Legal Commentary

Report: Full Body Scanners to be Deployed in Street Vans

By Jeralyn

Giving "taking it to the streets" a whole new meaning: Via the ACLU, Forbes magazine reports that the full body scanners being used at airports are being deployed by the Government for use in street vans called called Z Backscatter Vans, or ZBVs.

American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E’s machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the U.S.

“This product is now the largest selling cargo and vehicle inspection system ever,” says Reiss.

Video below of the vans in action: [More...]

Here's the ACLU's backgrounder on full body scanners.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 25, 2010 (boomark / email).