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Terrorist ‘Pre-Crime’ Detector Has Been Field Tested in the U.S.

Posted by Join Or DIE on June 19, 2011

Hmm, do the results even matter or is this something we’ll see anyway in the near future? Sharon Weinberger wrote recently in Nature News:

Planning a sojourn in the northeastern United States? You could soon be taking part in a novel security programme that can supposedly ’sense’ whether you are planning to commit a crime.

Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programme designed to spot people who are intending to commit a terrorist act, has in the past few months completed its first round of field tests at an undisclosed location in the northeast, Nature has learned.

Like a lie detector, FAST measures a variety of physiological indicators, ranging from heart rate to the steadiness of a person’s gaze, to judge a subject’s state of mind. But there are major differences from the polygraph. FAST relies on non-contact sensors, so it can measure indicators as someone walks through a corridor at an airport, and it does not depend on active questioning of the subject.

More on Nature News

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  • Anonymous

    They’d improve their chances if they just focused on the people who are loudly announcing they want to commit terrorist acts instead of harassing random citizens who have such a name or such an indicator. It’s not like terrorists have a history of secrecy about wanting to do what they do.

  • Anonymous

    Well..I’d be stopped a lot because most of the time I have chronic anxiety. Second, this shit sounds too much like Minority Report.

  • RMD

    How about setting it up at the next Tea Party event?  Oh, wait, white christian terrorists are just “domestic unrest”, not “terrorists”

  • Tio Holtzman

    Kill it with fire.

  • Billmasin585

    Does every modular trailer come with a man who sounds like Napoleon Dynamite interrogating?

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    No doubt the precogs have already seen this.

  • Diehard

    Interesting, bad news is these “toys” only work in the hands of trained pros. The moment we rely on them we loose our pros, and they in turn become ineffective. The best investigator I know refuses to use a poly-graph to interrogate because they are inefficient, we are a long way from replacing man.

  • Dogpeople

    Score another one for Philip k. Dick

  • Vic Bramble

    I don’t know whether to facepalm or rant about 1984 and the thought police.

  • Grooveboss

    Meh probably does not work. Just a plot to make people believe they have technology ahead of its time or completely fantastic. Like how signs prevent crimes all the time without much man power, like a fake beware of the dog sign. 

  • Grooveboss

    or the fake home security sign or fake cameras that just have blinking LED 

  • Joseph

    Wait, recording devices? I don’t think DHS is enforcing copyright… why would they be concerned about recording?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Joshua-Maslansky/1000997079 Joshua Maslansky

    Soylent green is people!!!

  • Namelesswon

    phillip k dick needs to come back and sue some ass.

  • a i

    Being nervous is a crime. Hope you don’t have any dates or job interviews coming up.

  • Allie

    And to think, we never had technology like this before. It’s not like you could, you know, look a person in the eye and have a conversation and tell if they were shitting bricks about doing something illegal. In Israel, they just have conversations – and it works way better than this stuff.

  • Sonnyterpez

    has no one read 1984…. thought crimes anyone?

  • Anonymous

    Apparently, enough people who thought it was a good idea read it.

  • Paulwhitehurst247

    i think your right…next step…..time cop

  • Paulwhitehurst247

    i think your right…next step…..time cop

  • Penguins4life

    Well shit, make one that detects when babies are about to take a shit and we dont need diaper anymore. Hell put them at stop lights…why stop there>! Detect when people are being stupid or smart, sarcastic or serious…

  • Myname

    DHS or the Gestapo? Not much difference there.

  • Ajsilver42

    Great point!  It is interesting that they’d waste such valuable resources looking for copyright infringement(I don’t know how many state secrets will be shown at the ‘expo’).  There is an argument of ‘while we’re at it we might as well police the area most effectively’, but there is also the consequence that content distributors would jointly sponsor this homeland security operation for such copyright control. 
    So I’m sure with corporate sponsorship these programs could be properly staffed.

  • Ajsilver42

    Great point!  It is interesting that they’d waste such valuable resources looking for copyright infringement(I don’t know how many state secrets will be shown at the ‘expo’).  There is an argument of ‘while we’re at it we might as well police the area most effectively’, but there is also the consequence that content distributors would jointly sponsor this homeland security operation for such copyright control. 
    So I’m sure with corporate sponsorship these programs could be properly staffed.

  • Ajsilver42

    Israel is a much smaller and more unified country than the US.  It is important that Israeli security measures cost as little as possible in lost productivity and money to their economy.  It is also imperative that Israel develop it’s own Homeland Security almost upon its’ inception.
    So yes, I agree that it is a more effective technique, but not perhaps one that the US could accept as such a fractured and paranoid government.

  • Skuta

    they WISH!
    looks more like psy-ops disinfo to herd the sheeple into docile compliance by thinking they are being watched under some imaginary black-magic-super-duper-police-stasi-big-brother-borg-surveillance, and resistance is futile.
    refuse to be intimidated by these a$$holes!!!

  • SaTEARical

    So you don’t want your plane to explode, nor do you want racial profiling.  You don’t want to be screened for bombs.  Now you are freaked out that a machine detects physiological signs of stress to indicate who might need a few questions asked of them?
    Get over it.  Stop acting like children and complaining about every solution when you don’t have any better ideas.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Jeffrey-Miller/1191457654 William Jeffrey Miller

    talk is cheap people action is needed. Get out in the streets and protest.

  • DeepCough

    That’s the thing with sci-fi dystopian novels: they’re less fiction and more like newsletters of things already happening, 1984 was no exception.

  • Louis

    Would it detect that you were going to participate in an act of civil disobedience when you got to your destination?Would it detect if you were a whistleblower?Having
    the government act because of detecting potential deception would give
    them the power to restrict the movements of those who resist them.Pat
    Downs, Sky Marshalls, and bomb sniffing dogs will stop most terrorists.
    That and not letting intelligence geniuses like Michael Leiter NCTC let
    terrorists come into the country so we can follow them.

  • Psychologicalindustries

    Not really news if you have been paying attention the last ten years, its all matter of fact DARPA protocols developed after the Patriot Act went into effect… I dont expect V for Vendetta Halloween masks to stop selling anytime soon…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cees-Timmerman/1564999382 Cees Timmerman

    The FBI recently invited the Westboro Baptists as an example of (domestic) terrorist groups.

  • Padraig

    well said, can’t think of anything from orwell’s book that has not been implemented in the UK

  • Bob

    About the most unAmerican thing I’ve ever seen.  To save our budget and our country, entirely eliminate DHS and their fascist presumption of guilt machines.

  • Anonononon

    This is a bad system because it trains terrorists to exercise control over their body functions, something that will make them even harder to spot, and over the long run, much much better spies. Use people, not machines for this sort of work. It is also far too easy to use this system for things other than the stated intention.

  • Anonymustime

    This is just another instrument to justify unnecesary arrests and to move forward with the  sistematical stimulation of paranoid and neurotic noth american population. You people should start revolting before your goverment turn your brains into guacamole and your civil rights into toilet paper. ANONYMUS

  • Leeloo

    “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.” – Ben Franklin