The Scanner Says You're Guilty, Sir...

...You're gonna have to be detained and searched...

BBC - Mobile scanner could detect guns


...What's that? Are you resisting the will of the LAW? Taser! Taser! Taser!

British scientists have developed a portable microwave scanner to help police identify individuals carrying concealed guns and knives.

It is small enough to be used covertly, at some distance from the subject. The device is based around microwave radar technology and is designed to pick up the "reflections" of weapons concealed beneath clothing. Some officials believe technology like this could help increase the effectiveness of stop-and-search.

The existing prototype is suitable for the detection of guns, but researchers say subsequent versions of the technology will be able to identify concealed knives as well. The new device employs low-power microwaves to identify weapons, using similar wavelengths as the body scanners currently in use at a number of airports.

However, Professor Nick Bowring from Manchester Metropolitan University, who led the development of the new device, said it worked on a different principle. Unlike airport scanners, the portable machine does not produce an image of the subject, it only analyses signals.

"It is designed to work out on the streets and is not (restricted) to a closed, controlled environment," Professor Bowring told BBC News.

A human operator will transport the device, using it to direct microwave emission at a person of interest. Return signals - microwaves reflected back towards the device - are picked up, sensed and analysed.

"[The scanner] does a lot of computing and processing of the signals it acquires. It puts them all together, analyses them over a short period and makes a decision," said Professor Bowring.
"It works on the principle that the radar returns from people, when they are carrying a gun or a knife, look different. And we pick up on those small differences."

For the purposes of writing this I will presume these things actually WORK. It seems likely to me that the scanners would read padlocks, keys, coins, anything metal as being weapons. If I'm mistaken about that then so be it. But I digress.

Firstly, this is a perfect example of incrementalism in which the airport and airline security fears have been exploited to get people accustomed to being searched without reason. But don't worry, "if you're not doing anything wrong you've got nothing to hide". Right?

Second, as I illustrated above, it's obvious that these kinds of technology further erode what illusion of rights we still have in the face of Law Almighty; guilty until proven innocent and such.

And if you don't like it, what you gonna do, boy, we own you.