DHS to begin using scanners that supposedly can scan your clothes from 164 feet away.
Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you.
And without you knowing it.
The technology is so incredibly effective that, in November 2011, its inventors were subcontracted by In-Q-Tel to work with the US Department of Homeland Security. In-Q-Tel is a company founded "in February 1999 by a group of private citizens at the request of the Director of the CIA and with the support of the U.S. Congress." According to In-Q-Tel, they are the bridge between the Agency and new technology companies.
Their plan is to install this molecular-level scanning in airports and border crossings all across the United States. The official, stated goal of this arrangement is to be able to quickly identify explosives, dangerous chemicals, or bioweapons at a distance.
The machine is ten million times faster—and one million times more sensitive—than any currently available system. That means that it can be used systematically on everyone passing through airport security, not just suspect or randomly sampled people.
The machine can sniff out a lot more than just explosives, chemicals and bioweapons. The company that invented it, Genia Photonics, says that its laser scanner technology is able to "penetrate clothing and many other organic materials and offers spectroscopic information, especially for materials that impact safety such as explosives and pharmacological substances." [PDF]
Formed in Montreal in 2009 by PhDs with specialties in lasers and fiber optics, Genia Photonics has 30 patents on this technology, claiming incredible biomedical and industrial applications—from identifying individual cancer cells in a real-time scan of a patient, to detecting trace amounts of harmful chemicals in sensitive manufacturing processes.
Meanwhile, In-Q-Tel states that "an important benefit of Genia Photonics' implementation as compared to existing solutions is that the entire synchronized laser system is comprised in a single, robust and alignment-free unit that may be easily transported for use in many environments… This compact and robust laser has the ability to rapidly sweep wavelengths in any pattern and sequence." [PDF]
So not only can they scan everyone. They would be able to do it everywhere: the subway, a traffic light, sports events... everywhere.
If this is rolled out as soon as Tara O’Toole, under secretary for science and technology of the DHS, claimed it would be during her testimony on November 17, 2011, it will become just one of many parts of the American surveillance state.
O’Toole claimed that the DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s first project with the U.S. intelligence community’s investment arm In-Q-Tel – which includes the work with Genia Photonics – is “expected to produce transition-ready technologies in the next 12 to 24 months.”
That means that as soon as 2013 we could see equipment somewhere around one million times more sensitive than what is available now. It can also scan ten million times faster than any currently available system and due to the portable nature, it can be used in airports to scan every single person.
DHS or any of their child agencies like the TSA could easily roll these out to the many places they now operate like major sporting events, train stations, highways and more.
http://gizmodo.com/5923980/
http://endthelie.com/2012/07/10/new-laser-based-molecular-scanner-will-tell-the-government-everything-about-you-from-164-ft-away/#axzz20IrFotm0