Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving (government) Vans

Forbes ^ | August 24, 2010 | Andy Greenberg

[Clintonfatigued]

As the privacy controversy around full-body security scans begins to simmer, it’s worth noting that courthouses and airport security checkpoints aren’t the only places where backscatter x-ray vision is being deployed. The same technology, capable of seeing through clothes and walls, has also been rolling out on U.S. streets.

American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, 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, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E’s machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the U.S.

“This product is now the largest selling cargo and vehicle inspection system ever,” says Reiss.

[Still Thinking]

But EPIC’s Rotenberg says that the scans, like those in the airport, potentially violate the fourth amendment.

Potentially? This is already settled law. If it's not something a person could see with their bare eyes, it's a violation. Remedial things like glasses are fine, but thermal scanners, no. This is definitely in the thermal scanner category. Off to the hole with them; Bubba's horny.

[driftdiver]

[wendy1946]

That’s about it...