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.

Naturally, there are those who don’t understand that even if you don’t have anything to hide, you still have a right to privacy.

“It’s definitely a privacy issue, but it’s for our safety. So it’s just one of those things, a double-edged sword,” added Clarence Moore of Union, N.J.

“I think it’s good. I think if someone has something to hide and they’re going to worry about it, who cares?” Robert McDougall added.

Others, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, doesn’t think this way.

“It’s worrisome. It implicates privacy, the right to walk down the street without being subjected to a virtual pat-down by the Police Department when you’re doing nothing wrong,” the NYCLU’s Donna Lieberman said.

One particular comment from a person on the street should stop and make everyone think.

“If they search you, you’re not giving consent, so they can do what they want, meaning they can use that as an excuse to search you for other means. I don’t think that’s constitutional at all,” Devan Thomas said.

Whether or not you have anything to hide, there is the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

One wonders how Kyllo vs. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001), would fit into the use of such devices.

Soon, we shall be living in the world of Minority Report, and this “Smart Window” technology Samsung has at CES 2012 is going to help us get there. Ashley Esqueda checks out what’s happening over at the Samsung booth and gives a little demo of the window.

photo by Mark W. Stroud

In a California military base, marines are being trained on how to collect biometrics from civilians. Intended for use in Afghanistan, this training could have implications elsewhere.

Military policeman with Combat Logistics Battalion 4 participated in tactical site exploitation training at the training city of Wardah-Mir, Marine Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif., Nov. 18.

The Marines conducted foot-patrols, room clearing and search operations where they collected biometric data and other evidence on citizens displaying suspicious behavior or possessing contraband.

“We are trying to give the Marines the skill set to assist the Afghan government in criminal prosecutions and to help teach the Afghan National Police these skills,” said Patrick Garrahan, law enforcement professional, Tactical Training Exercise Control Group, MAGCC Twentynine Palms.

Suspects were processed using a handheld interagency identity detection equipment system, which compared their biometric data, such as fingerprints and iris scans, to a central database, according to Apsey.

The training is meant as a way to help marines detect those who make bombs though how biometric data will do that is unclear. One must first collect biometric data on individuals that, presumably, have done nothing wrong. Then, later, when a person is suspected of making a bomb, their identities can be verified with the biometric data already in the military database.

What do Facebook, Groupon and biotech firm Human Genome Sciences have in common? They all rely on massive amounts of data to design their products. Terabytes and even zettabytes of information about consumers or about genetic sequences can be harnessed and crunched.

The practice is called big data, and as the term suggests, it is huge in both scope and power. Analyzing big data enables anything from predicting prices to catching criminals, and has the potential to impact many industries.

The Search For Analysts To Make Sense Of ‘Big Data’

Businesses keep vast troves of data about things like online shopping behavior, or millions of changes in weather patterns, or trillions of financial transactions — information that goes by the generic name of big data.

Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year’s Day, two U.S. malls — Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. — will track guests’ movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones.

“We won’t be looking at singular shoppers,” said Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Forest City. “The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to.”

Still, the company is preemptively notifying customers by hanging small signs around the shopping centers. Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones.

This is a disingenuous response from the company as it is already known that turning off the phone will still leave you subject to being tracked.

The tracking system, called FootPath Technology, works through a series of antennas positioned throughout the shopping center that capture the unique identification number assigned to each phone (similar to a computer’s IP address), and tracks its movement throughout the stores.

The system can’t take photos or collect data on what shoppers have purchased. And it doesn’t collect any personal details associated with the ID, like the user’s name or phone number. That information is fiercely protected by mobile carriers, and often can be legally obtained only through a court order.

“It’s just not invasive of privacy,” she said. “There are no risks to privacy, so I don’t see why anyone would opt out.”

The risks to privacy include the fact that the data collected with the cell phone can be matched to video surveillance cameras in the mall. Your credit card information is also tracked when you make a purchase. Once vendors start to share the information, how anonymous is that data really going to be when joining these databases is such an easy task?

“Most of this information is harmless and nobody ever does anything nefarious with it,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester Research. “But the reality is, what happens when you start having hackers potentially having access to this information and being able to track your movements?”

This is precisely why this sort of research shouldn’t be conducted. The risks outweigh the data that the company can cull later. Just how easy is it to gather the data? Go to the mall with an android phone and start up DroidSheep. Within minutes, you’ll have a nice collection of facebook logins.

As I have suggested before, take the battery out of your phone before you leave for the mall or leave it at home. It’s the only way to be sure you won’t be tracked.

The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents, spanning 36 companies, include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country. The papers were obtained from attendees of a secretive surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C., last month.

The catalog is absolutely incredible and searchable at the Wall Street Journal.

Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors from Ben Mendelsohn on Vimeo.

Lower Manhattan’s 60 Hudson Street is one of the world’s most concentrated hubs of Internet connectivity. This short documentary peeks inside, offering a glimpse of the massive material infrastructure that makes the Internet possible.

Written and edited by Ben Mendelsohn
Shot, animated and produced by Alex Chohlas-Wood

Featuring interviews with Stephen Graham, Saskia Sassen, Dave Timmes of Telx, Rich Miller of datacenterknowledge.com, Stephen Klenert of Atlantic Metro Communications, and Josh Wallace of the City of Palo Alto Utilities.

For blog hits, interviews and more information, visit www.benmendelsohn.com

Some major flaws in this video is that a lot of things have to happen for a supposed terrorist attack to happen. What happens when the person dispersing the biological agent is actually authorized to be in that area? Nothing will happen until the person actually releases the gas or powder into the system.

Does TASS even begin to understand how many thousands of vehicles are illegally parked every single day at an airport? Trying to figure out which ones are just regular people and which one is there to pick up a terrorist or set off a car bomb is impossible to do.

Facial recognition is not perfect and there are too many false positives currently in the systems for it to be accurately relied upon. Many terrorists or suspected terrorists aren’t going to go to the airport. They are going to pick someone with no record so they won’t be detected. Also, how is an RFID detector going to keep track of the person? Presumably, they have an RFID chip in the passport, boarding pass, or both. What happens when that person puts their passport and boarding pass in an RFID safe wallet or sleeve? It won’t be detected and the police won’t be able to track them so easily.

While the truck in the cargo area could be a legitimate threat, not all trucks have electronic seals and there would be no way to know if the cargo was actually opened. Even then, TASS only sets up monitoring on the truck, based on a presumed GPS device within the truck. If this were some sort of plot or something dangerous, simply monitoring it isn’t going to stop any kind of explosion.

TASS then assumes that because all of these things are happening at the same time, there must be a multi-targeted attack about to happen. The fact that any or all of these things are easily explained away points to overreaction and paranoia instead of some type of attack. Given the fact that no one has attempted to do any of these things individually, yet alone combined, suggests that TASS is not only not necessary, but a huge waste of money.

Beginning next year, the ShadowHawk, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UVA) manufactured by Spring-based Vanguard Defense Industries, will be available for an array of missions. Unlike UVA used by the military, which are used chiefly to gain intelligence, the ShadowHawk will give deputies a “bird’s eye view” of crime scenes, search and rescues and large-scale emergencies, Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel said.

“The sheriff’s office has no air patrol unit,” McDaniel said. “To have an aircraft we can deploy quickly when we need it seems to be an appropriate means of equipment and technology. It’s something that will be able to protect our personnel on the ground and the public.”

McDaniel said there has not been any major opposition since the Sheriff’s Office unveiled the drone in late October.

None of the Montgomery County Commissioners opposed the use of the UVA when the grant application was submitted to the Commissioners Court in December, he said.

Of course the county commissioners are not going to object. They are not the general public that are going to be spied upon. Despite the fact that the police department is trying to reassure the public that they are not going to be spying on citizens, that is exactly what this device is intended to do. Naturally, the police department is stressing that the drone’s missions will be specific, such as finding lost senior citizens and helping firefighters. Mission creep, however, is inevitable and it won’t be long before justifications will be made to expand the use of drones regardless of threats to privacy.

Because they can perch hundreds or thousands of meters in the air, drones literally add a new dimension to the ability to eavesdrop. They can see into backyards and into windows that look out onto enclosed spaces not visible from the street. They can monitor wi-fi signals or masquerade as mobile phone base stations, intercepting phone calls before passing them along. Using a network of drones, it would be possible to follow the movements of every vehicle in a city—a capability that would be invaluable to a police department tracking the getaway car in a bank robbery but invasive if used to track a patient driving to a clinic to get treatment for a confidential medical condition.

Given the fact that these drones have the capability of invading individual’s privacy, is this something Americans should be comfortable in accepting without question?