[Robotgroup] CAT scan at 70mph..?

[Def Egge]

Thank you, Comrade.  This will be duly noted in my report.


All the best....

Mike


At 22:07  2008-03-24, you wrote:
-=-=-=-=-= begin quoted message =-=-=-=-=-

 > From this link:
 >
 >http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2004300343_danny23
 >.html
 >
 >Comes this story:
 >
 >-------------------------- CLIP ----------------------------
 >Sunday, March 23, 2008
 >
 >Watch out, you're being watched
 >
 >By Danny Westneat
 >Seattle Times staff columnist
 >
 >The unsettling thing about living in a 
surveillance society isn't just
 >
 >that you're being watched. It's that you have no idea.
 >
 >That's what struck me about a story told last 
week by a border agent
 >at
 >a meeting of 200 San Juan Islanders. He was 
there to explain why the
 >federal government is doing citizenship checks 
on domestic ferry runs.
 >
 >But near the end, while trying to convince the 
skeptical audience that
 >
 >the point is to root out terrorists, not fish 
for wrongdoing among the
 >
 >citizenry, deputy chief Joe Giuliano let loose 
with a tale straight
 >out
 >of "Dr. Strangelove."
 >
 >It turns out the feds have been monitoring 
Interstate 5 for nuclear
 >"dirty bombs." They do it with radiation 
detectors so sensitive it led
 >
 >to the following incident.
 >
 >"Vehicle goes by at 70 miles per hour," Giuliano told the crowd.
 >"Agent
 >is in the median, a good 80 feet away from the 
traffic. Signal went
 >off
 >and identified an isotope [in the passing car]."
 >
 >The agent raced after the car, pulling it over not far from the
 >monitoring spot (near the Bow-Edison exit, 18 miles south of
 >Bellingham). The agent questioned the driver, then did a cursory
 >search
 >of the car, Giuliano said.
 >
 >Did he find a nuke?
 >
 >"Turned out to be a cat with cancer that had 
undergone a radiological
 >
 >treatment three days earlier," Giuliano said.
 >
 >He added: "That's the type of technology we 
have that's going on in
 >the
 >background. You don't see it. If I hadn't told you about it, you'd
 >never
 >know it was there."
 >
 >About all I can say is: Wow. Wow that the government now has the
 >ability
 >to detect radiation in a cat inside a car going by at 70 miles per
 >hour.
 >And wow at this world we live in, where we feel 
compelled to sniff, at
 >
 >random, inside the traffic coming out of Bellingham.
 >
 >What else is the government watching? Is it all too much?
 >
 >We're watching lots, said Giuliano when I 
called him. Giuliano is No.
 >2
 >in the border patrol's Blaine sector. He is 
refreshingly open about
 >the
 >surge of post-Sept. 11 surveillance, and its pros and cons.
 >
 > From bomb sniffing to bank monitoring of the 
kind that brought down
 >Eliot Spitzer to phone and Internet data crunching to citizenship
 >checkpoints — all are becoming commonplaces of American life.
 >
 >Giuliano says the point really is to catch 
terrorists. He says it's
 >true
 >that the odds of catching one here may be "a billion to one. But
 >despite
 >that, we have caught two." (Gazi Ibrahim Abu 
Mezer, who tried to sneak
 >
 >in at Blaine in 1997 to blow up the New York 
subway; and Millennium
 >Bomber Ahmed Ressam, nabbed at Port Angeles in 1999.)
 >
 >"There's your one or two in a billion, looking right at you."
 >
 >It's a good point. Yet even he, a federal agent for 35 years, is
 >queasy
 >about the snooping's reach. He said he opposes 
parts of the Patriot
 >Act,
 >namely the section that expands warrantless searches.
 >
 >"I think we can do this without tossing out our 
checks and balances,"
 >he
 >said.
 >
 >The debate has the San Juans abuzz. While we're doing citizenship
 >checks, why not also do it in Seattle? Is it 
constitutional? Does the
 >
 >story of the radioactive cat reassure you? Or creep you out?
 >
 >Said San Juan County Councilman Kevin Ranker: 
"I think it's fair to
 >say
 >many people up here have been left wondering 
just what kind of country
 >
 >it is they're living in."
 >
 >Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at
 >206-464-2086 or dwestneat at seattletimes.com.
 >-------------------------- /CLIP ---------------------------
 >
 >wow. On so many levels...  O.o
 >
 >Vern
 >
 >--
 >Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
 >Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
 >Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
 >http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
 >Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" ©VLG
 >
 >
 >--
 >Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
 >Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
 >Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
 >http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
 >Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" ©VLG
 >_______________________________________________
 >Robotgroup mailing list
 >Robotgroup at puremagic.com
 >http://lists.puremagic.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/robotgroup

-=-=-=-=-= end quoted message =-=-=-=-=-