NYC Wants to Ban Geiger Counters

Ellis D. Tripp noted a village voice article about attempts in NYC to pass a law requiring permits for air monitoring devices including apparently geiger counters. I'm sure everyone will feel much safer not knowing anything.

RTFA

[moogied (1175879)]

The title is very misleading, its actual a response to a possible panic caused by people using bad detectors. Imagine if hundreds of people buy shitty detectors that can be tripped by high NOX counts(A car emission). Suddenly on a hot afternoon during rush hour, 100+ counters register a large nuclear presence. Thats a big worry.

Re:RTFA

[dnoyeb (547705)]

Creating laws to combat hypothetical future situations is a waste of time. Let there be some evidence that the situation is actually feasible or enevitable before we pass a law preventing it.

Re:RTFA

[by Anonymous Coward]

So, pre 9/11 it was legal to fly planes into buildings?

The point though, is that using a bad Geiger counter does not cause any direct harm, as opposed to punching some one. That they could cause harm at all is speculative, not a logical conclusion.

And outlawing things based on speculation is not ok.

Re:RTFA

[Gordonjcp (186804)]

They're not talking about "banning" Geiger counters. They're discussing having people register them, presumably to distinguish between people with good quality, accurate instruments, and the spiky-handwriting-green-ink space aliens/hollow earth/creationist/gun nut brigade with their cheaply-made tat that mostly detects next door's dog farting.

Let's try an analogy. Smoke detectors are a Good Thing, and they're particularly good when *everyone* has them and maintains them. Would you like your panicky shouty skinny-dog-on-a-string neighbour to have a smoke detector that went off if you breathed out particularly hard, with a siren that would wake everyone for the surrounding quarter mile radius? No? Can't say I'm surprised.

Re:RTFA

[wish bot (265150)]

Well the solution is to have a DESIGN STANDARD (and I'd be surprised if there isn't already an ISO for them), not to legislate who can and can't own one.

Re:ISO's and loopholes

[budgenator (254554)]

The other interesting thing is

b. Any person deploying a biological, chemical or radiological detector shall immediately notify the police department if such detector indicates an alarm, notwithstanding whether the person holds a permit for such detector, by following such procedures as are prescribed by rule of the commissioner and/or are included as a term of the permit itself.

so if I commit a misdemeanor by having an illegal NBCR detector, it's a misdemeanor of me not to report the activation of my illegal detector without regard to whether I have reason to believe the alarm to be giving a false indication! an other interesting problem may be what happens when all of the new cellphones [purdue.edu] in NYC have to be registered because the have radiation detectors built in.

Re:RTFA

[raidfibre (1181749)]

Just think how Planet of The Apes would have gone down if they had banned Apes first. It would have made the movie so much more boring. Banning apes and all.

Get it? banning things preemptively ..

oh never mind.

Re:RTFA

[John Whitley (6067)]

Ya your right. We should wait to be fucked over, and then react to it.

We should wait, you fool. Why? Because there are so many more serious ways we are being fucked over right now that we aren't effectively handling. It's sheer insanity to make up legislation to deal with random useless crap like this. Foresight has its place, but pandering to a manufactured culture of fear is not foresight.

Re:RTFA

[orclevegam (940336)]

I haven't read the actual legislation, but based on the quotes from the article, this law would make possession of basically any detector a misdemeanor, unless you got a special license for possession from the police department. Your suggestion, that detectors should be required to be certified, makes sense, and the requirement to possess that certification should be on the vendor of the detector. If need be, make it a misdemeanor to sell an unlicensed detector, but I see no reason at all to make possession of the devices illegal. One example given in the counter-arguments for the legislation was that someone with a air quality monitor, merely transferring flights in NYC during a multi-flight trip, would be committing a misdemeanor by getting off the plane (or possibly by being on the plane when it lands, depending on how you figure jurisdictions). Of course, IANAL, take with a grain of salt, and all that.

Re:RTFA

[DaveV1.0 (203135)]

I think you are underestimating the idiots. Just look at the "truthers", the ID supporters, etc.

Re:RTFA

[bugs2squash (1132591)]

If NYC is worried about bad geiger counters, have one of the universities create a low-cost calibration and test program and then offer all who pass an oppotunity to join in a web ring or something. Seems to me like a good way to get the city monitored for almost free and to give the authorities a heads up if there are lots of spurious readings. Sounds like a win-win to me, how expensive could a basic check be ?

Re:RTFA

[sexconker (1179573)]

how expensive could a basic check be ?

Famous last words.

Re:RTFA

[dondelelcaro (81997)]

how expensive could a basic check be?

For certification purposes, it costs my lab around $75.00 to get a geiger counter certified. (If you didn't care about certification and just wanted to verify that it was within an order of magnitude, a point source of known activity with known distance would make it fairly trivial, and could even be done on a walk-in basis for a few bucks.)

Re:RTFA

[poetmatt (793785)]

Umm, the article was pretty accurate. They're preventing them preemptively to stop "False alarms". What part of this do you think could possibly go right? Okay, here's one. How about we disable sprinklers to prevent false alarms, because too many people have false alarms?

How about you have to apply for a permit that you're not necessarily granted for science research? Oh wait, the article has that as a concern. From the article: "Dave Newman, an industrial hygienist for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, claimed that under this law, the West Virginia air-quality experts who tested the air after 9/11 would have been a bunch of criminals."

Yeah, good idea, if you want to make the world a thoughtcrime maybe. I mean this is so far as to call possession of a geiger counter something you can be be fined for. That in itself is a bit of crazy.

Re:RTFA

[MindKata (957167)]

Ok, so mistaken readings could cause a group panic. Then again, permits for what is basically sensors is a nanny state attitude bordering very much on Big Brother. Once again showing the old idea of the road to hell is paved with good intentions. They want to control everything, as its in peoples best interests. Its the wrong solution. They should be educating people not controlling.

It also shows how much of a diet of fear and panic America is currently suffering. Looks like they are now worrying about people worrying so much that they panic! ... that much stress isn't helping anyone in the long run and certainly not a suitable environment within which to choose reactionary new laws and controls.

Accept he logic of the State Triumphant.. or not

[jmorris42 (1458)]

> Yeah, good idea, if you want to make the world a thoughtcrime maybe.

Oh you fuddyduddy libertarian. ;)

Seriously though I think it is a perfectly logical progression. After all we have already been told by every right thinking person[1] that NYC has to operate under different rules, that certain otherwise fundamental liberties must be compromised to make such a metropolis fuction.

Seriously, count em:

1. The second Amendment is pretty much void in New York. The former mayor[2] carefully explained in a recent debate that 'laws that make sense in New York might not make sense in flyover country' so I list this one first to put the accepted precedent that the idea that core Consitituitional liberties vary by population density is now accepted policy. Or I totally missed the nationwide outrush of rage, the riots, etc.

2. The right to property is probably most circumscribed in NYC. See the history of several generations of Rent Control for details.

3. The Right to follow a profession of one's choice is pretty much null and void in NY, between the unions and the almost total control by the city government through licensing and regulation designed not to pretect the public but to control entry into the professions to protect the current workers from competition.

4-999 could be filled in by anyone depressed enough to type that long.

No, if one accepts the base logic that makes that level of State control acceptable, allowing them the monopoly power to control information about the safety (read the actual performance of regulators) makes perfect sense. So all I can say is, suck it up Citizen, turn in your detectors and listen to the Safety and Civil Reassurance Administration when they calmly inform you everything is 'perfectly safe.'

Of course you COULD start demanding the whole fetid mess of dank rotting crap go to Hell. You don't even have to be a Ronulan to say that.

[1] Defined of course by the editorial board of the NYT and usually Socialist house organs such as the Village Voice. Nice to see one of their sacred oxes served up on the grill.

[2] With the partial agreement of all right thinking people[1] except they think he isn't enough of a gun banner.

Re:Accept he logic of the State Triumphant.. or no

[poetmatt (793785)]

You do realize that banning guns raises the crime rate in a city, right? [cato.org] How about DC for a nice example of that. Or is that not big city enough for you?

To you, you have your own opinion, and you are entitled to it. However, that doesn't counter factual evidence. This is along the same lines of "I don't want XYZ regardless of studies/logic".Non-factual opinion has no basis in the court of law, nor in politics.

Re:Accept he logic of the State Triumphant.. or no

[Alpha830RulZ (939527)]

See Point Blank, by John Lott. He did a fairly extensive analysis of the impact of various levels of firearms regulation in the US, and found that "shall issue" permitting jurisdictions enjoyed lower crime rates, and that crime rates fell when these laws were enacted. "shall issue" refers to a legal requirement for issues concealed carry permits in the absence of any reason to deny the permit. In "shall issue" states, such as Washington, you can get a permit to carry a gun by walking into your police station and asking for one. They fingerprint you, and in two or three weeks, after they do a background check on you, you get the right to carry a handgun just about anywhere. Not surprisingly, holdup rates in these areas are lower than in districts such as NYC and Washington DC, which prohibit law abiding cictizens from owning or carrying a sidearm.

And yes, I have one, and yes, I sometimes carry a gun. Why? Because it makes me feel more manly. :-)

Thank you for making my point!

[jmorris42 (1458)]

> So you're saying it makes sense to drive truckloads of guns into the hands of people of the most densely populated cities of America?

Yes, I'm saying exactly that. Because NYC is exactly where they are needed most. I live in flyover country. Random violent crime is so rare it makes the front page on the occasion we have one. My weapon stays in a case on a top shelf of a closet on the reasoning that an accidental discharge is the greater risk. I wouldn't live in a place like NYC unless I could keep the damned thing loaded and under my pillow or srapped to my ass when I was walking the crime ridden streets of our major cities... even after the admirable efforts of NYC's former mayor to REDUCE[1] violent crime.

> You know, where hunting consists of going to the store, not actually going out and hunting?

You might be shocked to learn that the 2nd Amendment has exactly zero to do with hunting. The primary purpose was the belief that armed men are Citizens while unarmed ones were only Subjects. That the carrying of arms was itself a virtue, helping to keep a Free People in the right frame of mind to be worthy of receiving the Blessings of Liberty.

But while a gun control debate would be fun, I'm instead going to stay ontopic and use your post to illustrate my original point.

I'd like to start by drawing the attention of the readers to both what our canonical hive minder said and left unsaid.

He mentions "There is no reason people in NYC need guns" and "people of the most densely populated cities" which couldn't make my argument better that there has crept into the thinking, of city dwellers at least, that individual liberty is fundamentally incompatible with cities. Personally if it proves true I'd prefer razing every population center >1million over tossing liberty but I refuse to believe it; Free Men can live in Cities, Suburbs, the country or on the Moon. Quivering masses of welfare clients on the other hand... the solution should be obvious.

And note that he ins't calling for repealing the 2nd Amendment, just substituting his greater wisdom for that of the Founding Fathers without all that tedious mucking about with having a public debate about repealing the Bill of Rights. This trend is most disturbing because it isn't just limited to gun control. McCain/Feingold shredded the 1st Amendment while those who should have been objecting were cheering. 1, 2, 9 and 10 are pretty much extinct and 5 is threatened and not once have we actually repealed any of them.

Once upon a time the fundies wanted to regulate booze. Realizing the federal government had no such authority, and believing in our Republican Form of Government[2], they did it the right way and pushed through an Amendment though it took them a hell of a lot longer than just getting 50%+1 vote in Congress. So when did we pass an Amendment authorizing the FDA, DEA, etc? Thus was the 9th and 10th Amendments voided without a vote being needed.

Remember that you can't just object to ONE of these violations, because if one accepts the logic that allows ANY of these violations to occur the rest logically follow. Choose. Choose wisely.

[1] Reduce from truly insane to levels that make Dodge City at it's worst look like a safe place to raise children.

[2] As distict from the Republican Party... for the benefit of the Government educated.

Re:Thank you for making my point!

[jmorris42 (1458)]

> Wow. You're such a coward.

No, realist. The advantages of living in a city are more than outweighed by the risks and expenses, especially in the era of Internet commerce and FedEX delivery. I lived in the Dallas metro area for five years in the early 1990's and got to experience it first hand. Had my car broke into twice (and it was a POS Datsun B210, not exactly an inviting target) and was forced to violate the important safety rule of not looking into the barrel of a loaded firearm once.

Since then I have wisely opted to only occasionally visit metropolitian areas and stick to the areas with at least a semblence of the rule of law. The problem is nationwide, the police increasingly can't enforce order and the population is barred from taking over their own defense. But while it is bad everywhere the problem is most acute in the large cities where Democrats rule with an iron hand.. over the law abiding at least.

The core problem is the notion that only the State has power, wisdom and Rights, that everyone else must cower in fear, their only option to plead for help from the all powerful, all knowing and all caring State. That any attempt to solve one's problems without a government program is not only misguided, it is dangerous and must be legislated against.

Look at the topic for this thread again. In only a couple of generations we have devolved from a proud free people into the sort of pitiful creatures that actually sit down and rationally discuss whether or not the State can regulate the possession of a Geiger counter. And you dare call me a coward? I can't properly respond to that in a civilized manner so....

[mode=flame setting=extra_crispy]

Fuck you. Fuck you and all who think like you. Fuck the pathetic whore that begat you, fuck the government schools that finished the job your congenitally defective parents started of turning what could have been a lovable retard into a pitiful worm fit only to labor under the yoke of the socialists.

[mode=normal]

I'd like to take this opportunity to applogize to everyone else who had to read that. Some insults just have to be answered in the spirit they are offered in. If a mod finds they can't forgive it and gives this post flamebait I'll understand.

> Either grow a spine or just stay inside your house wearing a shawl and quivering everytime you hear something outside.

Or move somewhere where the police still manage to keep order, where I don't have to worry about crime yet I don't live in fear of the Police either. Where I can have a gun, but keep it in the closet because it isn't needed. But I keep it as insurance against darker days and not only is this OK with everyone it isn't even remarkable because most everyone else has one. Being good upstanding citizens though, instead of criminal scum, we don't blow each other into kibbles every Saturday night. So if I hear something go bump some night I'll grab my equalizer and go see what's up.

Re:Accept he logic of the State Triumphant.. or no

[rossz (67331)]

You've been watching too many movies. Back in "wild west" days, Civilized Boston had a higher violent crime rate than the wild west. Gun fight at the OK corral was an anomaly. Most towns in the wild west were peaceful as they were populated by farmers and ranchers who wanted a safe environment to raise their families.

The right to own a firearm defines if you are a citizen or a subject. What do you want to be?

Re:RTFA

[riseoftheindividual (1214958)]

Imagine if hundreds of people buy shitty detectors that can be tripped by high NOX counts(A car emission). Suddenly on a hot afternoon during rush hour, 100+ counters register a large nuclear presence. Thats a big worry.

That's as shitty a reason to criminalize something as I've ever heard in my life. What if 100 people ran around shouting "Anthrax" thus causing a panic? Maybe they should issue free speech permits to make sure only competent professionals will be heard.

Re:RTFA

[omeomi (675045)]

Maybe they should issue free speech permits to make sure only competent professionals will be heard.

Give them time...they're working on it, I'm sure.

Re:RTFA

[jmac1492 (1036880)]

What if 100 people ran around shouting "Anthrax" thus causing a panic? Maybe they should issue free speech permits to make sure only competent professionals will be heard.

Except that that's not quite right. It is already illegal to cause a panic by any means, including shouting "Anthrax!" That law doesn't apply when the thing causing a panic (anthrax, Godzilla, the Pistons winning the championship) actually happened. Speech that doesn't incite a panic is still generally allowed.

What should be done is regulate them these devices like smoke detectors. You are encouraged to have them, but you pay a fine if the authorities are summoned on a false alarm.

One word: Tchernobyl

[arf_barf (639612)]

On a beautiful 1986 summer day in Poland the secret police confiscated all Geiger detectors from all the schools and universities. A week later the world learned about the Techernobyl catastrophe. (This is a true story, my uncle was a chemist at one of the universities)

Its even worse ...

[trolltalk.com (1108067)]

"requiring permits for air monitoring devices

Customer in restaurant: This steak smells delicious.

Cop: You got a permit for that nose, mister?

Preventing Learning

[photomonkey (987563)]

I bet most New Yorkers don't know how to run a Geiger counter (or possibly even what one is).

All the same, slaves were prevented from learning how to read, Jews in the death camps were not given any information about the war, their future, and today, people we want to strip of power are kept in the dark.

Check my history, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I really think that those in power (ALL of them, not just the Bushies) have gotten to the point of realizing that the American populace have become dumb sheep. Through fear, all is possible for them.

Refuse, resist.

Re:Preventing Learning

[eepok (545733)]

It was modded insightful by someone who also sees the very high potential for a slippery slope developing under the unwary nose of the body politic. Nazi Germany was one situation where a government slowly pushed certain rules and regulations to lessen the educational freedoms of the public. Given that many of them were convinced that they were superior, under attack, and that their leaders wouldn't betray their trust, a good deal of the public blindly followed the rules.

When it comes to the slavery comparison, the poster was drawing a parallel between the rules governing education of the black slaves in Colonial America with the proposed prevention of self-education that this law could bring. His concern on this ground may not be as strong as the first, but nonetheless, being able to draw such historical parallels typically gains the comment of "insightful."

Lastly, comparing something to Nazi Germany, though monotonous in online communities, should never be discouraged unless they are maliciously false. It's my understanding that we (civilization) are supposed to learn from the mistakes of our forefathers. I, too, am constantly wary of people starting that slide down the slope that would lead to a strictly controlled public with no fortitude to stand up to their government.

Godwin was an asshat

[swb (14022)]

Freely flinging "you're a nazi!!111" as some kind of childish insult is pretty idiotic, but claiming that all reasonably intelligent comparisons to Nazi Germany are the "loss" of the argument is nothing short of ridiculous, especially when Nazi germany pretty much epitomizes a modern totalitarian government (propaganda, dictatorship, secret police, militarism, detention camps, etc).

Chemical Dectectors....

[RationalRoot (746945)]

Ha. Given the lawmakers usual understanding of things technological..... Anyone reckon that they will accidently ban Smoke Dectectors, Carbon Monoxide Alarms, Butane Gas Dectectors ?

Brooklyn's Nuclear Fears & Community Mentality

[eldavojohn (898314)]

This is ancient early 90s news but Brooklyn has been the site of nuclear waste storage [nytimes.com] and it concerns many citizens. There is a warehouse there called Radiac Research Corporation that has about enough nuclear material for one atom bomb, although I'm sure it's not refined to that. Citizen watch groups have formed that will walk around the streets with Geiger counters. You will find some shock reporting [www.vbs.tv] that has somethings factual and a lot of things anecdotal evidence. If you do watch those videos, ironically pay attention to the state employed inspector on the boat. Hard numbers and comparisons with other major cities are a must to make any effect in this kind of reporting. Still, I would be upset if stuff like this dried up. I think it's important so that the community at least feels like it has an independent non-interested voice--I would risk false alarms for that any day.

I've also heard from other sources that New York City offers permits for polluting [nytimes.com] which isn't so wrong except that some of these are ridiculous. A lot of the rivers and streams to this day still are being polluted but since the companies are 'grandfathered' into pollution control, they can keep doing it. Do you ever think they're going to clean that up? I hardly think so.

So they want to avoid false alarms that could cause a mass panic. But like a lot of things there is a trade off and the trade off is the ability to independently verify that the air quality or radiation levels are indeed safe. If I were a citizen living there, losing the latter in and of itself would cause me panic. Poor means you're at risk of being ignored & treated like you don't matter and I don't think New York City (especially historically) is any different from the rest of the world.

Meh.

[SatanicPuppy (611928)]

It's New York...Your average New Yorker, on plugging in a Geiger counter that immediately redlined and then exploded would say, "Eh, I figyaed as much." They know it's hazardous to live there, they take a weird sort of pride in it. I moved from New York to Georgia in 2002, and people were way more freaked out about 9/11 in Georgia than they were in New York...The city still had that "burnt tire" smell, but otherwise things were back to normal.

Not to say there weren't some deep fricking scars, but you can't live there and be that high strung about environmental safety issues; the first day you come home, take off your white shirt and your white undershirt, and notice that, while they were the same color when you put them on, one of them is now a sort of stinky grey...You have to accept it and move on, or you will lose your fricking mind.

It's for your own good.

[SatanicPuppy (611928)]

From TFA, the rationale is because they're worried that a bunch of shoddy devices will throw tons of false positives, and cause havok amongst emergency responders who would have to run around town constantly trying to weed out false leads.

Frankly, it's crap. I seriously doubt as many people as they're representing are going to be buying these things; the vast majority will be installing them indoors, where they'll be lucky to detect ANYTHING, and the shoddy ones will tend to go off for crap that would set off your smoke alarm...I used to have a CO detector near my kitchen...It's somewhere in my backyard now, after the 10th time it went off when I dumped some liquor in a skillet to deglaze it.

People may buy this stuff, but the vast majority won't, and the ones that do are almost MORE likely to view an alarm as a false positive than the police themselves. New Yorkers are tough bastards. They'll piss and moan, but they're not super-hazard conscious...You can't be, and live in the City all the time, because you're far more likely to be killed by a manhole or a cracked out subway driver than any terrorist.

Re:It's for your own good.

[Jason Levine (196982)]

From TFA, the rationale is because they're worried that a bunch of shoddy devices will throw tons of false positives, and cause havok amongst emergency responders who would have to run around town constantly trying to weed out false leads.

Frankly, it's crap.

I agree. My BS detector is going off like crazy. Uh... I mean, my BS detector *would* be going off like crazy if I owned one.... which I don't... because owning a device that can measure the atmospheric content of BS is quite illegal and I wouldn't do anything like that.... *glances over shoulder nervously*

I own a pocket gieger counter , made in Russia

[MrJerryNormandinSir (197432)]

The Russians mass produced personal gieger counters 6 months after the accident in Cherynobyl I bought one.
It saved my ass in the 90s when I took my Wife and Kids to Ruggle's Mine in Maine! Basically it's a mica mine but when were were hiking I told my kids not to touch the yellow chalk like rocks that some kid was using to write his name on in the caves. i took my gieger counter out and measured 350millirads. I told the kids parents that the rock was radioactive and they should take him to wash his hand and to change his clothes and get him in a tub. I believe the yellow rock was pitchblend.

heck.. I think a pocket gieger counter would come in handy.. why are they banning them? Is New York City's background radiation level higher than normal?

nope, it's yellowcake

[swschrad (312009)]

pitchblende is a murky dark colored rock that is a very high quality ore for many radioactive materials. dark. grey to black with some samples pitched to the purple or brown.

yellow radioactive rock is your usual uranium oxide, hydrated "yellowcake," a low concentration. but that's the production ore in north america and most of the world. in the 60s, you could buy a sample in a little plastic box at visitor centers like at the Oak Ridge Laboratories.

Homeland Job Security

[Baldrson (78598)]

From TFA:

"There are currently no guidelines regulating the private acquisition of biological, chemical, and radiological detectors," warned Falkenrath, adding that this law was suggested by officials within the Department of Homeland Security.

This demonstrates how the movement of job security to government actually affects society: Whenever you create a new bureaucracy, you have created a few more beds in the economic fallout shelter known as "civil service" where people can escape from the very real degradation of households due to loss of job security in the general economy. These civil service positions are so vital for such basic things as having children in a reasonably secure environment and providing basic healthcare for them that people are literally willing to kill other citizens to get them. Among the many ways they kill other citizens are the unintended side-effects of activist bureaucracies trying to justify their 40-hours a week, sitting around in their government offices. They come up with "ideas" for how to justify their jobs and then, empowered by the time on their hands as well as the legislative mandates of their positions, proceed to terrorize their fellow citizens. I mean, after all, if they did nothing they might end up like the rest of us: paycheck to paycheck not knowing if we're going to be facing a foreclosure and potentially even homelessness for our families due to long term unemployment.

The World Today

[ObiWanStevobi (1030352)]

Well, immediately, this sounds retarded. However, I can picture one benign reason for this.

We all saw what happened this month with Mass Effect. One idiot decides that it is equal to XXX porn without evver seeing it, and all sorts of people believe him and run with the story. Well, maybe they didn't believe him, but figured since he can be faulted for the mistake, they can run with it to scare people. I could see major "news" networks going nuts over a reading from some moron that wired his sensors wrong.

Is that any reason to excuse this law? No. Just saying I could see one possible reason. Since Journalists can't be trusted to fact check, an incorrect reading could cause a mass panic that would obviously be very problematic.

Re:The World Today

[radtea (464814)]

The world today is as it ever was: those in power attempting to disenfranchise the citizens by painting them as a bunch of untrustworthy morons who would never, ever let a bunch of wack-jobs, some with expired visas, train to fly aircraft into buildings...

The organs of the state are a far greater risk to everyone today than terrorists, and the only people who did anything to stop the one successful foreign terrorist attack on U.S. soil were citizens who reported suspicious behaviour to the authorities, which ignored them. And the folks on United 93, who saved who knows how many lives at the cost of their own. The authorities have been no more successful in stopping domestic terrorism in the U.S., either.

There is no excuse for keeping citizens in ignorance against the possibility that they might make a mistake with the imperfect knowledge they have.

We, the people, have been far more endangered by governments panicing due to false alarms (WMDs anyone?) than anyone could possibly be endangered by any number of citizens with faulty air monitoring instruments. At least we have laws that can be used to punish people who give false alarms...

In what way is this good for the people?

[Sangui5 (12317)]

It seems that quite often, lawmakers listen (quite intently) to what government groups want the law to be. In this case, it is the city police who want this law. But the people don't benefit from it, just the police. The same thing holds for much of the Patriot Act; it is not a benefit for the people, but the FBI wanted it, and congress listened.

The biggest trouble isn't false alarms, terrorists, or corporate lobbying. The biggest trouble is that government listens to itself more that it listens to the people.

When geiger counters are outlawed...

[justsomecomputerguy (545196)]

Only outlaws will have geiger counters!

One possible solution

[alan_dershowitz (586542)]

I totally disagree with this law. The mere POSSESSION of a device like a Geiger counter or air quality tester is a misdemeanor. That is insane, and everyone should acknowledge this. BUT there is a real problem here, which is people buying inaccurate devices that they do not know how to operate. This is resulting in false positives which, when reported, police officials are obligated to investigate. At the very least this is a defense mechanism by the NYPD, because if something was reported and they didn't respond, if it turned out to be legitimate they would be held responsible.

My problem is why is the citizen always perceived as the enemy? Why are criminal punishments always deemed the solution? Here is my solution: Establish a citizen corps of air/radiation testers. Require a minimum set of standards for equipment and require some sort of proof that the operator knows how to operate the device and that the device functions properly. This may involve some sort of licensure. If you meet the requirements and become a member, you will have established the repute required to report a crisis to the proper authorities.

If you are not a member, you will still be allowed to own or operate these devices. However, if you detect a problem, you are obligated to report it to your closest deputy as defined above, who will verify and report it to the authorities if legitimate. You will not be punished for false positives because the purpose of the deputy is to filter these. However, if by your irresponsible actions you cause a panic, you will be held responsible, possibly criminally.

This engages the community, establishes a system of responsibility and gives a method to report problems. No one has to give up their equipment. It's almost like we live in a society, where people work together and laws aren't just made on the spot to ban stuff and create criminals out of regular people.

Other equipment

[MrNougat (927651)]

They should equip everyone with Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses while they're at it.

Another blow for the war against knowledge

[smchris (464899)]

America has come so, so far from my childhood when Popular Electronics (the terrorist, mob unleashing scum) would run feature articles on building the latest geiger counter kit.

 

What's this got to do with the Police?

[berny@work (57298)]

I understand the point, but surely you have some kind of standards organisation. If the police have to respond to these things, why not just lean on the standards organisation to create a standard and then say to everyone "If you are calling in with a complaint, is your device certified?" Why not ban non-certified devices? Why go after the people? Why not just go after the crap that people buy?

Since my submission got butchered....

[Ellis D. Tripp (755736)]

I might as well restate my feeling that this is less a reaction to fears of false alarms, than it is an attempt to head off independent investigations, like those that undermined the NYC/EPA "party line" concerning air quality after the 9/11 attacks.

Re:

[tomz16 (992375)]

NYC actually has very strict gun laws... much stricter gun laws than the rest of the state of NY...

Re:Trouble

[CharlieG (34950)]

Guns? Legal? NYC?
Air rifles/Pistols (aka BB or Pellet guns) - totally illegal
Rifles/Shotguns? If they are not an Assault Weapon (anything over 5 rounds) - Go get fingerprinted, and then pay $300 every 3 years - and have to subit paperwork for each one you own or transfer
Pistols? Unless you are connected, forget about a carry permit. For a home/business permit? Apply (but make NO mistakes in your paperwork - our you will be denied) wait 9 months (although the law says they can't take more than 6) go for your interview, and still probably get denied. If you do get a permit, it's more expensive than the rifle/shotgun permit...

H'tale, his eyes closed

[Stanistani (808333)]

Jimmy Carter at Three Mile island!

Re:H'tale, his eyes closed

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

Jimmy Carter at Three Mile island!

Giuliani, when the towers fell?