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Sunday Links
Sunday, August 29th, 2010- Those airport scanners that can see you naked are also being sold to police departments. And they’re mobile.
- Salisbury, North Carolina citizens protest judge’s decision to convict woman who watched a traffic stop from her porch for “resisting arrest.” Good on them.
- Paul Allen: I actually invented everything you like about the Internet.
- NYPD cop says fellow NYPD cops beat him after his wife called 911.
- Remember those protests against the planned mosque on the hallowed ground of Murfreesboro, Tennessee? Someone set fire to the construction site.
- Journalist gives prepaid credit cards to panhandlers, documents the results.
- While visiting D.C., Scott Greenfield chatted up a man who attended the Glen Beck rally.
“Those airport scanners that can see you naked are also being sold to police departments. And they’re mobile.”
I don’t even care about the scanner’s ability to ‘see’ through clothing. If you want to see naked people, just type ‘porn’ into any search engine. And if you want to see ME naked, then buddy… you have serious issues. But good news! You’re only a credit card number away! Just go to http://www.bob.net
No, what I do care about is the ability to bypass the fourth amendment and scan my car’s interior, while at the same time dosing me with unwanted high energy radiation.
The Badge Lickers will quiver their lower lip and say but… but… it’s for the children! They’ll just use it to bust drug dealers.
Bullshit. They’ll use it to bust anyone they even think might be a ‘drug dealer’. And, armed with the self assurance of pre knowing you’re dirty will be that much more up in your face when they stop you for some hinky reason.
Scenario. You’re driving around. You have something in your car that LOOKS like a brick of weed to the scanner. I don’t know, perhaps you have a Fruitcake or a weird loaf of bread. Whatever it is, it’s perfectly legal.
You drive by a scanner. You’re targeted as a drug transporter.
You are now being hunted. Hunted by people that just want to arrest you for carrying drugs. People that are now SURE that you ARE carrying drugs.
So, they pull you over for texting on a cellphone, or not wearing a seatbelt, or whatever mickey mouse reason. Then they ask nicely to search your car. Then 5 backup cops with a K9 arrives.
Then you’re in jail, with some derelict waving his penis at you. Your bail is 5,000 dollars. You’re about to bay thousands more in legal fees.
The fourth amendment is there for a reason.
The amount of radiation coming from these backscatter machines must be tremendous.
But public safety is never really a top priority is it?
LOL what’s your reddit name, Radley ?
I considered emailing a couple of these issues to you, but figured you would bring them up yourself – and I was right !
Re: scanners
So these things can penetrate metal, like the the trunk lid of a car, or does it only work on soft skin vehicles like the bed of truck covered with a tarp? I would assume some radiation that penetrates metal is harmful to humans. Anyone here know more about this?
The radiation dose from the backscatter machines is minimal. Less than a hundredth of an millirem per scan. And they can’t penetrate metal to see into a trunk of a car or whatnot. I would assume that they would be used on the street to see who is walking around strapped.
The pan-handling story was interesting, but nowhere did the author explain what the heck LCBO means.
If you read it and assume it’s just another store it puts a totally different slant on the story. A little search-fu and I think it stands for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.
So a good hunk of the cash was frittered away on booze.
I would assume that they would be used on the street to see who is walking around strapped.
And you’re okay with that?
There’s actually better data for the safety of backscatter x-rays than there is for millimetre wave scanners. I’d focus on the privacy aspects if I were you…
RE: NYPD story
“What’s most disturbing is there were supervisors on the scnee who did nothing,” said Sanders of the Law Firm of Jeffrey Goldberg in Lake Success.
Bingo. This is a common thread in many stories of police overreaction. Look at the Rodney King incident. Was Sgt. Stacy Coon taking charge or was he just another participant in mob mentality? Police officers can become an unruly mob too. Supervisors need to come onto a scene and ensure that officers involved in an incident are using common sense and are in compliance with applicable laws and department policies.
And the racial aspect is disturbing too. There have been many prior incidents within NYPD and other agencies of off duty black officers being beaten or even killed while trying to intervene in disturbances. We’ll see how this case plays out.
From the cop beating story:
“Prosecutors and the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau are probing his claims.”
I’d like to think the entire incident is the subject of a probe, but deep down I suspect they are only dissecting his claims and looking for ways to cast doubt on them.
Not really, no.
I’m just pointing out the likely application of this technology. Reality is bad enough without paranoid fantasies of “ZOMG, they can see the drugs in my trunk!”.
From the NYPD Cop getting beaten by NYPD Cops:
Hahahahahahah
Moron.
How is this not a warrantless search without probable cause?
I’m in the Army and I am deployed to Iraq right now. we use the Backscatter at our entry control points to scan vehicles. If we get cars with infants or small children then we make the kids get out before the cars passes by the backscatter because we are concerned about the radiation.
NYPD cop says fellow NYPD cops beat him after his wife called 911.
If Officer Larry Jackson were instead one of the responding officers in a similar situation, he’d have
a) Participated in the general beatdown.
b) Not participated but remain silent about the abuse during and after the fact.
c) Not participated and filed formal complaints against his “brothers in blue” for physical abuse upon returning to the station.
I don’t think even Larry would suggest that c) is the correct answer.
#15 J sub D:
That is pure speculation. The issue here is what happened to Larry Jackson. Speculating about what Jackson might have done in a similar situation minimizes the seriousness of what has apparently occurred. Surely you don’t mean to suggest that Larry Jackson “had it coming” just because of his employment status. That wouldn’t be a fair-minded and just attitude. That would be a purely punitive attitude.
If a situation gets out of control, the best thing a conscientious officer can do for the public, for himself/herself and for his “brothers in blue” is to say “that’s enough” or physically intervene to ensure that the use of force does not become excessive. If that means drawing down on another officer, then it may have to come to that. Officers who get sick and tired of seeing stories like this in the newspaper are going to have to stand up and take charge. They will have to become the example to follow, because police executives and politicians are failing miserably at changing the direction of American policing.
“Opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer; they are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.”
..and…
“Others took their opposition further, spray painting a sign announcing the “Future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro” and tearing it up.”
…and…
“”No mosque in Murfreesboro. I don’t want it. I don’t want them here,” Evy Summers said to WTVF. “Go start their own country overseas somewhere. This is a Christian country. It was based on Christianity.”"
After all that, are we really surprised by…
“Remember those protests against the planned mosque on the hallowed ground of Murfreesboro, Tennessee? Someone set fire to the construction site”?
I wonder if other protesters would be as okay with penalizing all protesters because of the actions of one or two (or more) violent individuals as they are with penalizing all Muslims because of the actions of a small but violent minority. I’m not advocating that protesters have their right to protest limited because of this event, but it’d be interesting to hear protesters explain why it shouldn’t be without engaging contradiction and/or bias.
“I’m in the Army and I am deployed to Iraq right now. we use the Backscatter at our entry control points to scan vehicles. If we get cars with infants or small children then we make the kids get out before the cars passes by the backscatter because we are concerned about the radiation.”
No offense to you and your work, BrentM, but if the other reports about the lack of risk of radiation are true, it would seem to indicate that whomever instituted that policy doesn’t know what he/she is doing.
J sub D.
“How is this not a warrantless search without probable cause?”
It is a warrantless search without probable cause. As such, it’s not useful in a court room. But I don’t think any Police Agency will ever use it for that.
They’ll just use it to find vehicles on the road to target for a stop. Then whatever mickey mouse reason for a search will be used, including the old standby “The K9 alerted”.
If these vans start to be widely used for drug interdiction… I predict 3 things will happen:
1) More drugs will be interdicted.
2) Use of the vans will be covert. ALL efforts at transparency and FOIA requests will be blocked by all means possible.
3) The incidents of innocent people stopped and arrested for things that ‘look’ like drugs will rise dramatically.
Ancillary results:
The success in interdiction will fuel further deployment. Thus increasing predictions 2 and 3.
The increase in innocent people pursuing lawsuits will rise, but be met with ‘reforms’ driven by the Law and Order crowd to make these “Lawsuit Chasers” stop interfering with the police’s god given right to get drugs off the street.
NostraBobmas has spoken!
I like the idea of police beating their own. My dream is for two different police departments to get in a shootout with each other. Then they could investigate each other and find that all went according to procedure.
The homeless credit card story made it seem like most homeless people would be nice enough to return the card and then hang around and chat with the donor. In most US cities this would NOT be the case. But this happened in Toronto, so…
It all depends on the town and each person. Some towns generally have nice and friendly homeless people, but the homeless in some places can make you loathe all homeless people because they are such assholes about the whole thing.
Note to those of you who think it was funny for Officer Larry Jackson to get beat up by “his own”: You are endorsing unwarranted government violence. If that is libertarian, then I feel better today for not being a libertarian.
“…the homeless in some places can make you loathe all homeless people because they are such assholes about the whole thing.”
Is this a joke?
#16 & #22
I doubt that’s what J sub was getting at. More that Mr. Jackson’s awareness and concern about police brutality is highly situational (i.e. he cares only when it’s happening to him and his). The vast majority of cops would most likely take option #2 on J sub’s list of three possibilities; most aren’t sociopaths, but merely are mediocre officers who go along to get along.
Helmut #22, You’re right. I shouldn’t have laughed when I read that headline but I guess its just a feeling of “Now YOU know how WE feel.” But you’re right. I don’t want to be happy over anybody getting that kind of treatment,
Helmut, I don’t see where J sub D says anything about whether Mr. Jackson ‘had it coming’ or not. I *do* see completely possible speculation about how his reaction would have been different if he’d been on duty and at the same scene on the other side.
The only person who’s posted anything about ‘liking’ the situation is JS. I think if you’re seeing more than that, you’re mistaken, at least here. I know that I don’t want to see people beaten by the police, no matter who they are. But if a situation where the thing that is going to happen anyway (because we know these packs of cops do get out of control and do these things) then stories like this are helpful because it’s not just “Oh, it was some lowlife criminal who had it coming”. It’s not someone who has low social status and can just be dismissed. And that’s what’s bad about it, that this has to happen to someone ‘important’ or someone who ‘means something’ before anyone in these cop shops takes any note.
One thing to mention about the cop article, the cops I had trouble with last week were out of the same precinct mentioned. This doesn’t surprise me.
[...] (Via Balko, who has me wondering why he included this non-story.) [...]
“”Who do we call now?” said Charlene Jackson, a city bus driver. “It’s very hurtful to know you can’t trust the police officers in your neighborhood. I feel like the 113th Precinct is our enemy.”"
Well put, Ms. Jackson.
I also think that Mr. Jackson should be applauded for recognizing that being off-duty meant just that and that he sought the assistance of on-duty officers rather than going rogue and just blasting those he came up against. Obviously, that should normally go without saying and without the need for applause, but given the pattern of cops thinking they can do what they want, when they want, to see Mr. Jackson not think that his employment as a police officer entitled him to act differently stands out.
Highway “stories like this are helpful because it’s not just “Oh, it was some lowlife criminal who had it coming”. It’s not someone who has low social status and can just be dismissed. And that’s what’s bad about it, that this has to happen to someone ‘important’ or someone who ‘means something’ before anyone in these cop shops takes any note.”
That’s exactly right. It’s a shame it has to be that way but it is. Nobody cares if the cops beat poor people or black people or woking class white people but when they beat a cop, or a judge then maybe people will wake up that the monster that they’ve created and encouraged for so long is eventually going to turn on their kind too.
#22 | Helmut O’ Hooligan
‘Note to those of you who think it was funny for Officer Larry Jackson to get beat up by “his own”: You are endorsing unwarranted government violence. If that is libertarian, then I feel better today for not being a libertarian.’
I’m not laughing, but I always think it’s poetic when a cop or guard gets a wake up call. I always come away from the articles hoping we have a new advocate.
On the Tennessee mosque story. the people of Tn. have done this sort of thing before. Afew years ago there was talk in the legislature of a state income tax. Protesters showed up outside the legislature after this was broadcast on a radio talk show. the legislature immediately shit their pants, closed down the session and ran out the back door. Another time a prison was going to be built where people didn’t want it to be. Several large mechanical devices, dozers etc.etc. were wrecked and possibly destroyed over several nights. People have also been known to fight annexation by calling 911 or the equivelant and firing at the officers who responded. These things were all reported in the newspapers at the time and I imagine on tv too. Thats how I heard about them.
Couple quick notes on the x-ray vans. As a physicist with deep knowledge of the subject (deep enough I have to stay anon for this post) I can positively confirm that there is absolutely no radiation risk from these technologies. The x-ray doses are vanishingly small, completely negligible compared to background radiation, and even more minuscule compared to the amounts needed to cause damage. For #4 and #5, yes, as can be seen in the pictures, the x-rays can see through steel into vehicles and trunks, and no, really and truly, this doesn’t mean that there ‘must’ be a high dose of x-rays.
As for the civil liberties issues, which I am very sensitive to (hell, I annually give money to our host), I’m not too concerned right now. These types of machines are being used only for checkpoint screening (airports, borders, etc.) and for explosives and drug detection in cars/trucks. Most importantly, in the US, all instances are clearly communicated to those about to be inspected. That being said, as they become more widespread to police and government agencies, covert searches will be a serious risk, and I would hope and expect that that law would rule that any such search is a 4th amendment violation.
#18-
These people don’t care about exposing bias. They are openly and unabashedly anti-Muslim. Their bigotry is not being hidden. They are not trying to pass themselves off as tolerant of the vast majority of Muslims. They hate Islam, pure and simple. They hate Muslims. To these people, the idea of a non-terrorist Muslim is an oxymoron.
Islam is their enemy. Would you be ashamed to admit you hate Nazi’s? Of course not. For these people, Muslims are no better than Nazis, they are undeserving of the rights the rest of us enjoy, because one cannot be simultaneously Muslim and American.
You just can’t reason with people like that. You can’t change their minds with carefully considered arguments and rational thought. You must either ignore them or use force against them when they infringe on the rights of a minority.
Personally, I’m hoping to god one of them does something really stupid and I have an excuse to crack some ignorant redneck skulls.
As far as the 4th ammendment goes, almost all the cops I see on I 40 pulling people over and going through their shit are K9 units. Either Williamson County Sheriff or 23rd drug interdiction district. They have streamlined the process.
As far as the mosque in Murfreesboro goes-a mosque in GA burned down not long ago and the guy who torched it was Muslim so who knows?
RE protests, there was supposed to be a FEMA or HS checkpoint run down in Whiteville (yeah, I know) and protests got it stopped. I guess it depends on whose bullock is getting sacrificed.
I wonder if/when the fire will be designated an act of terrorism. What’s that you say? There is no evidence that the guilty part was Muslim? I guess that means it won’t be. Ho hum.
Keep in mind that a looney lefter stabbed the Musli. Cabby in NYC, Russ Carnahan’s office was set on fire by his own staff – in both cases people assumed it was a right-winger until the truth came out. I’ll wait and see in Murfreesboro.
#33, Anon;
Yeah, apparently the actual amount of radiation from these devices is really small. Like, if you were dry humping the van while it directly scanned your genitals you would only receive a dose equal to being in an airliner for 15 minutes at altitude getting just background radiation. That’s really small.
The real issue is the covert use. There is ALREADY virtually no privacy right left while in your car, nearly any mickey mouse excuse is acceptable for a search.
But even then, there is a NEW threat. If the cops know, KNOW for sure because they just scanned your car, they will STOP AT NOTHING to search it. They will become VERY creative in finding new ways to legally search your car that require no PC from the scan van.
The danger here, aside from the obvious police state of sending people transporting a basically harmless weed around for commerce, is the false positives from mistaking non-drug items for drugs.
The fallout will not result in the non use of the technology, it will result in an increased Police state to FACILITATE the use of the technology.
It’s giving the police the technology to just drive by a car and tell if it’s utterly jacked with coke hidden in the frame. It specifically identifies things composed of low atomic mass particles… that’s all life. All organic compounds. Coke and Pot are made of Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Hydrogen… All low atomic mass. So are Fruitakes and weird loaves of bread. Nutraloaf, too. The false positives will all come down to the shape of the item.
So how do you block these x-ray vans?
Like any “off-duty cop gets beaten/killed by cops”, this one follows familiar paths. If he didn’t greet the cops with his badge, he wasn’t well-trained.
I’d like to try to get a job as a FOP spokesperson, here’s my announcement: “The officers in question responded according to procedures and their training in response to a distress call about an armed individual. Each of the officers involved should be praised for putting their personal safety aside to protect innocent people. The officers suffered injuries that will most likely require paid time off to rehabilitate.”
Then, I’d go to the cop who got beat and say something like “Look, you like to beat people up when you’re in uniform, right? OK. Obviously, your brothers in uniform made a mistake beating you up (because you’re a cop), but don’t ruin the good thing we got here. However; if you do sue and get a lot of money from the city, we may have a new racket: Purposely beat the shit out of each other and settle with ourselves for huge amounts of cash. MAKE IT RAIN!”
@#39 Tom:
Per #38 Bob, you simply line your vehicle with low atomic mass matter. Graphite sheeting should do the trick. That, or carbon fiber.
I don’t know if it would work, but it would be an interesting experiment to try.
CRN
Not worried about the scanners. The first time cops find out we have terminator robots, alien lizards wearing human-skins, and Roddy Piper’s skeleton aliens living among us…there’ll be hell to pay.
Im not sure how much difference the scanners will actually make. The Supreme Court has pretty much shredded the 4th amendment when it comes to traffic stops. A cop can pull over anyone for some hokey reason, like going 5-10 mph over the speed limit, not wearing a seat belt, or supposedly “weaving” or “following too closely.” This is often done if the driver, passenger, or vehicle fit the “drug dealer/courier” profile. Once pulled over the police can “request” to search the vehicle without probable cause, or search without permission if they claim to smell pot (I never believed those police reports which claimed to have smelled pot from outside a closed car, with the windows rolled up, until I smelled it coming from a few such cars myself).
Since the SCOTUS has ruled that an exterior sniff by a dog is not a search, another frequent tactic is to pull over a car for any traffic infraction, then have a dog sniff around the car while the cop is checking the license/registration and writing a warning/ticket. Totally legal and no p.c. is required for an exterior sniff. And of course the cop can say the dog “alerted” whatever the hell that means. An “alert” according to most state supreme courts = p.c. for a search.
If you are so friggin hip Steve, and hate being around rednecks, why are you in Ohio?
I live in Ohio and see a lot more hipsters than rednecks on a daily basis.
Yeah, for the record Ohio isn’t nearly as redneck as its neighbors. In fact, it is the diverse demographics of the state that make it such a valuable prize in national elections. We have billionaire businessmen and really really bad ghettos and huge metropolis cities and tiny farming towns and suburbia and manufacturing all in one state, so it’s really a microcosm of America as a whole.
The redneck population of Ohio is a tiny minority that is very easy to ridicule. The SE part of the state is very Appalachian, and very ignorant.
There’s also a massive mosque about 20 minutes outside Toledo.
Larry Jackson’s story is hard to believe. Some thugs armed with a gun and some clubs are outside menacing. So his wife calls 911 (makes sense) while he goes out in his “awesome chef” apron (great) and no badge (brave) or gun (awesome). While the jedi-chef-cop is working his mindtricks on the thugs, people in the house ignore the thugs outside, and start fights among themselves, creating more problems for him to clean up. When the cops get there, just as our jedi-chef-cop is trying to explain that he’s the homeowner and he’s already solved the problem, his niece yells about the fight inside thereby inviting the cops in. And instead of standing aside while the cops give his niece and her friends the beating that he must want to give them himself, he throws himself into the middle of things. I don’t buy it.