NYPD working to develop gun sensors

[heyjoe]

http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york...sors-1.3458724

"The NYPD is teaming up with the Pentagon to develop a device that can spot guns and suicide bomber vests under clothes, police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Tuesday. The new scanners pick up the body's natural radiation and then spot what is blocking it, Kelly said."

well so much for concealed means concealed. Our right to privacy diminshes daily.

[Crazy88Fingers]

The worst part is, this sort of thing doesn't surprise me anymore.

[sigcurious]

On one hand, I'm all for technology and technology like this being pushed forward in development. On the other I see the abuse of technology like this almost unavoidable in a domestic capacity. This kind of technology would be useful for fighting the types of war we currently engage in where combatant and civilian are hard to distinguish often until it is too late. However at home, even with "restrictions" something like this would be nearly impossible to even prevent casual unintentional misuse let alone purposeful violations of our privacy and constitutional rights.

[MLeake]

Orwell's predictions were about thirty years early... Should have been 2014.

[Tom Servo]

The new scanners pick up the body's natural radiation and then spot what is blocking it, Kelly said

I can only imagine what it would take to power and attenuate such equipment, particularly in crowded places. The potential cost beggars the imagination.

It won't work. It'll be tested, and by the second day the system is live, people will have found ways to circumvent and spoof it. In the end, it'll be a boondoggle and a massive waste of taxpayers' money.

From a 4th Amendment standpoint, I despise it. From a practical standpoint, I'm not worried.

[kinggabby]

From a 4th Amendment standpoint, I despise it. From a practical standpoint, I'm not worried.

I agree. As long as I am legal I am not worried.

[Crosshair]

It's junk tech like that which makes images like this possible.



and then they have the balls to tell us that we arn't spending enough.

[rebs]

In this country the more the government spends the more kick backs and corruption they can get away with.

[BlueTrain]

Weren't things like that tried out in Vietnam, sort of? Or was that "people sniffers?"

[Patriot86]

Talk unreasonable search and seizure, so If I have something metal like a cell phone or a insulin pump under my clothes i'm going to be subject to search because the machine thinks it is a gun? This just goes too far, in Airports I can understand, to get into certain high profile events like new years eve @ time square, or federal buildings I can understand but just to walk down the street is too far. This is a bad idea, because unless it someone JUST sees guns and bomb vests the police are going to be dealing with a lot of false positives and a lot of lawsuits because of it.



If this system ever does go live i would love to organize a protest where about 10,000 people took metal objects vaguely but not really shaped like guns, stuck them in their coats and then walked around NY just causing havoc with police responces. Knowing the NYPD they would probably just open fire, shoot first ask questions later.

[Musketeer]

Reminds me of when they started doing bag checks to ride te NYC subway. The official position was if you volunteer to ride you give implied consent to be searched. Nobody has to ride the subway...

Then, while listening to the Li

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There was a law review article a few years ago, titled something like Superman's X-Ray vision and the 4th Amend.

So issues like this have been in discussion for quite awhile. I'm sure that the differential use of such according to ethnicity and race would start quite the firestorm eventually.

Of course, for some of you it would be quite legit if store owners or employers deployed these to guard their private property castles.

[Musketeer]

Reminds me of when they started doing bag checks to ride te NYC subway. The official position was if you volunteer to ride you give implied consent to be searched. Nobody has to ride the subway...

Then, while listening to the Lionel show on local talk radio in NYC a NYPD office called in and was asked about what was justifiable cause for a search. His answer was "anyone who turns around and not ride rather than be searched.". So you decide not to undergo a voluntary search and that act justifies an involuntary search... That is exactly how this technology would be implemented on a day to day basis.

This technology may not work well now but I bet enoug money is being injected to develop it that this will be common within 20 years. Legislators and Presidents will side with it as "Public Safety" no matter what party they come from. No elected official wants to be known as having voted against a measure which would have spotted a rampage killer. If the SCOTUS doesn't clearly smack this down as an illegal search be prepared for it to become a part of life in a generation.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by musketeer

Then, while listening to the Lionel show on local talk radio in NYC a NYPD office called in and was asked about what was justifiable cause for a search. His answer was "anyone who turns around and not ride rather than be searched.". So you decide not to undergo a voluntary search and that act justifies an involuntary search... That is exactly how this technology would be implemented on a day to day basis.

That's exactly my problem with search procedures today. TSA uses the same general argument. Police in a traffic stop use the same argument. You have the right to refuse a search but your refusal is reasonable suspicion for a non-consensual search. "I can't look in your car? We'll just call for the sniffer dog then..."

You're right, same thing will happen here.

They'll ask permission and do the search if you consent and consider your refusal to be suspicion for a non-consensual search.

[MLeake]

PK, it's a valid concern. However, all things being equal, if it comes to the police finding anything your lawyer would probably prefer it if you had not granted permission. It might give him an angle for getting the search thrown out. Giving permission because you feel like it's pointless to say no will nullify any such defense attempt.

[KLRANGL]

I actually wrote a paper for my "Image Processing for Homeland Security Applications" class on the subject of these new scanners that are in development to detect concealed bombs/weapons. You'd be surprised how accurate the newer millimeter-wave detection systems are at decent range and with low power constraints. Some of the active ones actually create impressive 3D images, and can even use the electromagnetic resonance of an object to determine what the object is made of.
Problem is they are possible to foil, especially the passive systems mentioned in the OP. There are also a few health risks involved that would need to be worked out first.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by MLeake

PK, it's a valid concern. However, all things being equal, if it comes to the police finding anything your lawyer would probably prefer it if you had not granted permission. It might give him an angle for getting the search thrown out. Giving permission because you feel like it's pointless to say no will nullify any such defense attempt.

Beyond violating rights, the problem on a practical level is that they're not going to find anything in my car anyway so if I refuse and they call the sniffer dog, I'm just wasting time. I consider it compliance under coercion. Not that I've ever been searched but if I were to be asked I would probably give consent rather than wasting time waiting for the dang dog.

[MLeake]

PK, not sure how I'd react. I'm not worried about the search, either. I guess it would depend on how much of a hurry I was in that day, as to whether I felt like standing on a principle.

On a sort-of related note, another technological Big Brother-ism that bothers me is the taking of mobile devices to check GPS history, and whatever else they feel like checking. I have not personally encountered the practice yet, but have read about it in newspapers. Seems like an awful lot of power to give somebody, without a warrant.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Speaking of dogs, I'm not sure how this new-fangled machine is all that different anyway.... the police already randomly walk the subways, airports and train stations with sniffer dogs, constantly searching all around. Who consented to THAT search?

[MLeake]

Thanks, PK, now I have the security dog cartoon from The Far Side stuck in my head....

[hermannr]

If you are will to sacrafice freedom for security, you will have neither. NYC is not one the slippery slope, they hit bottom years ago.

The first person they use this on will kill it in Federal court, after the "evidence" is thrown out of normal court.

[jgcoastie]

Originally Posted by KLRANGL

There are also a few health risks involved that would need to be worked out first.

For those of you that do not know, RF (radio frequency) radiation can cause long-term health risks. Namely to the eyes and/or testes of a human, being that those are the two softest tissue types on the human body.

4th Amendment concerns aside, I doubt the feasibility of an "active" (meaning a RADAR-type system where RF is transmitted in a directional pattern and receives reflections of objects to generate an image) system to be fully operational and effective without subjecting unknowing citizens to potentially harmful RF radiation.

I also doubt the effectiveness of a "passive" (does not transmit, only receives a wide range of signals and filters out undesired signals based on what I would presume to be a complex system of filters and processors in such a fancy piece of equipment) system to reliably locate weapons and accurately distinguish them from other everyday consumer items such as watches, metal pens, keys, cell phones, PDA's, etc...

I don't think the technology is there, quite frankly, and I think it's a fool's errand that will result in quite a few lawsuits for many different reasons....

[BlueTrain]

While I understand people's concerns, there will be many people who see the issues differently. There are those, who we may call the Silent Majority, who might be seeing an anarchy versus security issue. Most people will prefer security over anything else, historically (I think), and will see it as a law and order issue.

Law and order as a political issue is nothing new and was very much a hot button topic 40 years ago. Collectively, people forget nothing and there is never any going back to before when something became an issue. It will always be too late.