DHS Conducts ‘Drive-by’ Surveillance. What’s Next?

03-11-2011 • Pajamas Media

The government flouts the Fourth Amendment in the name of security. “The system’s unique ‘drive-by’ capability allows one or two operators to conduct X-ray imaging of suspect vehicles and objects while the ZBV drives past,” says AS&E on its website. “The ZBV can also be operated in stationary mode by parking the system and producing X-ray images of vehicles as they pass by,” it adds. Screening can also be performed remotely while the system is parked. “The system is unobtrusive, as it maintains the outward appearance of an ordinary van,” says AS&E. Unobtrusive is the operative word. While the innocuous looking vans may not be attracting attention from those they target for surveillance, they should be attracting outrage from the rest of the free-thinking world. Conducting random, covert surveillance on people, places, and things — from a moving van — is hardly in keeping with America’s system of laws and values. Whatever happened to the Fourth Amendment?