NYPD, Feds Testing Gun-Scanning Technology, But Civil Liberties Groups Up In Arms

CBS New York ^ | January 17, 2012 | CBS New York

[CedarDave]

The NYPD is stepping up their war against illegal guns, with a new tool that could detect weapons on someone as they walk down the street.

But is it violating your right to privacy?

Police, along with the U.S. Department of Defense, are researching new technology in a scanner placed on police vehicles that can detect concealed weapons.

“You could use it at a specific event. You could use it at a shooting-prone location,” NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told CBS 2′s Hazel Sanchez on Tuesday.

It’s called Terahertz Imaging Detection. It measures the energy radiating from a body up to 16 feet away, and can detect anything blocking it, like a gun.

And the idea is causing quite the uproar on both sides of the privacy issue.

~~snip~~

Police Commissioner Kelly said the scanner would only be used in reasonably suspicious circumstances and could cut down on the number of stop-and-frisks on the street.

But the New York Civil Liberties Union is raising a red flag.

“It’s worrisome. It implicates privacy, the right to walk down the street without being subjected to a virtual pat-down by the Police Department when you’re doing nothing wrong,” the NYCLU’s Donna Lieberman said.

[Joe the Pimpernel]

You don’t have a right to record cops in public, but they have a right to zap you with their x-ray vision DNA-disruptor whenever they feel like it.

[calex59]

They are also failing to mention that this is a violation of the 4th amendment. Even if these waves did no damage to DNA this would be illegal according to our constitution. Illegal search and seizure.

[Travis McGee]

[Apogee]

Lead jackets? or jacketed lead? :)