Government developing a ray machine to see through clothes to find guns

If this thing really works I think it might have some great benefits, especially in the medical field. I'll bet it could be used to check for broken bones, cavities in the teeth, etc.. The only problem I see is that it might be extremely expensive to bring into production and our government might be hit with cost overruns on this multi-million dollar project.

Brett - Several years ago I know some evil folks that cut out pieces of tinfoil shaped like firearms and glued them inside of some newly weds luggage lining. Boy, did their honeymoon start off with a bang!

RKBA!
 
The "camera" is not a "raygun" or a thermal imager, regardless of the discussion of the "cold background" at the CCW Reciprocity site (That is just a way to express the measure of passive (spurious) atmospheric emissions.

The millimeter wave (MMW) imager is a receiver that recieves, and maps for display, the images received in the millimeter wave band. There actually is more than one millimeter wave "band". Millimeter wave emissions are effectively transmitted and received in those portions of the electromagnetic spectrum which have the least hydrogen atom attenuation. Practically speaking, that means water molecules.

The most useable (least atmospheric attenuation) portion of the spectrum for MMW activity is around 30 Gigahertz (30GHz). That is slightly above frequencies used for military radar today.

MMW radar emits pulses and reads the returns from a target, just like a normal radar, just at a higher frequency. This MMW camera, however is a nothing more than a MMW receiver (which does not emit pulses, i.e., not a radar) with an imaging display, exactly like an imaging display attached to a normal radar frequency receiver would work ... with a VERY narrow bandwidth of recieved and processed signals and a VERY high sensitivity to the frequencies of interest.

The most effective passive sensor arrays are those that combine multi-frequency (referred to as multi-spectrum) sensors, such as IR and MMW. The sensor arrays are colocated on a platform and collated in axis (boresighted). They simultaneously map the same images and give a LOT of information about the target. This is called sensor fusion, and this my friends, is probably what is being used.

Okay ... (deep breath), my apologies to the forum for going off on a MMW mini-tutorial, but I just HAD to respond to the "ray gun" stuff.

The boy does get spun up.

Sensop
 
Remember the movie "Total Recall" and the spaceport scene?
Is that what they are working on?
The bad news about a "naked" machine is the initial dedication ceremony with Janet Reno and Madeline Albright demonstrating its potential!
 
Just wondering if this could be harmful. Esp if you are "checked out" many times a day. What if you have medical implants pins/screws,rods etc. What if you have a pacemaker?? or have eye/heart surgury?? You know how many years it was until they found out that handheld radar guns were giving officers permenent "blue balls" They put the gun in their lap while waiting for a speader "in warm up mode" then pull the trigger on speeder.
 
sensop,
At the risk of sounding too Spocklike. Fascinating! So what you are saying is that a machine that has to potential to let the blind see, is demonized as immoral and intrusive by some while a god-send to others. Just shows togo 'ya how little things have changed in 2000 or so years huh?
 
Well, even more to the point, this beast is just a machine. It can't do anything evil by itself.

It's the same argument we make about guns being unaware of what purpose to which they are put. I.E., Guns don't kill people, people kill people. We all are fairly sure how evil guns would be if only the military and police had them. Right?

The point I was trying to make when I blasted off was, I don't think this thing "emits". It's more than likely a passive device that just scans or "stares".

Sensop
Live Long and Prosper ;), as Spock would say.
But keep your powder dry and have an easy winter.
 
Somebody give me the airports where it's in use--I volunteer to walk through each one in a t-shirt and light slacks, thus blinding the guard on duty temporarily and possibly overloading the machine (same principle as "breaking the camera" when you were a kid)
:D

Seriously, can anyone provide a link to a reputable source on this subject? It had already been removed from the NationalCCW website by the time I went there. I'd like to send the link to my ethics class which is discussing privacy.
 
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