Homeland Security Embarks on Big Brother Programs to Read Our Minds and Emotions

Posted by Raymond on December 11, 2009

From Alternet:

Half-baked Homeland Security is spending millions to develop sensors capable of detecting a person’s level of ‘malintent’ as a counterterrorism tool.

In the sci-fi thriller Minority Report, Tom Cruise plays a D.C. police detective, circa 2054, in the department of “pre-crime,” an experimental law enforcement unit whose mission — to hunt down criminals before they strike — relies on the psychic visions of mutant “pre-cogs” (short for precognition) who can see the future. It may be futuristic Hollywood fantasy, but the underlying premise — that we can predict (if not see) a person’s sinister plans before they follow through — is already here.

This past February, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded a one-year, $2.6 million grant to the Cambridge, MA.-based Charles Stark Draper Laboratory to develop computerized sensors capable of detecting a person’s level of “malintent” — or intention to do harm. It’s only the most recent of numerous contracts awarded to Draper and assorted research outfits by the U.S. government over the past few years under the auspices of a project called “Future Attribute Screening Technologies,” or FAST. It’s the next wave of behavior surveillance from DHS and taxpayers have paid some $20 million on it so far.

Conceived as a cutting-edge counter-terrorism tool, the FAST program will ostensibly detect subjects’ bad intentions by monitoring their physiological characteristics, particularly those associated with fear and anxiety. It’s part of a broader “initiative to develop innovative, non-invasive technologies to screen people at security checkpoints,” according to DHS.

[Read more at Alternet]