Thanks to Cryptogon for highlighting one of the creepiest military tech applications I’ve seen in quite a while. They’re calling it a “Radar Scope” but I say we call it what it is: an Anne Frank Detector.

In case you’ve been living under a rock your whole life, Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl who hid in a ridiculously tiny room with her family for years during the Nazi German occupation of the Netherlands. She hid with her family in a secret attic to avoid getting sent to the concentration camps. After a two year stint, her family was finally betrayed and she died in the camps.

Thanks to the latest mad science invention out of DARPA though, the footsoldiers of the American Empire will be able to make sure nothing brave and free and poetic like this happens ever again - anywhere.

The new “Radar Scope” will give warfighters searching a building the ability to tell within seconds if someone is in the next room, Edward Baranoski from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Special Projects Office, told the American Forces Press Service.

By simply holding the portable, handheld device up to a wall, users will be able to detect movements as small as breathing, he said.

The Radar Scope, developed by DARPA, is expected to be fielded to troops in Iraq as soon as this spring, Baranoski said. The device is likely to be fielded to the squad level, for use by troops going door to door in search of terrorists.

The Radar Scope will give warfighters the capability to sense through a foot of concrete and 50 feet beyond that into a room, Baranoski explained.

Elsewhere in the article, they suggest that this device will give soldiers the ability of “superheros,” except - correct me if I’m wrong - I didn’t think that superheros usually did house to house sweeps in occupied territory.

But if you’re worried that none of this is really creepy enough, then hang tight folks. It only gets better!

Even as the organization hurries to get the devices [the Anne Frank Detectors] to combat forces, DARPA already is laying groundwork for bigger plans that build on this technology.

Proposals are expected this week for the new “Visi Building” technology that’s more than a motion detector. It will actually “see” through multiple walls, penetrating entire buildings to show floor plans, locations of occupants and placement of materials such as weapons caches, Baranoski said.

“It will give (troops) a lot of opportunity to stake out buildings and really see inside,” he said. “It will go a long way in extending their surveillance capabilities.”

The device is expected to take several years to develop. Ultimately, service members will be able to use it simply by driving or flying by the structure under surveillance, Baranoski said.

What they mean by that, of course, is that eventually, cops will be able to drive by your house or use a helicopter and have a detailed analysis of everyone and everything going on inside it. And of course, such devices will be available on the black market as well, and will more than likely be used by criminals and all kinds of other creative folks.

I’m telling you - the future’s so bright, you gotta wear shades!