Hidden Government Scanners Will Instantly Know Everything About You From 164 Feet Away

[BUC303]

I'm sure if this happens it will be fun for everyone in the shooting community

http://gizmodo.com/5923980/the-secret-government-laser-that-instantly-knows-everything-about-you

[scratchy]

Forget the shooting community, it's a danger to everyone. Read about the Brit in Dubai. Big Bro is here and he's meaner than the one in the book.

[rockhound]

Good maybe now they can stop touching old ladies at the airport

[blacklabel]

Good maybe now they can stop touching old ladies at the airport

You're kidding right?

At least you know when some douche at the airport is feeling you up, and thus you can avoid it. I see this technology ending up everywhere and it'll be used against "domestic terrorists."

The government truly thinks that they own us and everything that we attempt to possess.

[cofi]

it seems like the more technology advances the more privacy we have to give up to accommodate it :(

[Wiggity]

Well they can't arrest everyone who has explosive residue, drug traces, or anything else this thing can detect. Otherwise 90% of the popualtion will be in jail including police, etc.

[sniper7]

doesn't surprise me. Just another way the .gov is trying to destroy private enterprise. The airlines will suffer first. less people will fly, more will drive. gas prices go up..the .gov gets their taxes. It's all a nice little cycle that ultimately strengthens government.

[SA Friday]

This has serious theoretical problems. The ability to detect a substance only proves that person or item was in contact with another person or substance that had traces of it, Locard's principal of transfer. When two things come into contact with each other, they leave traces of themselves on the other. This happens everywhere, every day. A man sits in a chair and two days before that, there was another man sitting in the same chair that left traces of RDX from his clothing on the chair. The second man got the traces of the RDX on his jacket after brushing up against a third man, the day before, that works in a factory that makes C-4 for the military. The chair leaves traces of RDX on 30 people per day for the next 15 days.

How do you sift through that amount of "data hits"? The only way is to have a level of acceptable trace on any data hit. Much like how they have a threshold for minimum levels of drug metabolites in urine tests. Now you have to determine what an acceptable level of thousands of substances is acceptable and which ones are relevant. I don't know the machines capability to discern different compounds is and at what reliability rate, but the data overload alone would be excessive.

Legally, there would have to be some standard in place if the information derived form these "data hits" would be evidence and at what level. I find it pretty hard to say any hit by itself is nothing more than inadvertent cross-transfer (that's what I described in my first paragraph). There is nothing else to show otherwise. This is also how urinalysis (UA for short) results work. Without corroborating evidence to a hot UA, you really can't prove any crime occurred.

NOW... Take in the fact that these machines are actually conducting searches on persons without a cause and you have serious 4th amendment issues. These could be viewed, if used in open public places, as plain-view discoveries, but I doubt it. One cannot simply look as someone and say "oh, he has RDX trace on him". I seriously doubt it would be allowed to be utilized openly because of this. If it was, any evidence found from it and subsequent to it would probably be ruled fruit-of-the-poisionous-tree. Remember when LE was driving around with IR spec machines looking for houses with hotter heat signatures? That was ruled a search outside the scope of plain-view also.

It sounds like a pretty amazing new analysis tool, but it's more dangerous than any gun I've read about lately if used incorrectly. I remember the growing pains LE had with computers. This happens with new technology all the time. There will be growing pains until established criteria is set in place. There is plenty of info concerning what standards should be in place and how it should be used legally. Time will tell.

[sabot_round]

This has serious theoretical problems. The ability to detect a substance only proves that person or item was in contact with another person or substance that had traces of it, Locard's principal of transfer. When two things come into contact with each other, they leave traces of themselves on the other. This happens everywhere, every day. A man sits in a chair and two days before that, there was another man sitting in the same chair that left traces of RDX from his clothing on the chair. The second man got the traces of the RDX on his jacket after brushing up against a third man, the day before, that works in a factory that makes C-4 for the military. The chair leaves traces of RDX on 30 people per day for the next 15 days.

How do you sift through that amount of "data hits"? The only way is to have a level of acceptable trace on any data hit. Much like how they have a threshold for minimum levels of drug metabolites in urine tests. Now you have to determine what an acceptable level of thousands of substances is acceptable and which ones are relevant. I don't know the machines capability to discern different compounds is and at what reliability rate, but the data overload alone would be excessive.

Legally, there would have to be some standard in place if the information derived form these "data hits" would be evidence and at what level. I find it pretty hard to say any hit by itself is nothing more than inadvertent cross-transfer (that's what I described in my first paragraph). There is nothing else to show otherwise. This is also how urinalysis (UA for short) results work. Without corroborating evidence to a hot UA, you really can't prove any crime occurred.

NOW... Take in the fact that these machines are actually conducting searches on persons without a cause and you have serious 4th amendment issues. These could be viewed, if used in open public places, as plain-view discoveries, but I doubt it. One cannot simply look as someone and say "oh, he has RDX trace on him". I seriously doubt it would be allowed to be utilized openly because of this. If it was, any evidence found from it and subsequent to it would probably be ruled fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree. Remember when LE was driving around with IR spec machines looking for houses with hotter heat signatures? That was ruled a search outside the scope of plain-view also.

It sounds like a pretty amazing new analysis tool, but it's more dangerous than any gun I've read about lately if used incorrectly. I remember the growing pains LE had with computers. This happens with new technology all the time. There will be growing pains until established criteria is set in place. There is plenty of info concerning what standards should be in place and how it should be used legally. Time will tell.

I agree with your analysis here and I believe there should be a threshold implemented before it's use.

[Byte Stryke]

Thank you for coming to your interview today.
We have decided to rescind your employment offer based on the scan taken of you when you came in the door.
Please offer our condolences to your widow and orphans.

[TAR31]

Wonder if it can scan through my tin foil hat?

[ronaldrwl]

Add this to the drones the EPA is using to spy on farmers.

[ben4372]

The government truly thinks that they own us and everything that we attempt to possess.

This is about as honest a statement as I've heard all day. What I love is that few people care.

[rockhound]

i see it as a tool at the airport to decide who needs to be searched.

how is this different than the full body naked photo they are taking of you.

I am not happy about any of it, but if they can scan you and see you are clean and send you on your way without feeling up my daughters and my grandmother then great,

would i prefer to have the hand wand days back of course, but we live in a different world now.

so maybe this can eliminate the politically correct BS way of not profiling the bad guys and get us law abiding citizens through the line unsearched.

the guy with the shoe bomb made it through security because he was not searched. the were searching the grandmother from Iowa so as not to appear to be profiling and violating the muslim POS and his rights.

now maybe grandma can get on the plane and the muslim POS with the bomb in his shoe can be handed a beat down before they arrest him.

[hammer03]

Gonna have to scrub up like a surgeon after a range day or hunting trip if you're planning on flying...

I've seen them swabbing hands at airports, always wondered what the test actually was. It's not like they're running it through a mass spec, anyone know what they do with the swabs? Spray it with an indicator? Just reading your face to see if you freak out?

I see a lot of private sector applications for this wonderful instant id voodoo scanner, but I don't see if coming to market any time soon. Sounds like a fantastic research project though.