Range-R Sensor system

[kuhla]

news - http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/23/fbi-us-marshals-range-r-radar/

product page and some description - http://www.range-r.com/tech/theory.htm

 

 

RANGE-R is a handheld sensor capable of sending Radar signals through the walls and locating people inside buildings. It is powered by 4 AA batteries and weighs less than 1.5 lbs.

 

Kind of makes me think of the rainbow six wall heartbeat sensor things.

[Malaphax]

While the technology is pretty cool, I hope it's applied correctly.

 

You have this article talking about it's deployment:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/19/police-radar-see-through-walls/22007615/

 

They might be using it to detect if people are in a house in order to execute warrants or searches of properties. The issue is that the court's have already found that police cannot use certain devices/techniques to obtain information in lieu of a search warrant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_v._Jardines)

I have a feeling that these devices will be abused as much as possible until a case makes its way to a higher court or SCOTUS.

[kuhla]

While the technology is pretty cool, I hope it's applied correctly.

 

You have this article talking about it's deployment:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/19/police-radar-see-through-walls/22007615/

 

They might be using it to detect if people are in a house in order to execute warrants or searches of properties. The issue is that the court's have already found that police cannot use certain devices/techniques to obtain information in lieu of a search warrant (

I have a feeling that these devices will be abused as much as possible until a case makes its way to a higher court or SCOTUS.

 

I don't feel like that's a perfect fit though.

 

This system only let's you know if something is moving on the other side of the wall (based on product page description and FAQ), which includes the movement of air, and the range to the object moving. That's really limited information. It bothers me that some news articles are writing this as LEOs "seeing" inside. Look at the quote from the ACLU rep ("The idea that the government can send signals through the wall of your house to figure out what's inside is problematic,") as an example of what I consider to be misleading.

 

The precedent people keep bringing up is for a thermal camera which does paint a rough picture of what's inside.

 

None of this is to say that the topic doesn't warrant discussion but I think those are important details. The USA today article mentions other systems in the work that do provide more information so there is that.

[Malaphax]

My original post cut off a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_v._Jardines

And no it's not a perfect fit.

 

Ideally something like this scanner would be useful in any breach scenarios or even house to house clearing (military not leo) to detect where people are and how to adjust their approach/breach.

 

As far as the "scanning inside people's homes", at this point I just have to call out all LEO departments as abusing every possible technology and legal loophole to meet their own needs. This device doesn't tell them much other than the house being occupied and roughly how many people/things are moving inside. I have a feeling they might try and use this for tracking down parole violators, instead of having an angry family member claiming the parolee is not inside, they'll just walk up and scan the house to confirm how many people are inside.

 

I do think that scanning a private residence to determine how many occupants are in it is a violation of the 4th amendment, but my opinion doesn't mean shit compared to a SCOTUS ruling.