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Getting Some Rays: Forget Radar, Now the Government Is X-Raying You as You Drive
If you have been feeling uneasy about having to be X-rayed by a Transportation Security Administration goon who can look under your clothes every time you fly, consider this: at least you can say no, and agree to be subjected to an old-fashioned full-body search.
No opt-out for the latest in anti-terror technology though, with reports just out in Forbes Magazine and the Christian Science Monitor that the Homeland Security Department has purchased 500 mobile X-ray vans called ZBVs that can scan cars, trucks and homes without the drivers even knowing that they're being zapped.
These vans, made by a Massachusetts company called American Science & Engineering, are fitted out with what are called Z Backscatter X-ray devices, which aim a focused X-ray beam that reportedly has the capability of penetrating 14 inches of steel.
In theory, the device is supposed to be safe for human targets, because it is operated at a distance, and because the beam is weakened by penetrating the metal of a vehicle before it reaches a person. But the flaws in this kind of reassuring safety calculus are readily apparent in a photo of a small truck carrying contraband that accompanies the Christian Science Monitor story. The X-ray image, after penetrating the truck cab's metal body, clearly shows the contraband behind the driver's seat, but it also just as clearly shows the shadowy outline of the driver of the pickup. Worse yet, even his window is half-way down, so there is no shielding at all of the X-rays hitting his head.
We can expect these mobile X-ray vans to be proliferating around the country soon, if they're not out there already, but they may be hard to spot. As American Science & Engineering says in a note to investors on the company website:
A breakthrough in X-ray detection technology, AS&E's Z Backscatter Van is the number one selling non-intrusive mobile inspection system on the market. The ZBV system is a low-cost, highly mobile screening system built into a commercially available delivery van.
Prof. Peter Rez, a physicist a Arizona State University who specializes in X-ray technology, and who has been doing research on backscatter X-ray dosages, says that if used properly, the radiation doses received by targeted persons would be very minute, but then he notes that if the government begins a major campaign of surreptitious X-raying on highways and at locations of security concern (the machines are already being used at major sporting events like the Superbowl), there have to be concerns about whether the machines are being maintained in proper working condition (driving them around on America's run-down highways is subjecting the machines to quite a beating), and about whether the operators are using them properly.
This is even the case with airport X-ray machines, he says, where the doses are very low, but the actual beam is quite powerful. Since X-ray beams cannot be focused, two moving mechanical parts are used, including a spinning wheel with a small series of holes in it, so that what reaches the targeted individual is just short bursts of X-rays. If either of those moving mechanical parts broke down while a person was being zapped, though, Rez says the person would be "fried" by a major X-ray exposure. "I was assured by the government that the machines have a fail-safe system so they shut down instantly if the moving parts fail," he says, "but BP had a fail-safe system too, and we saw how well that worked. For my part, I wouldn't go through an X-ray scanner unless they could show me a very low documented failure rate!"
Arjun Makhijani, an engineer and physicist with the Institute of Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland, also points out that any safety studies for the backscatter machines are referring to their effect on average adults. But if the government is scanning moving vehicles on a highway, or looking inside trailers, for example to spot smuggled immigrants (the metal-piercing backscatter machines are being installed at border crossings on the Mexican border), there is no way to know when they are exposing children or the fetuses of pregnant women, both of which populations are far more vulnerable to damage from ionizing radiation than an average adult.
Americans in Atlanta got a taste of this latest government intrusion into their lives when Homeland Security last Tuesday ran what it called a "counterterrorism operation" not prompted by any specific threat. They set up one of their ZBV vans on I-20 and snarled traffic for hours while all trailer trucks stopped and scanned by Homeland Security personnel.
ThisCantBeHappening has also learned that the US military has been operating backscanner X-ray machines on the streets of New York, where it has been aiming the devices even at pedestrians. One location where this was done was outside the United Nations building on 1st Avenue in Manhattan.
The mobil X-ray vans are only the latest step in a steady march by the American government towards a total national security state, where citizens can expect to be monitored in everything they do. Cities are installing video cameras all over the place, allegedly to fight crime and catch drivers who run red lights or speed. And just last week, the Obama administration announced that it was seeking to expand monitoring of communications to include non-phone systems like Skype and Google Phone, and that it would require internet communications providers to provide it with customer messages, even encrypted ones.
What makes the new mobile X-ray campaign even worse is that, like the airport X-ray machines, they are unlikely to work as advertized. For example, as Prof. Rez notes, the one thing that the airport X-ray devices cannot detect is liquid or semi-liquid explosives! He notes for example, that plastic explosive, like C-4, can easily be molded to look like a roll of fat on the body in an X-ray. Similarly, once criminals or a would-be terrorists know that the government has mobile X-ray vans on the highways, they can just stay to secondary roads, or disguise their bomb materials to look like something ordinary.
In other words, we all get zapped for nothing.
Says IEER's Makhijani, "I know there can be a legitimate concern about security, but all this is happening in secret. We really need to open things up, so we know how these things work, what the dosages are, how they are being used and maintained, and we especially need to have a thoughtful public discussion about whether we really want this kind of thing to be done."
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Show AllAbout a year ago I was driving on a highway in the Charlotte area of NC. There was a black SUV on the side of the road with to men dressed in black next to it. One had a very bizarre looking camera looking thing, and pointed it at us when we drove by. It was large, and had things hanging off the side of it. I have never seen anything like it before. There were no markings on the SUV, and because I was driving at highway speeds I couldn't see if the men had police/military markings on the black suits.
Truly a WTF moment. I have no idea what they were doing but I definitely did not drive away with a comfy feeling about the whole thing.
Unfortunately pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcycle riders will be exposed to more radiation than drivers of automobiles and trucks.
Good points; should we now have to wear lead aprons whenever we're not inside a vehicle? Like what they put over us when we get dental x-rays?
And progressives wonder why people don't like or trust the federal government.
This is certaianly upsetting but seriously, you see this as a progressive problem? And taints the entire government? They have x-rays so disband the Dept of Education! We're at war so don't raise taxes (on me that is). Whatever will become of us?
The issue is not the trustworthiness of government per se. It is that here in the United States the functions of government at every level have been methodically narrowed, so that now the ONLY function of government is the perpetuation and expansion of capitalism: absolute power and unlimited profit for the Ruling Class, total subjugation and bottomless poverty for all the rest of us.
And what is capitalism? It is infinite greed exalted as maximum virtue, limitless selfishness exalted as maximum good. In other words, capitalism is the rejection of every humanitarian value ever articulated, which makes capitalism -- and government in service to capitalism -- our species' closest approximation to Absolute Evil.
This is a point upon which the Left should be mobilizing veritable legions, including from those justifiably angry members of the Working Class who now self-destructively associate with the Right.
But of course the Left will do no such thing. It is still paralyzed by the anti-blue-collar schism generated by the Vietnam War -- the venomous hatred and contempt of the draft-exempt bourgeoisie for those of us who served.
Thus the Left fails to understand a basic truth of the new paradigm that has replaced the former social contract: that now (save of course for the fat-cat capitalist aristocracy) we are ALL Working Class -- and therefore we are all equally subject to enslavement and extermination.
WOW..lorenbliss..great comment
They have had these 'fixed' x-ray scanners at or near ports of entry, like just north of Laredo TX on I-35, all traffic is 'inspected'. One of the main excuses is looking for illegal aliens stowed away in YOUR vehicle. Don't get caught allowing any stowaway, because of the 10yr prison sentence+$25,000 fine. They also have the 'guard with dog' that inspects the old fashioned way. I wouldn't be surprized if they have an x-ray in their drone flying observation post.
Not much I can do about x-rays..this gov. has always thought them useful and harmless, even tho I disagree that x-rays are harmless.
whocares;)
That's all right. X-Rays are harmless, so is depleted Uranium, Agent Orange, and countless other invasive poisons that are inflicted upon us. Just ask the government, they'll tell you.
(Note: This is an expression of resentment toward government.)
Thanks for this article. I don't like that these things can be used on anyone at any time. Could harm infants and fetuses especially. Not cool.
unreasonable search or seizure come to mind? Welcome to the fascist USA.
'unreasonable search or seizure'
How do you Socialists come up with such nonsense?
We are completely Fu%^ed. Oh sorry, that word is no longer appropriate. Ok then, we are in a terrible mess, darn it.
Appropriate or not, your first sentence is absolutely 100% correct.
One thing the author did not mention is this: radiation is cummulative. One zap from an airport scanner might not give you cancer, but if you're a frequent flyer, have had chemo or radiation treatment, or are immune-suppressed, you will be at risk. This is all about money, not security. They are killing us slowly with radiation to prevent us from what? The companies making these WMDs are profitting from the campaign of fear Democrats and Republicans mounted after 9/11. If this government really gave security high priority, it would cut its ties with Israel, talk to the Taliban and Iran, and stop murdering Muslim civilians. The US government's policies are the root cause of all threats against Americans. Our government makes us insecure.
DONNA: Wise post. Thank you for sharing your insights.
Admiral Mullen has declared that the national debt, deficit spending, is a national security threat and it is the deficit spending that funds the Pentagon/spy agencies making Pentagon/spy agency spending a threat to national security. Ostensibly, the Pentagon spending is to protect national security and it is the Pentagon that is a threat to national security which means the American taxpayers are funding their own national security risk by funding the Pentagons/spy agencies. Irony or scam, I report you decide, unquote. Of course the purpose of the Pentagon is to protect the worldwide assets of the PREDATORY CAPITALIST WELFARE KINGS, some of whom[SCOTUS persons] don't even pay USG taxes but get the protection, a real racket,USG protection racket. A regression analysis of the huge deficits initiated by Reagan and the simultaneous increase in the Pentagon funding by the Treasury bond proceeds used to fund the deficit show the relationship between the deficit Pentagon funding.
lemme guess,
these mobile x-ray vans are developed and peddled by israeli corporates, like most of the modern day spy technologies have been to all sides of any conflict around the globe.
the full-body x-ray machines at the airports are also made in israel.
No. It's a good ol' American Firm, as I wrote, American Science & Engineering, based in Massachusetts.
If you really want to freak yourself out, check out this promotional video the company has:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAIJVk1028
You'll enjoy the shots of the X-ray van cruising along dense urban streets, scanning parked cars and trucks along the curb. Of course, if there are folks walking along the sidewalk, that's just tough. Zap!
This is truly madness, if you ask me.
Dave
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
DAVE:
Madness, or a step by step plan intent upon introducing greater and greater incursions into the public's civil liberties and now, their very person? Under the guise of fighting terrorism, triggered by an event likely launched by their own operatives, they seek an utter control of citizens. Heck, we aren't even told what's in our food.
"Do want that genetically engineered chicken served with these biogenetically altered seed-stock fries?" The perky nurse queried.
What now governs this nation is a coup in everything but stated name. From handing the banker-theives the public's money, to corporatizing the schools. The soon-to-come raid on Social Security, added to a bunch of sitting Court Justices guaranteed to rule in favor of property over persons in any case brought before them are just further evidence of what's been lost.
To get away with all this, a heist on the very lives of sovereign beings, they must make sure no one knows. And so they have us under surveillance to weed out any "dangerous elements," which of course are those that don't conform to the game plan being furthered, step by step, by the reigning authoritarian Disaster Capitalists.
From X-rays to reading our emails, pre-emptively busting up peaceful assembly of those seeking to promote OTHER... taking it to the next level by applying WAR technology to the control of citizens is, in my view, equivalent to a massive psy-ops. To continue on course, it purposely unfolds in a manner sure to support the public's gradual accomodation to the same boiling waters that tricked the frogs.
Fascism, like the rose, does not need to rely on a name to express what it (at essence) is.
There was an interview on NPR with Justice Stevens last night, the departing last voice of moderation on the SCOTUS. Our fate left now to nine corporate-friendly creatures. Stevens will be missed. If there had been more like him on the court in 2004 Bush most likely would not have been President, as least not with the blessing of the SCOTUS
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130198344
Good article.
I watched the promotional video, which belongs in The Onion, not in real life. I laughed out loud when they said it could detect substances containing Hydrogen, Carbon and Nitrogen. That means it can detect the most dangerous of all objects - The People.
Joe
Install one at the entrance to the west wing of the White House, by 2012 we should have a good idea as to any bad effects of this device! Then we could install one at every entrance to Congress, the FBI building, the Pentagon, the NSA, the CIA and the US Chamber of Commerce! Why the hell should they worry, they all have premium healthcare coverage, right?
Excellent ideas!
None of this bullcrap would have been possible, without 9/11 spawning simultaneously the mother of all excuses to strip the 1st and Fourth Amendments protections from the Constitution, and to create the justification of a Homeland Security Department, which has become like a Chamber of Commerce style director of funds to thousands of corporations that now form the Security Industrial Complex.
But whatever you do, do not ever question the shadow government or otherwise, as per the events of 9/11, or you're labeled a kook.
Signed,
Kook
Since 9-11, the Big Brother scenario has accelerated with blinding speed in the last almost-10 years, with minimal protest.
Imagine Senators Daschle and Leahy being scared off by a bit of anthrax?
Signed,
Cuck (We are a better fit, in our society, than you ordinary Kooks.)
"And progressives wonder why people don't like or trust the federal government."
What a lame comment!
The word is LIBERAL not progressives...and where did you get the idea LIBERALS trust the the government
Citizens must first be greatly disrespected and demoted in value for this kind of device to be employed. If citizens allow themselves to be demonized down, then these types of harmful intrusions will only increase. Citizens are being slow cooked into acceptance of these rights violations. Obama and the Democrats are out oppressors too. Why would anyone vote for an oppressor, Democrat or Republican?
You know, it's amazing. My son just walked in and I showed him the video of this and he seemed to think it was a good idea and then he said, look, they show that the radiation is very low and safe. And then he asked me if I knew about the terror alerts in Europe, and because he heard it on NPR and not on the other MSM, he takes it as gospel. He's 26. How many young people will buy into this and will take the meme that this is a good idea, it's for our own good, it will keep us safe. Is it going to mostly be people over a certain age that know how bad this is and where we are heading? After all, the older you are the more you have seen, the more you are the aware of the progress that the Big Brother scenario is making.
There are an awful lot of people out there who won't see a curtailment of liberties or the dangers of constant low-level radiation -- they will only see the potential terrorists, drug dealers and those nasty illegals coming to take their jobs away -- like the jobs that Colbert talked about last week that Americans are breaking down the doors to take.
Are Americans incapable of seeing the big picture?
Samala, I know exactly what you mean about the younger generation. They're all so used to being photographed, videotaped, and monitored everywhere they go and most of the young people I talk to see nothing wrong with any of it, especially if it's to "keep us safe" and they buy into that "if you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about" mantra. I don't think any of them even know about or understand the 4th Amendment. In fact, I think the majority of Americans are always focusing on the 2nd Amendment and forget the others.
we are the products of an engineered society...if the engineering is done correctly, the subject never notices...
These x-ray machines are a good way to increase profits for the medical industrial complex. Cancer is big business.
Aside from justifying all those DHS contracts and funds, why do you think this government would start becoming so aggressive against every single American?
Any ideas?
Excuse me, but isn't this un-Constitutional??
It's an illegal search without probable cause. It seems they are going on fishing expeditions with these xray machines.
Secondly, as a Registered Nurse, no one should be allowed to issue any xrays against another human being without his/her express consent. These rays will also be hitting small infants/children and pets.
Plus, check out how terribly wrong things went when the CT scan machines at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles went haywire and emitted thousands of times the "safe" dose of radiation to many patients:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-heuser-radiation-cedars-20100926,0,2855992.story
This entire program must be legally challenged immediately and STOPPED!!!!!
ENOUGH!!!
why not just forgo the investigation? We know who the ringleaders are.
It must be a new government sterilization program.
One nation,full of cancer,with no liberty or justice for all.
Sign me up as a "Kook" also, and remember when this all started: 911, the corporate smorgabord!
It started well before that.
I agree with Frank Cash. The constitution has been made irrelevant by the PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act. We the people are now the enemy. That's the point of this whole national security state enterprise. Just don't attempt to convince your neighbors of that. Most people in this country are still clueless about who the real enemy is.
Federal agencies exposing vast parts of the population to radiation is nothing new. 47 years of atomic and hydrogen bomb tests at the stateside Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas and at the Pacific Test Site in the South Pacific sent vast clouds of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere we all share, and via rain and snow into the food and water we eat. This was done under the ageis of the US Atomic Energy Commission, now disappeared into the Department of Energy, working with the US military. One surfaced AEC document termed the hapless residents of southern Utah and Northern Arizona living directly downwind from the Nevada Test Site as "a low use segment of the population." But fallout clouds had effects far distant as when rainstorms brought down large amounts in upstate New York and other locations where grazing dairy cows soon transferred the radiation into their milk. Sometimes it was detected and thousands of gallons of milk was dumped, but then maybe often it wasn't. So anybody here want to certify themselves as a "high use segment of the population" and therefore exempt from radiation exposure?
For further information read Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy by Philip Fradkin or the newly published Friendly Fallout 1953 by Ann Ronald.
Also read "American Ground Zero," by Gallagher. She was a photo journalist who went through the Nevada/Utah and other fallout areas, photographing people and getting their stories, and the government misinformation to keep the guinea pigs quiet.
By the way, I am a nuclear veteran (Operation Redwing, Bikini, 1956) had radiation poisoning and am well acquainted with fallout.
We the People are just frogs in the pan of cold water, which the government is slowly bringing to a boil. By the time we realize it it will be too late. Frog Legs anybody?
(Note: This is an expression of Resentment toward Government.)
To think that my grandparents all somehow escaped from Russia to keep from being used as cannon fodder ... Where is a "free country" now?
Plus - the average American flies only 3-5 times per year. So you might get zapped 1/2 doz times per year.
But we all drive everyday. Which means law enforcement can x-ray you and your car an unlimited amount of times per day, every day, without you knowing it.
And they will. Local cops will zap you; state troopers will zap you; the DEA, FBI, Military Intelligence, and, of course, let's not forget the unregulated and unsupervised 'private security contractors.'
I see a big future in lead-lined clothing...
Any X-ray experts out there ? Is there something like a metal object in a microwave we can carry that will feedback and fry the device ? Wouldn't that be sweet ? Anyone remember aluminum balls in your hubcaps to fool speed trap radar ?
As some responders have commented on the significance of "social engineering" in promoting acceptance of this type of intrusiveness, it may also be worth noting that the U.S. mass media now provide a training ground for active-duty PSYOPS soldiers.
See http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26510.htm
Allegedly the U.S. media are helping the PSYOPS soldiers to learn broadcasting and communications expertise that they could apply in their mission, as the Army describes it, of "influenc[ing] the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign audiences."
Of course, we all trust absolutely that the PSYOPS expertise thus learned would never be used to influence the behavior of domestic audiences. Don't we?
The obvious motive for the capitalists' radical contraction of the economy is the banishment of millions of workers into permanent unemployment and the ongoing destruction of all government services that do not directly contribute to profits – the real meaning of "Jobless Recovery."
Given these givens, the logical next step for the Ruling Class is to find some euphemistic Final Solution by which to exterminate the surplus population before it rises up in rebellion.
This is already accomplished by abandonment and neglect -- the present-day fate of people who are elderly, disabled or otherwise obviously no longer exploitable for profit.
It is why -- with the DemocRats writing the legislation and the GOPorkers providing noise-machine cover -- what is billed as "Health Care Reform" contains a $500 billion attack on Medicare.
In other words, the Ruling Class already employs old age, disability and naturally occurring illness to serve as its executioners. (This is the real reason the United States rejects the principle of health care as a human right.)
What then is to keep the Ruling Class from taking the next logical step of deliberately inflicting terminal illness -- cancer -- by overdosing select segments of the public with X-ray radiation?
And what a perfect cover -- "Homeland Security and the war on crime" (whether as the search for criminals or as protection against criminals) -- for lethally targeting minorities, elderly and disabled persons and impoverished peoples in general.
(See also my response to the 4 October/10:51 a.m. comment by considerthis, for which scroll down.)
God! Even Soylent Green may be unsafe to eat!
(Note: This is an expression of Resentment towards Government)
Looks like a major contradiction in this story, Dave.
"These vans, made by a Massachusetts company called American Science & Engineering, are fitted out with what are called Z Backscatter X-ray devices, which aim a focused X-ray beam that reportedly has the capability of penetrating 14 inches of steel."
VERSUS:
"This is even the case with airport X-ray machines, he says, where the doses are very low, but the actual beam is quite powerful. Since X-ray beams cannot be focused, two moving mechanical parts are used, including a spinning wheel with a small series of holes in it, so that what reaches the targeted individual is just short bursts of X-rays. If either of those moving mechanical parts broke down while a person was being zapped, though, Rez says the person would be "fried" by a major X-ray exposure."
So...can "x-ray beams" be focused, or not?
I don't mean to denigrate the importance of the story here. In fact, the implications scare the hell out of me! For example,
"As American Science & Engineering says in a note to investors on the company website:
A breakthrough in X-ray detection technology, AS&E's Z Backscatter Van is the number one selling non-intrusive mobile inspection system on the market. The ZBV system is a low-cost, highly mobile screening system built into a commercially available delivery van."
Since when are x-rays "non-intrusive"???
Also, donna, writing earlier, is correct; the destructive effects of radiation exposure are cumulative and this has been known for at least half a century. (Not that this is a simple issue of linearity...)
The Department of Homeland Security has already purchased 500 of these "cancer vans"! (Thanks to yohocoma for that expression. It should become ubiquitous.) What other shifty little "non-intrusive" devices have we not been told about? The mere purchase of these vans (let alone their use) should tell us all that DHS is totally out of control...in other words, NUTS, INSANE, CRIMINAL...
Give them a couple more years and we'll be told that radiation is actually good for you. Hell, I've been hearing ads again lately urging all women over 40 to get annual mammograms.
This is actually a psychosis. Radiation causes cancer. Then when cancer symptoms appear, we use radiation to diagnose the cancer, and then if we find a cancer we use radiation to "treat" it. Then if the victim survives five years after treatment we call it a "cure"!
The real irony here is that the people operating these lethal devices should be most worried about them. This country has a really nasty history of down-playing the dangers to the operators---whether of x-ray machines, or scintillation counters, or nuclear power plants, etc.
What's next? Local police departments armed with DU encased bullets?
But "don't worry, be happy, and go out and shop."
-30-
Yeahl Thanks for that. i already caught it in the original at www.thiscantbehappening.net
I typed in focussed at the beginning and then added the information from the scientist about how X-rays cannot be easily focussed. He noted that they actually can be, for example in the case of an Xray telescope, but this is a huge apparatus, not something that can be applied to something like a dental Xray machine or these things in the van or at the airport.
Anyhow, my mistake is irrelevant to the story.
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net