X-Ray Vision Is Here

["Roy A. Parker" <70472.711@CompuServe.COM>]

The following article appeared in my morning newspaper, The Advocate,
Tuesday, April 8, 1997:
 
                   Detectors can see through clothing
 
     Raleigh, N.C.  - The  next generation  of weapons detectors is
     deadly accurate,  able to  look through  clothes to find guns,
     explosives and even syringes and drug vials that can be tucked
     into rolls of fat.
          About the  size of a voting booth, a machine manufactured
     by Nicolet  Imaging Systems  of San  Diego is  being tested at
     North Carolina's  Central Prison and the federal courthouse in
     Los Angeles.
          "It is  a very low-level X-ray," Capt. Marshall Hudson, a
     correction  officer   said  during   a  demonstration  Monday.
     Hudson, said  the $100,000  machine is capable of showing shin
     bones near  the skin  and even a person's private parts on the
     "uncloak mode."
          While police groups are intrigued, civil libertarians are
     concerned because  the same  technology is  being developed by
     other manufacturers  into a hand-held model, which will enable
     police to  detect a  weapon hidden under someone's clothing up
     to 60 feet away.
 
I checked  the web  site for  Nicolet Imaging  Systems and  they have  a
SECURE 1000 Personnel Security Screening System and state:
 
     Each full  body scan of the SECURE 1000 produces approximately
     3 microREMs  of emission.  This is  equivalent to the exposure
     every  person   receives  each  five  minutes  from  naturally
     occurring background environmental radioactivity.
 
This  obviously   raises  some  moral,  ethical,  radiation  safety  and
regulatory control  issues.   Among those  a departure of the prevailing
philosophy  of   no  purposeful   ionizing  radiation  exposures  to  an
individual unless  there  is  an  appropriate  medical  benefit  to  the
individual.
 
This should be an interesting discussion.
 
Roy A. Parker, Ph.D.
E-Mail: 70472.711@compuserve.com
Tel: 504-924-1473
Fax: 504-924-4269