

The DHS's latest airport security device: Terahertz laser scanners - mrsebastian
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/132620-how-terahertz-laser-scanners-will-spy-on-you-in-airports

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droithomme
If these devices worked to accurately identify unknown materials from 50 feet
away, they would already be used in thousands of labs and we'd know
empirically how well they work, whether non-scientists can use them as
accurately as scientists, what the false positive rate is, etc. If more
accurate than a traditional lab spectrometer they would already be used
widely. If less accurate, we don't need them to be used to get probable cause
for "bomb" searches that "just happen" to turn up things like too much cash or
a bit of pot. Even worse, we don't need their results as "evidence" that drug
or bomb "residue" was found. Already we see many people arrested for
"possession of meth precursors" because they have aluminum foil, plastic
sandwich bags and brake fluid in their house. In many cases it is about coming
up with a plausible reason for arresting people these days rather than
actually holding criminals who cause trouble (such as those on wall street)
accountable.

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darklajid
Not sure if you did that intentionally (to make the claim even more
questionable), but the article says "50 meters", not "50 feet". That's more
than 3 times the distance.

Silent downvotes, how lovely. Why? For reference:
<https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1194203/Terahertz.png>

Unless they geo-locate me in Europe and s/feet/meter/ (how stupid would that
be?) I fail to understand what the silent criticism is for.

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pvnick
Your comment comes off as critical and hostile, whereas I'm sure his mistake
was just that - a mistake.

That's why you're getting downvoted. This isn't reddit.

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darklajid
1) 'Comes off as' is more often than not wrong in a text based conversation
where you don't know the other party. I didn't intend to nitpick, I wanted to
emphasize 50m. 15m would be impressive, but 50m is just so much more
unbelievable.

2) 'This isn't reddit' is a bullshit appendix for any comment. Thank you for
helping me understand that the comment might be misunderstood. Let me return
the favor by saying that your last sentence is (objective) useless or harmful,
please avoid it.

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UnoriginalGuy
I like how the article goes to pains to describe this technology as NOT a
visible laser beam and then uses a visible laser beam as their stock photo in
the header.

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kintamanimatt
It's a shame society at large has become so afraid of other people.

~~~
jballanc
Only in some parts of the world.

~~~
kintamanimatt
Fear tends to spread like fungus.

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napkindrawing
Hilarious! So now all it takes to shut down an airport is to sprinkle a bunch
of blackpowder outside in the parking lot for people to track in on their
shoes?

The government is making the "terrorists"' job way too easy.

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daeken
If that technology actually works (that is, if it detects materials the way
they believe it does), that's... actually pretty slick. There are definitely
some privacy concerns, but it's a large step forward both in terms of privacy
and (technical) efficacy. That, of course, doesn't mean that it's actually a
Good Thing (TM) that we use these, regardless; just because it works
technically doesn't mean it's actually an effective way of preventing
terrorist attacks, or that any of that is worth the privacy hit, even if it is
smaller than with previous tech.

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naich
That is a huge "If" at the start there. I'm highly skeptical of their claims -
especially the "50 feet" bit.

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einhverfr
Now this poses all sorts of new issues.

The 4th Amendment issues are quite interesting to consider. This is
programmable meaning it can search for specific substances right?

Does this mean that the use of this device to find drugs will be an
impermissible search under the test Alito articulated for the 3rd Circuit? It
seems that this is a very promising way to get the bodyscanners challenged in
court as needlessly intrusive, and force these to only look for explosives.

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netfire
If this were a replacement to the current backscatter scanners, this would be
more interesting. Since it doesn't seem like this would catch knives or other
non-chemical weapons, this seems like yet another step at the airport that
won't provide very much additional security and could provide a lot of false
positives, as already mentioned.

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michaelfeathers
So what are the health risks of exposure?

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forgotusername
Non-ionising radiation, so assuming power level is low, very little.

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icegreentea
The company (Genia Photonics) is a Canadian startup that builds lasers. They
appear to specialize in picosecond length laser pulses for a variety of
imaging and sensing needs. They've published some papers/articles on their
technology in biomedical imaging contexts. Link to one at the bottom. The
point is that it doesn't look like some company 'inventing' some BS and
pulling one on the DHS. Maybe.

[http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/abstract.cfm?uri=boe-2-5-1...](http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/abstract.cfm?uri=boe-2-5-1296)

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DanielBMarkham
If I'm not mistaken I believe the question the author is posing here is "Isn't
it better to have a passive device that can, from 50 meters away,
spectroscopically determine what substances you've been around than one that
takes pictures of you naked?"

I don't know how to answer that. Is that better?

More to the point, it's not going to be an either-or choice. What'll happen is
that these devices, if they are useful, will simply be added to the armada of
devices already present. And, more importantly, just like all this other tech
being developed for DHS, it'll end up with local law enforcement. In the
history of the republic there's probably been about ten situations where
something like this could have saved lives but now we'll end up with it
everywhere.

When I say the TSA needs to be abolished its not simply because they are
ineffective, expensive, intrusive into my personal affairs, and represent
everything that's gone wrong with the security state. A bigger problem, it
seems, is that they're creating huge markets for people to invent and
commercialize things with really bad applications to my freedom.

A Star Trek tricorder would be awesome, but have we really thought about that?
Do we really want everybody walking around with a device that could see
through your clothes, tell what chemicals you've been around, diagnose your
medical conditions, and so on?

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jstalin
Opt out. Every time.

~~~
marquis
How is opting-out possible in this case?

