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posted by Fnord666 on Friday August 18 2017, @07:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the Is-that-a-pistol-in-your-pocket,-or... dept.

Passengers on the Los Angeles subway system can, at their option, be checked for weapons and explosives by walking through a millimeter-wave scanner. The system, which began operation Wednesday, was installed by a partnership of Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Transportation Security Administration and the manufacturer of the scanner, Evolv Technology.

Travelers boarding the Metro Red Line at Union Station were met Wednesday with a new security screening system designed to detect possible "mass-casualty" threats, as part of a pilot project to explore the latest in transit-security technology.

The Evolv Edge screening system is billed as a high-speed, high-volume screening system that can scan 600 people per hour, without the need for passengers to stop or even slow down.

According to the manufacturer, Evolv Technology, uses a series of sensors that quickly collect data on people who pass through the machine and feed it into an "algorithmic model that automatically determines if there is a potential threat," rendering a decision in a matter of seconds.

[...] "You don't have to take all the things that you normally carry out of your pockets," he said. "You can leave your phone in your pocket, your keys in your pocket, and we're looking specifically for weapons and explosives. So this system's called a millimeter-wave scanner. It uses harmless radio waves and we're able to process well over 600 visitors per hour."


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  • (Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday August 19 2017, @12:35AM

    by tftp (806) on Saturday August 19 2017, @12:35AM (#556213) Homepage

    Even without checking the laws, the answer is obviously YES - there is plenty of law enforcement groups in the country that are required to carry firearms, from the Sheriff and the police and the TLAs down to the Department of Education. If there are local prohibitions against carrying, they don't apply to them (such as an armed police officer can enter a school.)

    The law is needed only to clarify if a concealed-carry citizen, not an LEO or the like, is allowed to carry in the LA subway. Not sure how the system would tell the difference between non-LEO and LEO types, though - and if it can, how easy it is to forge that token (a uniform? a badge? can't really be more complicated than that, even if LEOs have a separate passage.)

    Given that the subway is a system for mass transportation, and people often transport bulky objects, I do not envision this scanner to be efficient for the claimed purpose. It's plenty good for many other purposes, though - just as intended, I'm sure.