New York City's police commissioner is defending the department's use of counter-terrorism X-ray vans, saying they aren't being used to spy on the public and that concerns of civil liberty groups are "unfounded."
Responding to legal papers filed in court by the New York Civil Liberties Union that charged the super-secret vans were equipped with X-rays, Police Commissioner William Bratton declared "they are not being used to scan people for weapons," the
New York Post reports.
"The devices we have, the vehicles if you will, are all used lawfully and if the ACLU and others don’t think that’s the case, we’ll see them in court — where they’ll lose," Bratton said. "At this time and the nature of what’s going on in the world, that concern of theirs is unfounded."
Bratton refused to divulge exactly what the vans are designed to do.
"Those are issues I’d prefer not to divulge to the public at this time," Bratton said, the Post reports.
"I will not talk about anything at all about this — it falls into the range of security and counter-terrorism activity that we engage in."
But Newsday reports the devices have appeared at special events such as the recent United Nations General Assembly meeting in Manhattan.
The vans are also employed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to scan for drugs and explosives, the Post reports.
The website
ProPublica filed suit against the NYPD after a reporter's requests were denied for police reports, training materials and health tests related to the X-rays – and a judge ruled the department should hand over the records.
ProPublica alleges the X-ray vans are essentially a version of older airport body scanners mounted on a truck.
The NYPD appealed the judge's ruling; the NYCLU has requested to file an amicus brief urging the appeals court to uphold the lower court’s original ruling.