Reply #56: Depends on how it is used.

[jobycom]

If they are really just driving around the streets of New York randomly x-raying, they aren't going to do any good, and they are violating too many rights for too low a gain (even if one believes that rights can be violated for "the greater good").

On the other hand, if they use them at sporting events or other major events in the right way, they could help. Park a couple near each entrance to a major stadium event and scan the cars going in, and you have a chance of finding something. You also have a chance of preventing someone from even trying something. Say a terrorist group builds a large bomb and plans to blow it up somewhere. If they know these things are at NFL stadiums on Sundays, they may decide that the risk of getting detected is too great to risk their bomb on that event, forcing them to a lower-profile target. If they stall long enough, there is more chance they will get caught in other ways. It's the same theory airport security uses. Airport security is not 100%, as we are constantly told, but it is a high enough risk for a hijacker that they aren't going to waste their best materials and people and efforts on something with maybe a 20% chance of even getting off the ground, so to speak. That's why the big events over the last decade have been failed shoe and underwear bombs--they are down to using disposable amateurs with laughable methods. Something will get through sooner or later, but the security measures, as incomplete as they are, make the professionals wary of low odds of success.

Other ways to use these could be to scan suspicious vehicles parked outside a stadium when they do have a tip, or just some reason to be suspicious of a vehicle. If they get a bomb threat, they can scan nearby cars and structures with a drive-by, helping to eliminate having to search each one so they can use equipment and personal on other areas instead. They could cruise Times Square on New Year's Eve to check out the cars parked along the curbs, again freeing up other resources to search more difficult areas.

Nothing like this is going to be perfect by itself. It's just one tool to use in conjunction with intelligence and other search methods.

It can even help the human-based intelligence-gathering, when they know something is about to happen but aren't sure where. I'm still convinced, for instance, that they knew McVeigh was about to do something in OKC but couldn't find him in time to stop him (the post is long enough without my explaining why I think that). Maybe a system like this could have caught him pulling into the city. Maybe not, but the point is they wind up in situations like that more often than we hear, where they know something is about to happen but aren't sure exactly what or where or how. Equipment like this can help, if used the right way.

As for our rights, we've all seen how little they mean. We can be wiretapped with almost no legal procedure whatsoever. Cops can search us on completely implausible premises and the courts will uphold it. Our emails are scanned, our posts here are read (see, that's why I'm sucking up to them with this post, to make up for some of the others I've made :) )... That's all part of the human-based intelligence-gathering. In some ways, being anonymously scanned by an X-Ray truck is probably less of a violation than most we encounter, as long as the courts uphold the laws against using such evidence in court against us if they find something other than bombs or other WMDs.

Despite all those words, I basically agree with you. I'm just saying, there are ways these can be used in conjunction with other intelligence gathering or as part of security measures at major events (tickets to such events contain disclaimers that you can be searched for security reasons already) that can be effective. Randomly cruising the streets isn't one of them, obviously.