If you live in New York and see one those strange white vans shown in the image above, you should know they are counter-terror vehicles, called Z Backscatter Vans which are capable of taking "X-rays" of your vehicle as shown in the insert at the top right of the image above.
Three years ago the website ProPublica filed suit against the NYPD when they denied a request by an investigative journalist for information on police reports, training materials and health tests related to the X-rays taken by the Z Backscatter Vans. ProPublica won the lawsuit with New York State Supreme Court Judge Doris Ling-Cohan ordering the requested records be turned over despite objections claiming it could interfere with investigations.
“While this court is cognizant and sensitive to concerns about terrorism, being located less than a mile from the 9/11 site, and having seen firsthand the effects of terrorist destruction, nonetheless, the hallmark of our great nation is that it is a democracy, with a transparent government,” the judge wrote in the December 2014 decision.
The NYPD appealed that decision — and now the NYCLU has requested to file an amicus brief urging the appeals court to uphold the lower court’s original ruling.
“People should be informed if military-grade X-ray vans are damaging their health with radiation or peering inside their homes or cars,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “New Yorkers have a right to protect their health, welfare and privacy.”
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states "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.
With these X-Ray spy vans roaming around, capable of recognizing "organic materials," while driving alongside other vehicles, doing so without a warrant, which indicates a direct violations of the Fourth Amendment with illegal "searches." International Business News asserts these "White Devils" as the were nicknamed by our soldiers in Iraq, has the ability to see into "cars, houses and what's under your coat, in an October 2015 article.
Z Backscatter technology captures the data from the X-rays that are scattered away from the object, back towards a near-sided detector. This primary scattering effect is known as “Compton Scattering.” The Z Backscatter image is bright white where X-rays scatter the strongest, indicating organic matter, such as explosive material and drugs. Even inorganic objects, such as metals, are given shape and form in Z Backscatter images.
The X-ray vans—which reportedly cost between $729,000 and $825,000 each—are designed to find organic materials such as drugs and explosives. The rays penetrate the metal in a car or concrete in a building and scatter back to a detector, producing an image of what's inside. The van can scan while driving alongside a row of shipping containers or while parked as cars pass by. Customs agencies around the world have used them to fight drug and human smuggling.
But most Federal Drug Administration regulations for medical X-rays do not apply to security equipment, leaving the decision of when and how to use the scanners up to law enforcement agencies such as the NYPD.
The NYPD's policies are of particular interest because many agencies have adopted strict policies to address potential harm from backscatter X-ray scans. When Customs began using the vans extensively in 2010, the agency prohibited their use on occupied vehicles and required that people get out of the vehicles before they were X-rayed.
But because the NYPD has refused to release the department's policies and procedures, it's unclear how widely the vans are being used—if at all, whether they're being used to scan people or even if police are deploying them for routine patrols on busy city streets.
While the initial lawsuit indicates a desire to determine the health issues involved in these X-Ray vans, the fact that New York authorities refuse to divulge the manner they are utilizing the technology, on who, where and whether they are blatantly violating all New Yorker's Fourth Amendment rights, should be receiving equal attention.
Constitutional rights are being stripped from Americans, one state at a time and turning what was America land of the free, into Amerika the Police State.
Minor language warning for the video below by NLB from November 6, 2015. NLB discusses not only this technology, but other tech being used in other states that also violates constitutional rights.
Links to supporting research and reference material for the video above:
