Inside a Full-Body-Scanning X-Ray Van 313
Velcroman1 writes "In August, Slashdotters learned that full-body scanners were roaming the streets in vans: 'The same technology used at airport check points, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on US streets where law enforcement agencies have deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs. Fox took a ride in one of the $800,000 vans, videotaping the entire event — and continues the debate about security, privacy, and health risks."
Wait, FOX? (Score:1, Insightful)
Purpose? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, tell me, what's the real purpose of this stuff? 8 million flights without a successful terrorist attack since 9/11. All attempts either simply failed or were prevented using pre-9/11 technology, yet we still get these naked body scanners.
Now we also need them roaming the streets? "Hey Joe, hottie on your six, make a turn and flip the switch boy, let's see what she's got!". Anything else doesn't come near a justification.
Dumb to use away from points of entry (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Purpose? (Score:5, Insightful)
But...b-b-b-but....manufacturing and surveillance jobs!
Re:Wait, FOX? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fox took a ride in one of the $800,000 vans, videotaping the entire event -- and continues the debate about security, privacy, and health risks.
The Government's new definition of debate: you keep talking amongst yourselves, we'll keep implementing.
How does this happen? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remind me again why we haven't burned DC to the ground yet? How can ANYONE, of ANY political affiliation, see this shit and not be completely outraged?
Illegal Search (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the Real Motivation is Drug War and Money (Score:5, Insightful)
This blurb in the article basically says it all...
While many dismiss / marginalize the threat of the drug war on people's freedoms, it's happening nevertheless. For example, there was a time when local police busting down doors was virtually unheard of - now it's common practice in all sorts of situations. Another is that people are now subjected to all sorts of demands, such providing government id / signing a form, to buy over-the-counter cough medicine. All in the name of the drug war - which is really a war against citizens.
For anyone who believes use of such technology to search people / private property will be ruled unconstitutional, think again - drug sniffing dogs are often allowed to search one's private property, such as one's vehicle, that's accessible from the street despite no "contraband" being in plain view.
One can practically count on such vans roaming the streets all throughout the U.S. in the near future "for your protection", but of course, much of the time, that won't be the real motivation.
Ron
Re:Illegal Search (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the government gets to decide what is illegal.
Because most people do not care.
Re:Purpose? (Score:5, Insightful)
The best way to avoid terrorism is to live in fear all the time.
Of course, private business could generate just as much fear as the government, but with much lower cost to the private citizen...
Support deprivatization of the fear industry!
Re:Health risk (Score:3, Insightful)
As you point out, for those regularly exposed to such machines, the health risk may be considerable. Also, presumably, the vans operate at a higher power / intensity than airport scanner units.
Also, how is the x-ray energy distributed? ... evenly or in intense beam(s) that could potentially, at times, far exceed the normal stated output rating.
On a related note, how reliable is the software / interlocks to prevent unintended excess output? - this has been a longtime, persistent problem with various diagnostic machines used in hospitals with people occasionally dying ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 [wikipedia.org]
Ron
Re:Purpose? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wait, FOX? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How does this happen? (Score:5, Insightful)
You really believe either of the two parties in power in the US gives a shit about you and your individual rights? Obama is just as bad as Bush was, and Clinton and Bush before them.
The reason why people haven't burned DC down is because 90+% vote for those two parties, thinking that they are different. They are just two sides of the same coin. If you vote, and vote for "change" and yet vote for one of the two parties, and you deserve to get what you get, more of the same.
Libertarians are outraged, but we're also marginalized to meaninglessness. Nobody cares, and that is why DC still stands.
Re:Purpose? (Score:2, Insightful)
By why avoid it? Terrorism is way down on the list causes of death. Use that cash to fight obesity or cancer and you'll save a lot more lives.
Oh wait, seeing someone smile because they're cured of something horrible is not even remotely as fun as humiliating someone by having them take of their shoes and go through the nudy booth. Besides, saving the boob mama's to disk is still saving people.. sorta, right?
Re:Purpose? (Score:1, Insightful)
You are also living with a logical fallacy. How can one judge security measures except by the lack of successful attacks? Why do you lock you car? Have you ever had your car stollen? I bet if you left it unlocked just once that nobody would steal it.
The deterrence value of a security measure is just about un-measurable. However their have been attempted attacks so unlike your tiger and elephant repelling rock there is data to suggest that their is a real threat still.
Now as to the trade off between security and liberty that is a different discusion.
Re:Wait, FOX? (Score:1, Insightful)
Fox's being evil is an unfalsifiable hypothesis in some people's minds.
Re:No no no no no! (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, it's totally impractical. 15 seconds per scan? Useless in open traffic. Useless at a major event (15 sec x 10000 cars = 2 days in line to be searched).
Fortunately its a parallelizable problem.
15 sec x 10000 cars / 48 vans = 1 hour in line to be searched.
15 sec x 10000 cars / 96 vans = 30 minutes in line
Plus they could scan every second car and cut those times in half again. Sure they'll only hit 50% percent of the traffic, but few criminals will tolerate a 50/50 shot of being busted on the spot; so its still an effective deterrent.
Not that I'm defending these things. Advocates of this sort of use of technology ought to doused in gasoline and driven off a cliff... preferably in one of these vans, killing two birds with one stone.
Re:Wait, FOX? (Score:4, Insightful)
Never said they were evil, just hypocritical...just like every other right-leaning and left-leaning news org.
The reason Fox gets so much flak is because it bills itself as being "fair and balanced", when it is neither. MSNBC says "We're full of shit. What're you gonna do about it?" There's no difference in their presentation or intention...the only difference is one admits it and one attempts to paint itself as the opposite of what it is.
Re:Wait, FOX? (Score:4, Insightful)
When the organization itself contributes to the Republican party, all "news" is suspect.
Re:No no no no no! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever heard of Alberto Gonzales [wikipedia.org]? Look hard enough, and you can get a yes-man who will sign off on anything.
That guy would have stripped any and all provisions in the constitution under the provision of "we're allowed to because we say so".
Re:Ah, the Real Motivation is Drug War and Money (Score:4, Insightful)
For anyone who believes use of such technology to search people / private property will be ruled unconstitutional, think again - drug sniffing dogs are often allowed to search one's private property, such as one's vehicle, that's accessible from the street despite no "contraband" being in plain view.
The difference with a drug dog is that they're not searching your car, they're searching the ambient air. It IS in plain "veiw" (nasally) to them. The car is basically leaking drug particles all over the place, which is glaringly obvious if you have the wetware to detect it. This is completely different from scanning the inside of a person/vehicle/house. Would a cop be out of line if he walked down the street and smelled MJ smoke when he passed a parked car, and went to investigate?
Re:No no no no no! (Score:4, Insightful)
Slippery-slope comes to mind. Since when did one relinquish their rights at the airport? -it wasn't always that way. And furthermore, such searches are now becoming routine on long-haul passenger trains (ie. Amtrak) and buses (Greyhound) too. And even one's own vehicle at some select locations, such as tunnel entrances.
You're assuming the government will protect one's rights - sadly, that's often not the case. Watch some episodes of COPS for a reality check on how policing really works in the U.S. - the police state is already here.
In addition, home monitoring technology has greatly improved and hence, the number of people under court supervision is rapidly expanding so, in turn, there's little in the way of stopping the police state of expanding ... it's easily conceivable that upwards of 10% of the adult population could in the next decade or so be under some court mandated supervision.
Digressing, but don't think for a second, that the courts alone are going to stop technology, such as the vans, from being used for searching people / property - only a revolution, or more ideally, some power-elites, choosing to put freedom of citizens ahead of profits and power will. Anything else is wishful thinking. In the meantime, about the best one can do is be aware of these things / educate others and navigate the system best one can.
Ron
Re:Purpose? (Score:3, Insightful)
Living in fear all of the time is a neurosis for some, and psychosis for others.
You really believe that these measures are somehow abetting freedom, or liberty? They were a great excuse for a paranoid administration to lay seige on Americans, and heaven-forbid anyone wanting to come to the US. It was a great excuse to tromp and trump freedom, the US Constitution, and give bullies everywhere the Fear Card.
Re:Purpose? (Score:4, Insightful)
However their have been attempted attacks so unlike your tiger and elephant repelling rock there is data to suggest that their is a real threat still.
The problem remains that 99.99999% of the thwarted attempted attacks have been retired military officers trying to carry tiny little swiss army knives on their keychain, and mothers trying to carry bulk supplies of baby formula onto the plane. Thats what happens when you let people set their own metric of success.
Re:Ah, the Real Motivation is Drug War and Money (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No no no no no! (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on the crime. If you are talking about someone bombing a major event, then 50% odds might not be so bad. If you get through, you blow up people inside the event. If you get detected, you blow up in the middle of a gaggle of people waiting to get in. Either way, it's pretty much the same.
And if you talk about a coordinated attack, it gets worse. Once the first guy is detected, he detonates. When the others hear the explosion, they detonate too. You have some terrorists inside the gate; some outside. Either way, you catch a bunch of people as they run away from the initial blast.
Re:Purpose? (Score:5, Insightful)
The deterrence value of a security measure is just about un-measurable
Actually, its incredibly measurable.
There are books, discussion boards, etc, dedicated to this topic. There is a huge market for people measuring the cost of risks. Is it better to make your car perfect, or save $100million on development, but have X number of "incidents" which lead to an average payout of $Y.
The interesting thing is that the government has decided to do everything in its power to ignore that risk/reward ratios. they want to get rid of all of something, which is silly, they should want to get it down to a certain, acceptable level, then focus time and money on something else.
Bruce Schneier said it best. the ONLY two things that have improved airport security is bulletproof doors on a cockpit, and a public that understands what the plane can be used for. People will stand up and fight, and no pilot will open the door because someone is threatening to hurt the flight attendant.. Everything else is just security theater.
Re:Purpose? (Score:2, Insightful)
What are you on?
Re:Wait, FOX? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sauce for the gander. (Score:5, Insightful)
Reporters and news operation executives are NEARLY unanimous in contributing to Ds and not to Rs. >80% typically. (Plenty of documentation on that is available, thanks to campaign finance reporting laws.)
You appear to be confused. The OP was discussing the organization itself (that is, who ultimately controls things), not the private citizens employed by the organization. You then quoted statistics about private citizens giving.
If you can't see the difference, consider what it would mean to an employee that the organization that signs their paycheck, and determines whether they'll be employed tomorrow, is invested in one party winning over the other.
You're comparing apples and oranges.
Re:Purpose? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wait, FOX? (Score:1, Insightful)
The primary driver behind Fox news is advertising dollars. While Murdoch seems to place a certain lean about the politics his content producers churn out. The primary driver isn't so much what side of the fence the story is on nor how factually correct it is as long as it is viewed as sensational in the eyes of the public and they can get away with saying it.
Mmmm, no.
Fox News was founded to drag the country to the right.
The advertising dollars are just a tasty sauce on top of the main dish.
Dave
Re:No no no no no! (Score:2, Insightful)
What kind of legal advisor could ever sign off on this?
Probably the same ones that signed off warrantless wiretapping. I guess they're still in office.
Re:Purpose? (Score:2, Insightful)
Living in fear all of the time is a neurosis for some, and psychosis for others.
Isn't that the whole point?
They were a great excuse for a paranoid administration to lay seige on Americans
I don't think this game is only played to the Americans though.
Slightly conspiratorial but, if you agree that tromping freedom is the goal, then isn't it safe to assume that if someone succeeds, or even attempts, to ease things a little, more attacks will follow to grant the "we told you so" effect?