IF YOU WON’T COME TO THE BODY SCANNER, THE BODY SCANNER WILL COME TO YOU

ITEM: You know those backscatter x-ray machines that airports want to use to scan you for explosives and take pictures of you naked?

They’re also being disguised as delivery vans in order to do drive-by scans on parked cars, trucks, vans and, well, anything next to a curb.

American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E’s machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the U.S.

Informative yet slightly creepy company video follows.

Reiss claims that the vans aren’t going to be capturing images of naked people, at least not to the same degree as airport scanners.

On the other hand, that’s not really the point. This kind of thing raises all kinds of 4th Amendment issues about privacy, search warrants and police oversight.

What grates even more is that there isn’t any real public discussion about whether it should even be allowed – these vans are just being quietly sold and deployed as though no reasonable person could possibly find anything wrong with giving the police the ability to search yr car electronically in passing and bust you for whatever they find. The abuse potential is staggering.

That said, I can’t imagine a conviction based on something like this would hold up in court without a challenge, so we may see a court decision on this a few years from now.

As for the inevitable “But if yr doing nothing wrong, what have you got to hide?” argument in favor of things like this, this essay on privacy is recommended reading.

Drive-by voyeur,

This is dF

FEEL YR TELEVISION

ITEM: A Japanese research team has developed the world's first 3D television system that allows users to touch, pinch or poke images floating in front of them.

"You can have the sense of touch like poking a rubber ball or stretching a sticky rice cake" when manipulating images, says Norio Nakamura, senior scientist with the research team at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.

What’s it good for?

It is not known when the technology will be put to practical use but its creators see it being used to simulate surgical operations and in video game software allowing players to experience the sensation of holding weapons or sports equipment.

Unless, of course, the adult entertainment industry thinks of some applications.

And they will. Now that we’ve invented touchable holograms and holographic pole dancers.

Close enough to touch,

This is dF