Gun detecting Radar

[HyDef]

I'm sure the .gov can't wait to get their hands on this. You gotta love this little snippet.

Obviously, this proliferation of guns obviously poses a big threat to public safety, as evidenced by the unspeakable tragedies in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut, last year, not to mention the roughly 85 gun deaths that happen each day in the U.S.

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/thi...carry-obsolete

[DennisH82]

Besides the hype in the story an important fact was included. "Originally intended for the Army". That translates into, it didn't work we don't want this POS, looks like their original customer bailed and the are on plan "B". I don't see this being a threat or ever actually working, I am still waiting on transporters and flying cars all over the place.

[streaker69]

Every day, fiction gets a little closer.

[ray h]

Besides the hype in the story an important fact was included. "Originally intended for the Army". That translates into, it didn't work we don't want this POS, looks like their original customer bailed and the are on plan "B". I don't see this being a threat or ever actually working, I am still waiting on transporters and flying cars all over the place.

Just because it doesn't work is no reason to not spend a buttload of taxpayer
s $$$$ on it.

[bogey1]

I have a radar detecting gun. And it doesn't like radar.

[IIIIIREPOIIIII]

I have a radar detecting gun. And it doesn't like radar.

[eyecanshoot]

Police testing long-range scanner to 'frisk' for guns on the street
By Kathleen Hickey
Jan 27, 2012
The New York Police Department could soon be virtually frisking residents and visitors for concealed weapons from as far as 80 feet away – without their knowledge or consent.

The NYPD is developing a scanning device in conjunction with the Defense Department that currently is capable of scanning individuals from three or four feet away, the New York Daily News reported.

The scanner operates in the terahertz range, just under the microwave range. Terahertz waves pass through non-conducting material such as clothing but are blocked by guns and knives, both of which are made of metal, a conductive material. The result is a picture highlighting the gun (or other weapon) on an individual. NYPD plans to place the scanners in vehicles to scan surrounding areas.

An added benefit is that the waves can also scan through wood and brick walls, which are both nonconductive.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, was on the fence as to whether the technology was a step forward or back for individual privacy rights, describing it as "both intriguing and worrisome," NBC New York reported.

"On the one hand, if technology like this worked as it was billed, New York City should see its stop-and-frisk rate drop by a half-million people a year. On the other hand, the ability to walk down the street free from a virtual police pat-down is a matter of privacy," she said. Most of NYPD’s physical frisks today – 88 percent – turn up nothing, according to the NYCLU.

Some, however, expressed concern that the technology would lead to more unnecessary frisks. The scanner might not be able to distinguish between a weapon and a harmless metal object such as an iPod, for example. Lieberman asked the NYPD to release more information on the project and technology.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly downplayed Lieberman’s concerns, noting that the NYPD studied potential privacy concerns for three years and its lawyers “[didn’t] see constitutional issues here."

The idea of using terahertz waves to scan individuals for weapons is not new, nor is the NYPD's project the only one. Physicist Jingle Liu of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, lead author of a study published in Nature Photonics, is working on developing a terahertz scanner that could see through clothes from miles away, Wired reported in 2010.

The scanner will most likely be first used by the military to remotely detect roadside bombs, the publication reported. The main sources of funding are the Homeland Security Department and DOD. Other military projects include developing handheld versions of these scanners.

Remote frisking, however, is not the only technology being considered by the NYPD that is raising privacy concerns. The agency might also use drones to patrol the city, reported New York’s Gay City News in August 2011.

The newspaper published an e-mail to the Federal Aviation Administration purportedly from an unnamed detective in NYPD’s counterterrorism division. In the e-mail, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, the detective said the agency was investigating using drones as a law enforcement tool.

CBS New York reported that it may be inevitable that New York will be policed with drones.

“Drones aren’t that exotic anymore. Brookstone sells them,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said in the article. Browne did add that although the NYPD is considering the technology it hasn’t tested or deployed it yet. http://gcn.com/Articles/2012/01/27/N...er.aspx?Page=1

NYPD has been testing this for years. Using could be considered testing right? This is why they are on someone like stink on shit for carrying a utility knife on the subway.

[DennisH82]

NYPD has been testing this for years. Using could be considered testing right? This is why they are on someone like stink on shit for carrying a utility knife on the subway.

Being that this is the PRNY the beow issues will develope with any actual employment of real technology:

1) it will be stolen and sold as scrap in Brooklyn
2) it will break down, requiring a new part that costs more than the budget allows and ties 3 months to ship
3) the operators will get caught using it on a high school girls locker room
4) some 16 year old kid will design a way to spoof the machine causing false positives or no detection of weapons
5) the operators will develope some medical condition from the machine and go out on compensation rendering the machine useless.
6) folks will avoid the large truck, dozens of technicians and precinct worth of cops eating donuts near the target area
7) a drunk livery car driver will kamikaze into the machine and take it out
8) it will mysteriously get shot hundreds of times in a gun free zone.
9) officer lard bottom will attempt to warm his coffee in front of the projector and break it

[Sgt.K]

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly downplayed Lieberman’s concerns, noting that the NYPD studied potential privacy concerns for three years and its lawyers “[didn’t] see constitutional issues here."

They don't see constitutional issues with making a carry permit harder to get than a taxi in the ghetto at 3am, either. For that matter, from what I've read, it doesn't seem like they see any constitutional issues with anything *they* do in PRNY...

[JenniferG]

Does this invention work like Gaydar?