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The article seems to suggest that yes, the vans will be driven around randomly. "American Science & Engineering ... has sold U.S. and foreign government agenci
by westbywest 15y ago
The article seems to suggest that yes, the vans will be driven around randomly.
"American Science & Engineering ... has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, ...."
Likewise the image on the 2nd page of the article of an SUV with the driver still inside.
- rdl 15y agoAccording to as-e.com (the manufacturer), the backscatter vans are safe to use with occupants in the vehicle; transmissive search are not. Transmissive gets used for cargo search, since it's better at penetrating. The transmissive scanners have a big boom which arches over the suspect vehicle, emitting, with the receiver mounted in the body of the vehicle. Some of AS-E's trucks do both, apparently. I agree, these vans could probably be used in occupants-still-in-vehicle mode, but there are a lot of reasons why taking the occupants out will probably still be done. In a bomb situation, you want them under your control and not able to trigger it as readily. You also get a cleaner scan with less human obstruction in the vehicle; humans are going to show up as solid objects in the scan, so hiding other stuff in the middle would be a threat.
- Bud 15y agoI trust the manufacturer of these rolling privacy violations to be honest about their health risks about as much as I'd trust Dick Cheney to demilitarize the US government. Which is to say, negative quantities of trust.