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

[Purveyor]

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – 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.

MORE...

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/01/17/nypd-testing-gun-scanning-technology/

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

1. I would say that it's warrantless search.

The fact that they're using it to find "guns" is irrelevent. What if a device were being used to remotely detect marijuana on unsuspecting passerbys? Just because an item that *might* be illegally possesed is sought after does not mean that search/seizure rules are tossed out the window.

[DonP]

2. Somebody will probably show up to defend this invasion of privacy, after all it's guns!

Probably some of the same people that support banning firearm sales to people on the Bush/Cheney "Terrah" watch list. Or maybe the ones that think Scott Walker is right to ban guns from some state buildings or the inevitable Bloomie 1%er supporters.

It always amazes me how some supposed progressives are ready to accept pretty much any potential infringement on civil liberties ... as long as it has to do with taking guns from people.

[Glassunion]

5. 18 minutes.

[ManiacJoe]

7. If the cops need a warrant for using IR cameras on your house,

I don't see how this is going to go any different. In fact it is even worse.

[Starboard Tack]

3. Sounds like a cool gadget for catching the "bad guys".

Don't see how it violates one's right to privacy if it's use is in public places. Doesn't x-ray expose your private parts or count the money in your wallet or check your stash. If legal guns can be recognized by such technology, it would be even better. In fact, if it works, it might do away with the "need" for anyone to carry a gun. Whoopee! Wouldn't that be nice?

[ileus]

6. Combine it with facial recognition that checks permits and you've got the perfect bad guy catcher.

Now if only we could herd every citizen through the same gate(s)

[Starboard Tack]

8. Facial recognition is beyond intrusive. It is ultra Orwellian.

[pipoman]

21. Let me get this straight..

Facial recognition is "beyond intrusive", but full body imaging is cool as a mule?,,Got it..I guess..(edit) you must love TSA/Airport security, huh?

[krispos42]

11. Bullshit.

If I'm carrying something under my clothes or in my bag, it's protected from warrantless searches by the police. If you can't see it with the naked eye, or infer it from direct observation of, say, my clothing, then the cops need a warrant or probable cause.

Period.


And regarding your post about facial-recognition software... hey, your face is exposed to the public all the time, unless you're wearing a mast or have one hell of a facial-hair problem. How come plain-sight picture-taking is "Orwellian" but sophisticated radiation detectors that can see underneath clothing isn't?

[Glassunion]

4. Oh joy

Another bullshit violation of civil rights in the name of... 9/11... No er' wait... Terrorism... No uh... Safety... No... Our children... No um... Crime... No...

Damn it! I give up.

[X_Digger]

9. Yeah, like I'd trust NYPD with civil liberties..

google 'NYPD stop and frisk ACLU'.

*shiver*

[PavePusher]

10. Violation of the Fourth Amendment in their pursuit of violating the Second Amendment. Fuck 'em.

If there's a city in more desperate need of O'Leary's cow, I don't know it.

[SteveW]

33. Don't forget the Fifth Amendment, it has the half-life of a mayfly. nt

[PavePusher]

37. That little guy? I wouldn't worry about that little guy. n/t

[petronius]

12. Unless something has come later, it would seem that the USSC decision in Kyllo,

which overturned a marijuana conviction based on thermal imaging due the lack of a warrant, would extend to even the passive remote sensing of objects under a person's clothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States

(Caveat: my only degree in Constitutional Law is from WGU - Wiki Google University... )

[Atypical Liberal]

13. I don't really see a problem here.

I don't see a problem here. If you have a CCW permit, then the government already should assume you are carrying a firearm. That's the drawback to having to have a permit to carry a firearm - you are now on the government's radar as a person who carries a firearm.

So who cares if the government confirms what they already knew about you?

[X_Digger]

14. How do you feel about randomly being asked to empty your pockets?

It's a random search- placed in the hands of the group of cops already most likely to infringe your right to privacy.

‎90% of those stopped and frisked for 'suspicious behavior' were found to have done nothing wrong. NYPD will tell you that it's only a coincidence that 85% of those stopped were non-white. Suuuuuure.

[Atypical Liberal]

23. I am against that.

I don't have a problem with thermal imaging.

The police don't have a right to physically molest me without probable cause.

But they, as well as anyone else, can freely observe anyone (with any wavelength of light they choose) in public.

[X_Digger]

29. The police don't have the right to search you without warrant

If it's not in plain sight, it's out of bounds.

Courts have ruled that using FLIR without a warrant is a violation- why do you think this should be any different?

'secure in their persons' ring a bell?

[Atypical Liberal]

31. I did not know about the FLIR ruling

But even so, there is probably going to be a different standard applied to people in their homes as opposed to people walking around in public.

I can see a case made for going either way. I suppose it will be up to the courts to decide.

[Glassunion]

35. It won't fly.

"it can detect anything blocking it"

So, having a cellphone, car keys, tampons, makeup, a wallet, hairbrush, address book, bottle of Advil and Chapstick in your purse is probable cause to be stopped and frisked?

The police will never err on the side of civil rights especially when given a new toy to play with. I have never, EVER, seen the police use a new technology with care and caution on the side of individual rights. If they scan you an cannot tell what you have, that will be a frisking.

Note... The above list of items is currently in my wife's purse. Sorry honey, but I used you as an example.

[X_Digger]

36. Secure in your person means secure.

A cop can't just walk up and ask you to turn out your pockets or ask you to blow a breathalyzer (absent probable cause).

Your expectation of privacy extends to your person- what a reasonable person can observe. There's a lot of case law about this in regards to traffic stops, and the line is drawn at what a cop could see with his or her eyes.

The other relevant case is Katz- a person using a phone booth. Katz set the standard for a reasonable expectation of privacy that applies to your person, home, papers, effects, etc.

[div class='excerpt']the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. Further, what one seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.

See also Dow Chemical Co. v. United States, in re high tech devices.

[PavePusher]

15. What is this "permit" you speak of, Kemo Sabe? n/t

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

22. In NYC, it's a piece of paper

given to the rich and/or famous, Friends of Michael Bloomberg, and the politically well-connected.

Ordinary folks need not apply.

[Atypical Liberal]

24. Concealed carry permit. n/t

[PavePusher]

26. Sorry, I should have put the sarcasm smiley on my post....

I live in a Constitutional Carry state. Go ME!

[PavePusher]

16. So that makes it O.K. to violate the Fourth?

Ummm... no, thank you.

Get. A. Warrant.

[Atypical Liberal]

25. I believe it has already been settled...

I believe it has already been settled that the police may observe people in public.

They are simply doing it with wavelengths of light not visible to the naked eye.

If you are in public, you can be observed.

[PavePusher]

27. Observe, in the common sense, means exterior visiblity.

This scanning is more analogous to a frisking. Violation.

I'm sure it will get beaten around in the courts. We'll see what happens.

[Logical]

17. If the implement it I plan on carrying a fake gun in my pocked. Made of wood.

[X_Digger]

18. .. coated in aluminum foil. :) n/t

[Logical]

19. Good point. But hell, in NYC that night be a felony!

[Glassunion]

20. IIRC a shop owner was just slapped with a $30,000 fine for

Selling toy guns with bright orange muzzles in NYC.

Thank goodness the NYPD was there to protect us from that criminal. Pay no mind to to the gobblin standing on the corner with a real gun tucked in his pants. It's easier to catch and charge non criminals than address actual crime.

[Remmah2]

28. Good idea.

It'll also pick up knives, blunt metal objects and metal crack pipes. For legitimate people w/CCW's this will not be a problem.

[PavePusher]

32. In NYC? Ri-i-i-i-ght.... Pull the other one, it's got bells on. n/t

[spin]

30. I doubt if this technology will be used in the upper class areas of NYC...

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.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/01/17/nypd-testing-gun-scanning-technology/

People in the richer areas just might have the difficult to get and expensive concealed weapons permit that NYC limits to only the rich, the famous and the well connected. They might actually be legally carrying a firearm unlike the unwashed majority of citizens in the Big Apple who are deemed as less worthy than the 1%. The lucky few with carry permits would be very upset if they were harassed by the police. We can't have that!

While I have no problem with some in the upper class being allowed to carry a firearm, I feel that EVERY honest citizen deserves the same right and that "shall issue" concealed carry is far more American than "may issue" as exists in New York City.

[SteveW]

34. The Mayors Against Illegal Guns will become the Mayors' Guns. nt

[Hoyt]

38. Most folks that carry guns will oppose this -- more indication they ain't really "responsible"

or interested in "self defense."

[ManiacJoe]

39. Feel free to explain your "logic".

How does this warrantless search show folks are responsible or help with self defense?

[oneshooter]

40. That is more of his returning to his police state roots.

[Hoyt]

41. Police state? Naw. Just don't support cowboy state, Oneshooter.

You can keep your guns for revolution at home until it comes.

[oneshooter]

48. you live in Georgia, I'm in Texas

You obey Georgia laws, I'll obey Texas laws.

If you come to Texas then obey our laws, don't go running down and detaining folks to"check their papers". It will probably get you shot, thrown in jail, and sued.
As for me? I have left Texas 7 times since I got out of the Corps. Never been to Georgia, never lost anything there. Don't plan on going there.
If you don't like Texas laws, then stay out. That way you won't be bothered by them. Don't like Georgia 's laws? Work to change them.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[Marengo]

42. How about you Hoyt, do oppose or support this? N/T

[Hoyt]

44. I think if members of "gun culture" really want to reduce crime, we should all support this.

Sure, it can get out of hand, and needs to be monitored. But, a bunch of yahoos carrying guns in public can too. And I haven't even gotten into the indirect effects that most gun culture members conveniently ignore.

[DonP]

45. Let me guess? "If you have nothing to hide ..."?

That seems to be the "logic" of most statist types.

How about "if you have nothing to hide you won't mind showing some form of ID at the voting booth", right?

(Well, as long as it doesn't apply to them of course and especially if it impacts and annoys law abiding gun owners.)

But the minute those random searches come to their front door to look for a machete that was used to rob a local 7-11, or they are required to be strip searched because they were protesting in the wrong place at the wrong time they feel very differently about them. Thankfully the ACLU does not agree with you on this one.

But come on out to Chicago this summer for the G8 and WTO meetings and see what your buddy Rahm is doing with people that he feels may be questionable as protestors. If you have "nothing to hide" you won't mind being arrested or detained without charges for a few days without access to a lawyer or any charges being filed. You probably won't even mind the double fines he's decided to apply to any protestors being held either.

[Hoyt]

46. Bet my rear, that same spiel is on the "Free Republic" multiple times.

[DonP]

47. You may be right. You seem to spend more time there than all of uis combined.

Again noted that you once again failed to actually answer any questions.

[Hoyt]

49. It's a waste of time answering questions posed to rationalize attraction to guns.

[DonP]

50. Yeah, sure ... except the question had nothing to do with guns

It was about your feeling on the right to privacy and 4th and 5th amendment protections.

But feel free to make up another unrelated answer to make your point.

It's far more important that you post what you think passes for a snappy answer than to actually engage in any form of discussion with the others here.

Kind of like your generic rants on concealed carry when the thread is actually about rifles.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

43. ... it can detect anything blocking it, like a gun.

or, like a knife.

or, like a crack-pipe.

or, like a bong.

or, like a colostomy bag.

or, like a hip flask.

or, like a wad of cash.

or, like a stolen loaf of bread.

or, like a bag of precious stones.

or, like a bag of marijuana.

But, if you're not doing anything wrong, what's the objection?