New laser will scan EVERYONE in airports from 164 feet away

 

I'm going to bring these to your attention without much comment for now, but will have more to say later. Needless to say, reading this should tell you we've entered a new phase.

First, from Gizmodo:

Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you.

And without you knowing it. ...

Their plan is to install this molecular-level scanning in airports and border crossings all across the United States. The official, stated goal of this arrangement is to be able to quickly identify explosives, dangerous chemicals, or bioweapons at a distance.

....it can be used systematically on everyone passing through airport security, not just suspect or randomly sampled people....

Back in 2008, a team at George Washington University developed a similar laser spectrometer using a different process. It could sense drug metabolites in urine in less than a second, trace amounts of explosive residue on a dollar bill, and even certain chemical changes happening in a plant leaf....

In other words, these portable, incredibly precise molecular-level scanning devices will be cascading lasers across your body as you walk from the bathroom to the soda machine at the airport and instantly reporting and storing a detailed breakdown of your person, in search of certain "molecular tags".

Read it all — I dare you.

You could (read: "will") be scanned for drug molecules on your person at the airport from 150 feet away. That's a game-changer in the invasive Spook Wars, I would think.

The small, inconspicuous machine is attached to a computer running a program that will show the information in real time, from trace amounts of cocaine on your dollar bills to gunpowder residue on your shoes. Forget trying to sneak a bottle of water past security—they will be able to tell what you had for breakfast in an instant while you're walking down the hallway.

And guess what? It's likely not even safe:

How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA

A new model of the way the THz waves interact with DNA explains how the damage is done and why evidence has been so hard to gather

Great things are expected of terahertz waves, the radiation that fills the slot in the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and the infrared. Terahertz waves pass through non-conducting materials such as clothes, paper, wood and brick and so cameras sensitive to them can peer inside envelopes, into living rooms and "frisk" people at distance. ...

The evidence that terahertz radiation damages biological systems is mixed. ... Now these guys think they know why.

Alexandrov and co have created a model to investigate how THz fields interact with double-stranded DNA and what they've found is remarkable. They say that although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That's a jaw dropping conclusion.

It took the Vietnam War to mobilize the 60s generation, to personalize the risk beyond the theoretical, and create a revolution with critical mass.

Do not underestimate how important critical mass for the Counter-Culture that created modern American life. (And never forget, by the way, that every Hippie-hating Republican openly has sex with his girlfriend without public shame. Only the radicals and Beats did that in the 50s. You would think these Young Libertarians would at least say Thanks to the enemies they so eagerly emulate.)

Now the drug-moralizers have the ultimate weapon — long-range molecular scanners and a no-permission-needed fear atmosphere. It only starts at the airport. With this weapon on the streets of America, another generation will be at personal risk of jail on a tired cop's whim.

By my calculation (carry the two) 2013 is just around the corner.

Game-changer, say I — both ways.