[Infowarrior] - The Government Is Trying to Wrap Its Mind Around Yours

[Richard Forno]

The Government Is Trying to Wrap Its Mind Around Yours

By Nita Farahany
Sunday, April 13, 2008; B03

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103
296_pf.html

Imagine a world of streets lined with video cameras that alert authorities
to any suspicious activity. A world where police officers can read the minds
of potential criminals and arrest them before they commit any crimes. A
world in which a suspect who lies under questioning gets nabbed immediately
because his brain has given him away.

Though that may sound a lot like the plot of the 2002 movie "Minority
Report," starring Tom Cruise and based on a Philip K. Dick novel, I'm not
talking about science fiction here; it turns out we're not so far away from
that world. But does it sound like a very safe place, or a very scary one?

It's a question I think we should be asking as the federal government
invests millions of dollars in emerging technology aimed at detecting and
decoding brain activity. And though government funding focuses on military
uses for these new gizmos, they can and do end up in the hands of civilian
law enforcement and in commercial applications. As spending continues and
neurotechnology advances, that imagined world is no longer the stuff of
science fiction or futuristic movies, and we postpone at our peril
confronting the ethical and legal dilemmas it poses for a society that
values not just personal safety but civil liberty as well.

Consider Cernium Corp.'s "Perceptrak" video surveillance and monitoring
system, recently installed by Johns Hopkins University, among others. This
technology grew out of a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency -- the central research and development organization for the
Department of Defense -- to develop intelligent video analytics systems.
Unlike simple video cameras monitored by security guards, Perceptrak
integrates video cameras with an intelligent computer video. It uses
algorithms to analyze streaming video and detect suspicious activities, such
as people loitering in a secure area, a group converging or someone leaving
a package unattended. Since installing Perceptrak, Johns Hopkins has
reported a 25 percent reduction in crime.

But that's only the beginning. Police may soon be able to monitor suspicious
brain activity from a distance as well. New neurotechnology soon may be able
to detect a person who is particularly nervous, in possession of guilty
knowledge or, in the more distant future, to detect a person thinking, "Only
one hour until the bomb explodes." Today, the science of detecting and
decoding brain activity is in its infancy. But various government agencies
are funding the development of technology to detect brain activity remotely
and are hoping to eventually decode what someone is thinking. Scientists,
however, wildly disagree about the accuracy of brain imaging technology,
what brain activity may mean and especially whether brain activity can be
detected from afar.

Yet as the experts argue about the scientific limitations of remote brain
detection, this chilling science fiction may already be a reality. In 2002,
the Electronic Privacy Information Center reported that NASA was developing
brain monitoring devices for airports and was seeking to use noninvasive
sensors in passenger gates to collect the electronic signals emitted by
passengers' brains. Scientists scoffed at the reports, arguing that to do
what NASA was proposing required that an electroencephalogram (EEG) be
physically attached to the scalp.

But that same year, scientists at the University of Sussex in England
adapted the same technology they had been using to detect heart rates at
distances of up to 1 meter, or a little more than three feet, to remotely
detect changes in the brain. And while scientific limitations to remote EEG
detection still exist, clearly the question is when, not if, these issues
will be resolved.

Meanwhile, another remote brain-activity detector, which uses light beamed
through the skull to measure changes in oxygen levels in the brain, may be
on the way. Together with the EEG, it would enhance the power of brain
scanning. Today the technology consists of a headband sensor worn by the
subject, a control box to capture the data and a computer to analyze it.
With the help of government funding, however, that is all becoming
increasingly compact and portable, paving the way for more specific remote
detection of brain activity.

But don't panic: The government can't read our minds -- yet. So far, these
tools simply measure changes in the brain; they don't detect thoughts and
intentions.

Scientists, though, are hard at work trying to decode how those signals
relate to mental states such as perception and intention. Different EEG
frequencies, for example, have been associated with fear, anger, joy and
sorrow and different cognitive states such as a person's level of alertness.
So when you're stopped for speeding and terrified because you're carrying
illegal drugs in the trunk of your car, EEG technology might enable the
police to detect your fear or increased alertness. This is not so
far-fetched: Some scientists already are able to tell from brain images in
the lab whether a test subject was envisioning a tool such as a hammer or a
screwdriver or a dwelling, and to predict whether the subject intended to
add or subtract numbers. Just last month, scientists announced a new study
aimed at decoding visual imagery in the brain.

Although brain-based lie-detection technology has been quite controversial
and has only been tested on a limited basis, early researchers have claimed
high accuracy at detecting deception. But there's a problem: Most
brain-based lie-detection tests assume that lying should result in more
brain activity than truth-telling because lying involves more cognition. So
these lie-detection methods may fail in sociopaths or in individuals who
believe in the falsehood they're telling.

Whether such technology will be effective outside the laboratory remains to
be seen, but the very fact that the government is banking on its future
potential raises myriad questions.

Imagine, for example, a police officer approaching a suspect based on
Perceptrak's "unusual activity" detection. Equipped with remote
neural-detection technology, the officer asks her a few questions, and the
detection device deems her responses to be deceptive. Will this be enough
evidence for an arrest? Can it be used to convict a person of intent to
commit a crime? Significant scientific hurdles remain before neurotechnology
can be used that way, but given how fast it's developing, I think we must
pause now to ask how it may affect the fundamental precepts of our criminal
justice system.

Americans have been willing to tolerate significant new security measures
and greater encroachments on civil liberties after the terrorist attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001. Could reports of significant crime reduction such as that
seen by Johns Hopkins, or incidents such as the student shootings last year
at Virginia Tech or more recently at Northern Illinois University, be enough
to justify the use of pre-crime technology? Could remote neural monitoring
together with intelligent video analytics have prevented those tragedies?
And if they could, should they be allowed to?

These are just some of the questions we must ask as we balance scientific
advances and the promise of enhanced safety against a loss of liberty. And
we must do it now, while our voices still matter. In a world where private
thoughts are no longer private, what will our protections be?

nita.farahany at vanderbilt.edu

Nita Farahany, an assistant professor of law and philosophy at Vanderbilt
University, is the editor of the forthcoming "Genes and Justice: The Impact
of Behavioral Genetics and Neuroscience on Criminal Law."