The Walls Have Eyes: How the FBI’s New Radar Tech Sees What We Can’t

May 27

Written By Michele Edington (formerly Michele Gargiulo)

There’s something sacred about a closed door that’s supposed to have some sort of sense of finality behind it. Privacy or mystery thrives behind closed doors.

It’s where secrets sleep, whispers stall in the drywall, and where the breath of a house lingers warm and unbothered.

But now, that secret little sanctuary of yours could be pierced by pulses. What if the spaces we thought were ours alone were suddenly readable…mapped, scanned, and known?

That’s no longer a question of something dodgy I read in one of my books (although, yeah I definitely read this somewhere at some point or another). The FBI is acquiring radar technology that can detect human presence through walls, and not just movement or heat signatures like they used to have, I mean people.

The future of privacy is about to change forever.

The Rise of “See-Through” Tech

This is not your granddad’s radar (if you even knew what that was, because I sure didn’t). This is a leap into millimeter-wave imaging, through-wall Doppler, and compact sensors capable of mapping human movement in real-time…even if you’re lying still in bed.

The technology is compact and portable, shockingly often handheld. And it’s coming to a government near you. At the center of the rollout is a series of acquisitions and pilot programs by U.S. law enforcement and federal agencies, including the FBI. These interesting devices, developed by defense contractors and private tech startups, are being field-tested for tactical entry, hostage rescue, and counterterrorism. The potential uses (and abuses) are far broader.

Okay, so think about a casual Monday night if you will, you’re sitting in your living room and a knock at the door startles you, but no one enters. You think you’re alone and believe you have time to get up and do your thing, but outside, someone’s reading your body language through three layers of concrete.

They know you’re in there, they know you’re sitting, hell, they even know your heart rate spiked. This is the new frontier of surveillance…not through bugs or through cameras, but through waves. This tech doesn’t need your Wi-Fi password or to hack your phone (which the interwebs has convinced me is super easy anyway), and it doesn’t need to “ping” your location.

It just needs to be aimed.

The Company Behind the Curtain

One of the frontrunners in this field is L3Harris, a defense technology firm specializing in tactical sensors. Their “Range-R” device is one of the most advanced through-wall radar units in circulation, able to detect motion as subtle as breathing through walls made of concrete, brick, or drywall.

Other players include Camero-Tech (Israel), Walabot (U.S./Israel), and law-enforcement-focused R&D arms embedded in U.S. Homeland Security contracts.

In trials, these devices have been used in hostage rescues, standoffs, and disaster relief, but unlike a body cam or a drone, their very usage is hard to detect. They leave no physical trace and they don’t need a warrant…at least, not yet.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kyllo v. United States (2001) that using thermal imaging to detect heat from a private home without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment, but radar…that’s still murky.

Some argue that because these sensors don’t “see” in the traditional sense, they don’t constitute a search, but to be clear: they know where your body is. They know when you move and in a time when information is power, and power rarely yields back its tools, this sets a dangerous precedent.

Let’s slow down for a moment, because not all stories of surveillance are sinister, even though they might seem like it. Part of that is definitely because I’ve read too much and seen too much tv. A mother missing in a collapsed apartment complex was found because of radar one time. A hostage in a locked motel bathroom was detected before SWAT breached the door.

There are lives this technology will save, there are literal tragedies it will prevent. Of course…there’s a cost to it though. Protection and privacy often ride the same rail, and sometimes, they crash.

The Pulse of Power

Radar works by sending pulses of energy through a medium and reading what bounces back. It’s not unlike asking the universe a question and listening closely for the echo. But sometimes echoes lie, and echoes can definitely be misunderstood.

The waveform of a child sleeping may not look different from someone hiding with some sort of bad intent. The blur of a falling body could be misread as an attack, we’re sort of trusting machines not only to look, but to interpret at this point, and that interpretation can become the basis of a knock, a raid, or a gun.

Here’s what keeps me up at night (well, amongst many things), once technology like this becomes normalized, it’s never unlearned.

Just like facial recognition and predictive policing. Similarly to data profiling as well. We’re entering a time where our silence, stillness, and shadows are no longer enough to protect us. The act of hiding doesn’t work if the walls don’t listen to you anymore, they listen to the state, and they tell on you like a snitch.

Some radar motion sensors are available to the public…marketed for “home security” or “sleep tracking.” Baby monitors using radar instead of cameras are already on sale. Companies like Amazon and Google are exploring radar-based gesture recognition for devices that respond to your presence, your wave, even your breath rate. We’re normalizing surveillance in the name of convenience, and convenience, once tasted, is hard to spit out. I mean can you imagine going back to shipping that takes two to three weeks?

If technology can see us through walls, can it also know us better? Will your home one day respond to your needs before you even speak? Can sensors trained to detect threats also detect distress…like someone collapsed behind a locked door?

The answer isn’t yes or no, it’s both. Technology reflects its makers and we’re the ones who mold it into something new. The question becomes: do we trust the people holding the mirror?

This technology will continue to evolve. It’ll become cheaper and smaller and better. One day, you won’t even know it’s there.

You have a right to privacy, even when the walls themselves become eyes.

The Walls Have Eyes: How the FBI’s New Radar Tech Sees What We Can’t

The Rise of “See-Through” Tech

The Company Behind the Curtain

The Pulse of Power

Other Reads That Might Interest You:

Unexplained Bird Deaths in California: The Sky Is Falling, and No One Knows Why

The Tomb That Lied: When History’s Bones Whisper a New Truth