Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
"You're in the desert, you see a tortoise lying on its back, struggling, and you're not helping -- why is that?"*
So, according to FOX News, our friends at the Department of Homeland Security will soon have a new trick up their sleeve: MALINTENT.
Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind
Baggage searches are SOOOOOO early-21st century. Homeland Security is now testing the next generation of security screening — a body scanner that can read your mind.Most preventive screening looks for explosives or metals that pose a threat. But a new system called MALINTENT turns the old school approach on its head. This Orwellian-sounding machine detects the person — not the device — set to wreak havoc and terror.
MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security's directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers.
I'm . . . sceptical. Let me put it like this: if this thing actually, dependably, reliably works the way they tout it in the article (go read the whole thing, even if it is from FOX), then the TSA would be perfectly fine with allowing me to carry a gun onto a plane. After all, I have a legitimate CCW permit, have been vetted by a background check and accuracy test, have had the permit for three years, and have never demonstrated the slightest inclination to use my weapon inappropriately. If I could pass their MALINTENT scanners as well, they should be completely willing to let me (and anyone else who had a similar background and permit) carry a weapon on board.
Just how likely do you think that is?
Right. Because this sort of technology does not, will not, demonstrate reliability to the degree they claim. There will be far too many "false positives", as there always are with any kind of lie detector. That's why multiple questions are asked when a lie detector is used, and even then many jurisdictions do not allow the results of a lie detector to be admitted into courts of law.
Furthermore, the risk of a "false negative" would be far too high. Someone who was trained/drugged/unaware/elated with being a terrorist and slipped by the scanners would still be a threat. As Bruce Schneier just posted about Two Classes of Airport Contraband:
This is why articles about how screeners don't catch every -- or even a majority -- of guns and bombs that go through the checkpoints don't bother me. The screeners don't have to be perfect; they just have to be good enough. No terrorist is going to base his plot on getting a gun through airport security if there's decent chance of getting caught, because the consequences of getting caught are too great.
Contrast that with a terrorist plot that requires a 12-ounce bottle of liquid. There's no evidence that the London liquid bombers actually had a workable plot, but assume for the moment they did. If some copycat terrorists try to bring their liquid bomb through airport security and the screeners catch them -- like they caught me with my bottle of pasta sauce -- the terrorists can simply try again. They can try again and again. They can keep trying until they succeed. Because there are no consequences to trying and failing, the screeners have to be 100 percent effective. Even if they slip up one in a hundred times, the plot can succeed.
OK, so then why do it? Why introduce these scanners at all? Why intrude on the privacy of people wanting to get on an airplane?
Control. As I noted earlier this year, about the news that the US military was deploying hand-held 'lie detectors' for use in Iraq:
The device is being tested by the military. They just don’t know it. And once it is in use, some version of the technology will be adapted for more generalized police use. Just consider how it will be promoted to the law enforcement community: as a way of screening suspects. Then, as a way of finding suspects. Then, as a way of checking anyone who wants access to some critical facility. Then, as a way of checking anyone who wants access to an airplane, train, or bus.
Just how long do you think it will be before you have to pass a test by one of these types of devices in your day-to-day life? I give it maybe ten years. But I worry that I am an optimist.
An optimist, indeed. Because here's another bit from the FOXNews article:
And because FAST is a mobile screening laboratory, it could be set up at entrances to stadiums, malls and in airports, making it ever more difficult for terrorists to live and work among us.
This is about scanning the public, making people *afraid*. Afraid not just of being a terrorist, but of being thought to be a terrorist by others, of being an outsider. Of being a critic of the government in power. The first step is to get you afraid of terrorists, because then they could use that fear, and build on it, to slowly, methodically, destroy your privacy. Sure, the DHS claims that they will not keep the information gathered from such scanners. And you're a fool if you think you can trust that.
Jim Downey
Via BoingBoing. Cross posted to Communion of Dreams.
*Recognize the quote?
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This machine would be
This machine would be terribly inaccurate at this time. It reads non-verbal ques? So if I have my hands on my head I'm considered a potential terrorist...go ahead and arrest me, I'd love for them to explain in court why I was arrested. This would cost the government a lot of money as result of failed prosecutions. The ability to read one's "mind" and tell what their true intentions would only be possible with nanotechnology. Nanobots on your neurons that could relay the electrical impulses coming and going, but we are not even close to this technology...yet (14 years from now).
--
Frank
DUI lawyer
Sorry to double dip...
but I meant to comment on that last Faux News quote as well...
Is there a lower form of life than the people of Fox News? Other than the fraudulent fearmongers and war profiteers for whom they ceaselessly advertise?
I wonder how many terrorists were on the bus with me this morning? I'm lucky to be alive! I work on a high school campus, we've got to protect the children! Get me one of these setups pronto, before Bin Laden kills us all with poisoned tater-tots! I was at the mall last week, I can't believe I made it home in one piece! Why don't we have these lifesaving miracle surveillance machines on every street corner and in every public building?
Well, I'm sure we will soon enough, at a tremendous profit for the manufacturer, and a benefit of exactly jack-shit for US, the ones forced to pay for it all.
Once more, for the children...
It makes me wonder, are they going to set one up outside the Fox News offices, or perhaps outside of federal government buildings, or maybe the RNC headquarters? Maybe then we could catch some of the bastards who keep creating all this terror right out of thin air!
What brand of crack
are these fools smoking? Or more accurately, what brand of crack are the American people smoking to accept this garbage? A mind reading machine? That will actually be used to screen people? Madness.
Current technology is woefully inadequate for this task, as a few minutes research will show anyone. I'm not saying it's totally impossible for all time, but we are not even close yet, and it seems to me that results will, like lie detectors, always be filled with plenty of false positives and negatives. In a situation where time is a factor, that alone should disqualify its use. They should call it the Hopelessly Unaccountable Nazi Cop Helper, or H.U.N.C.H. for short. As Jim says, this is an instrument for creating fear, and also an instrument to give security workers a blank check for abuse of their authority. Tomorrow's news:
"Da machine, it told me he was a killa! Then he didn't want to let me cuff him...so I shot him!"
"Good work Johnson! Sorry about your husband, ma'am, but we must have complete compliance for your own safety...enjoy your vacation...you should get the bill for the bullets in two or three weeks."
I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm being harrassed by rude, incompetent fascists, treated like livestock after paying several hundred dollars for the privilege, or talked down to by personnel who would be more qualified to mop the floor at wal-mart, one of the ways I cope is by imagining that I'm punching them repeatedly in the face...I've never taken it to real violence, and don't think I ever will, it just helps me get through the experience without verbally going off on people...I wonder what signal that would send to their machine? And when they're done interrogating me, will the name of my thoughtcrime be tattooed on my forehead, or my wrist?
I guess I just won't fly...ever again, unless I hit the Lotto and can afford a private jet.
So here we are, America. Thoughtcrime is as real as the gun in your back and the cuffs on your wrists. Mad scientists sell their dreams to our government for the purposes of our abuse and control. We worship and obey incompetent, overconfident thugs, most of whom do not understand or accept the LAST century's science, yet want to play with our freedoms and our lives while pretending to be the masters of NEXT century's science. I'm trapped in a Terry Gilliam movie, and I want the fuck out!