server
The best way to protect oneself if this is trully what is occuring (which I'm not sure of) is to act unassuming and draw no unneeded attention...
There fore, I use Anonymizer for browsing, except at sites where it's either impossible, or the usefulness of the site goes way (SLASHDOT)... I also wish that there was an SSL enabled secure proxy out there...
Of course, Anonymizer itself could probably raise some flags, as I'm sure encrypted email does as well... Kind of a no win situation, if you ask me. The act of trying to preserve your privacy draws unneeded attention to you!
So far as email goes; I use PGP when my correspondant has it. Never say anything on email you don't want to come back and bite you (even in encrypted email... afterall the recipient can still read it, and if you typed it on your computere, there's things such as keyboard monitors, etc... Basically once you type something, you're not very assured of it remaining prive once you've typed it... Unless your'e using an OS such as OpenBSD or Linux or something...))
What I really would like, by the way (hint hint!
Probably not, since your walls are not similarly "protected".
Of course, why in the world would you want to build your home so that it *blocked* these types of things? In all likelyhood, the only time you might EVER see one of these things in action near your home is after an earthquake or an explosion that has demolished your house and you are trapped beneath a rather heavy pile of debris.
Fireman: "Nope, I'm getting no reading at all from under this structure..."
You (whisper): "Urmmph..! hh..hhell..hhellpp..."
Maybe, but I'm alittle more practical. If somebody is scanning my house, I want a detector, and optionally, a response mechanism to block their scans. Also, it'd be a really cool and geeky thing to do. ;) Definate hack value.
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Maybe you haven't been keeping up with current events, but we just got our asses kicked!
Paxson/Hudson was great, and he had all the good lines. He was the techo-geek of the Marine outfit. He was my hero. I cried when they got him. You want some this? Oh yeah? How about you? Aaaaaaaa! I wish there was a slashdot poll about our favorite movie by different categories, but not the ones that are obvious like scifi. Categories more like movies with the best kick-ass aliens, or movies with aliens that you would have sex with. Maybe we should skip that last one as I would really hate to see the comments.
I mentioned this in another post.. but why would you really want to block this type of thing? In all likelyhood, the only time you will probably ever see this thing in action around your home (if at all) is after a natural disaster when your home is levelled and you are trapped under an uncomfortable pile of debris.
If you "privacy-proof" your home like you suggest, they might never find you.
If they did outlaw it, it would probably be from a safety standpoint, since by wrapping your home in something that blocks these devices, and your home or whatever building is destroyed in a natural disaster, firemen will lose this precious tool when trying to find survivors.
"...The tornado demolished 5 residential blocks today. Survivors were fished out of the debris with only minor injuries, with the exception of one man who had shielded his home from the radar devices firemen use to detect and locate survivors..."
Right -- That's what I'm saying. Cops aren't stupid. Any "invasion of privacy" caused by these devices is just as illegal as conventional invasions of privacy. Cops aren't going to do it without a damn good reason.
You're right; the world is a fucked up place. We even have people that are so paranoid and deluded that they honestly believe that cops are going to, on a daily basis, use radar to look into people's homes, and despite the fact that the technology can't do it yet, actually see what it is they're doing.
The article may not have explicitely mentioned it, but it's been discussed in a bunch of the comments. The technology being discussed is basically the same thing that's being trialed in a variety of fire departments and emergency response units.
The best that these things can do is detect movement such as what occurs when you breathe or your heart beats. These things are going to be pretty expensive at first, and I doubt police are going to be assigned individual radar devices for a long while, which means there'll probably be a high demand within a police department for these things. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for indiscriminant "spying" (if you can call it that -- you really can't get a whole lot of sensitive information from these things) on the part of stupid cops.
Yep, sniffer's and wire-tapping devices are just tools too. But problems arise with how they're sometimes used.
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Saw this, oh, ten years ago in Popular Science. The main "use" back then was finding people buried in rubble after a major event [e-quake].
Anyway, this ought to improve the dating scene. Now you can find out if they're breathing from across the room.
If this sort of incredible abuse of police power occurs in a city like NY, it can happen in *any* police department - and abuses occur ALL THE TIME. Its absurd to expect something as innocuous and as hard to detect as this technology to not be abused by some police officers and departments.
Thats why technologies like this worry people. Your faith in the police is misplaced. They are people just like everyone else, with the same temptations, emotions, irrational responses and so on. The only difference is that they have TREMENDOUS power to ACT on those impulses with impunity which no one else has.
I hate to reuse an oft repeated phrase, but He that gives up essential Liberty for Security, shall recieve and deserves neither. Alot of tools could enhance the polices ability to deter crime, find criminals, even convict criminals. But that ends NEVER justifies the means. Privacy, as difficult as it is to maintain, is still an important right that needs to be protected from further encroachment. Its a RIGHT! Not some lofty goal, or something you "can't have because its hard to keep anything private". Its inalienable. Just because its hard to get true privacy in our society, does not mean that its not worthwhile to get SOME guarantees of privacy. And the whole issue of not being able to get perfect privacy is a red herring anyway. Thats not the point! The point is that police agencies DO abuse their powers, this tool can be used to illegally invade peoples privacy and it is of questionable value in the "war on crime". Is this tool worth the cost to our personal privacy is the issue on the table, not whether or not privacy can be obtained or whether or not the police can be trusted with this technology.
We all want to see a society with less crime. We all want to make it easier to stop the bad guys. Just not at the expense of everything else. This tool will be abused by the police, and the cost to personal privacy is simply worth the supposed benefit of this technology in stopping criminals.
--
Python
Python
Those shackles are nothing more than a tool, yes. And I'm not going to get paranoid over the invention of shackles. I will get annoyed if you put them on peoples' legs unfairly, though. But, if you don't, I don't care whether they exist one way or another.
With all of the technophobia that we have bashed over the years, you would think that we slashdotters would be immune to this sort of paranoia. But whenever a government agency gets new technology, we go crazy with the possibilities of what the could do with it, whether they're actually doing it or not. Isn't that the same reaction our bosses have when they realize that we know more about the company's systems than they do?
It's paranoid technophobia, plain and simple.
Rob
- Rob Cottrell
If the cops get the address wrong, bust down your door, trash your house and scare the shit out of your family - guess what? No one's liable. They don't even have to replace the door.
Make no mistake: the USA is a police state. If you happen to be a middle class, mostly law abiding citizen of European descent odds are it won't decide to crushr you. But if it does, forget about it. You have little legal recourse to defend yourself against the state.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Question for the wire-heads out there - radar usually operates by doppler / pulse mode. I'm assuming these are similar. How hard would it be to build a device that sync'd to the pulse and returned a variable-amplitude return? That should, in theory, severely degrade the quality of their signal.
Also, what about aluminum siding on homes? If you grounded it, you'd have a pretty effective faraday box.
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You know, he handles over 500 submissions a day, or about 3500 a week. Now, given that the original whois was posted almost a month ago, how do you expect any sane individual to remember 14,000 submissions?
Try to keep in in perspective - so what if things are reposted once in awhile? That's the price we pay to get our news as soon as it hits the wire.
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I'm in my company's office in Germany at the moment, but nevertheless I'll use US law here, since it's the only stuff I'm familiar with.
The US 4th amendment reads:
The only ambiguous term in the above is what is "reasonable", so the courts determine that. But generally speaking they decide whether a person would have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a given situation. And no, I don't think it's reasonable for some cop to go scanning houses at random to see what he can see; I at least hope that judges would agree.
It seems to me that if a cop has a search warrant or arrest warrant, that it would be fine to use this technology to execute the warrant. But without a warrant, no dice. It's an unreasonable search.
On the other hand, I could easily imagine opportunist security people saying: "You've metal studs -where-? Prove it!"
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
My thinking is that police will use a radar scanner as a way to get around having to obtain a search warrant. Why obtain a search warrant when you can search someone's house without even stepping on their property?
In many states, there are laws against premarital sex, homosexual sex, oral sex, anal sex, &c. These are almost never enforced because, as long as the act takes place between two consenting adults within a dwelling, the police can't just barge in and arrest people for breaking this law.
Now, let's put this scanner in the hands of the Jerkoff County, SC Sheriff's department. They drive down a residential street until they catch two people in close proximity, accelerated heartbeats...all the signs of copulation. Is there a married couple in there? A quick check of a countywide information system tells them that this residence belongs to a single woman with a teenage daughter from a previous marriage. Inspired by righteous morality, they break down the door and arrest the couple -- the single mother and her boyfriend -- for adultery.
The ACLU sides with the couple and fights the case all the way to the Supreme Court, eventually making it illegal for the police to use radar scanners without a search warrant. But the couple goes through years of Hell in the process -- and who knows how many other couples are busted the same way.
Finding God in a Dog