Brain Privacy

sleepyrobot writes "As neuroscience advances and brain scans become more sophisticated, the Boston Globe points out that some privacy advocates are concerned about brain privacy. Could employees be scanned for violent or depressive impulses? Could soldiers be screened for homosexuality? It sounds like a Philip K. Dick vision of the future, but some predict this will be a bigger ethical issue than genetics."

Comments

Frightening

[beatniklew]

The part that makes this the most frightening is that we've seen recently how far people are willing to go if they think that security is at hand. The Patriot Act and Patriot II (return of the civil liberty abuses), both passed with widespread support, just because people were scared. With the right amount of fear, this technology will not only be allowed, but mandated in usage to screen for "potential security risks"

irony

[Joe the Lesser]

Could soldiers be screened for homosexuality?

I always find it ironic that technologies created by open-mindedness have to ability to empower the narrow-minded.

Re:irony

[TGK]

In the early summer of 371 BC the two great armies of Ancient Greece met on the plain of Luctra.

The Spartan army that day numbered some 11,000 men, claiming a heritage stretching back hundreds of years. Glory upon glory enshrouded this fighting force, the decendents of the famous 300 and heirs to the legacy of Thermopylae.

Across the plain from them stood the Thebian army. Only 6,000 stong, the Thebians were acutely aware of the overwhelming numerical superiority of their enemy.

In the moments before the crucial clash of arms, Epaminandos, general of the Thebian Army, called "The Sacred Band" to hold a position usualy reserved for cannon fodder: face to face with the Spartan Elite. The Band consisted of 300 highly trained shock troops. Against them stood nearly 600 of Sparta's best.

But the Thebians held a key advantage. Hoplite warfare relies heavily on the defence of those on the flanks, as well as the defence of the individual, to maintain the integrity of the unit. Here the Thebian system was superior. The Sacred Band was comprised, not simply of 300 shock troops, but of 150 pairs of homosexual lovers. These men were willing to fight and die for each other, not only because it benefited the unit as a whole, but because of the deeper bonds between them.

When the sun set on Luctra that day it set upon the aftermath of the Thebian victory. The Spartan army had been crushed by a smaller force and forced to request a truce. In the years following Luctra, Spartan military power would be shattered forever.

While I don't argue that sexual tension in our military can be a problem, I object to the idea that is MUST be a problem. Speaking as a historian I belive the problems in our military associated with sex and sexuality do not derive from having people sexualy attracted serving together, but rather the way we deal with that circumstance. The Thebians turned it into an advantage. They were not the first, nor the last.

It's a lot easier,,,

[DeepDarkSky]

to figure out what is going on in someone's head by looking at the things that the person does or say, the external manifestations of a person's thoughts. If you are concerned about your "brain privacy", just don't talk to people, post on Slashdot or a personal blog, don't write letters or emails, etc.

Got a whole lotta hype

[TopShelf]

There's a major difference between a drug screen and having your brain scanned as a condition of employment. A drug screen is meant to pick up illegal activity which poses a tangible safety and liability issue to a potential employer. There's nothing illegal about thinking anything (at least in the developed democracies), so I don't see brain scans becoming accepted practice during my lifetime (knock on wood).

Re:Got a whole lotta hype

[TopShelf]

You can sit around and hate whoever you like, it's when you act on it by assaulting others that it becomes a crime. Try another swing..

Re:Got a whole lotta hype

[Mr. Slippery]

A drug screen is meant to pick up illegal activity which poses a tangible safety and liability issue to a potential employer.

Bullshit.

Chemical screens for drug metabolites say absolutely nothing about whether you are a safety issue. If that was the issue, impairment tests would be used. (And a few intelligent employers do use impairment tests.) Drug screens are about what you're doing in your own time - they are a lifestyle screen. They're a loyalty oath to the Drug War.

(They're also surprisingly inaccurate for something that can ruin your life.)

I got my first job in high school, 17 years ago. I've been in the workforce ever since. I've never pissed in a cup for an employer. I've turned down job offers over it. I've still done ok.

Drug tests: just say no.

Re:Got a whole lotta hype

[nicedream]

But if you do act out and assault someone, your thoughts and motives (not just the act committed)can be used determine the severity of the crime.

Base hit.

Re:Got a whole lotta hype

[privacyt]

You can sit around and hate whoever you like, it's when you act on it by assaulting others that it becomes a crime.

If you assault someone without hating them for their race, you get the standard punishment. But if you do the exact same assault and feel hatred, you get an additional punishment.

In some cases this can get absurd. Here in Pennsylvania a couple years ago, two ignorant pranksters put racist stickers on a sign outside a Martin Luther King memorial. Normally, such vandalism would been a misdemeanor, giving the punks a fine and comunity service. But in their case, it was a felony due to additional hate crimes penalties.

Is that good? Maybe so, since we all hate racists. But what if someone vandalizes a Microsoft billboard because they hate monopolistic corporations, and then they get a felony for having the wrong motives when they did the crime? If everyone doesn't have freedom of thought, then none of us do.

Punish people's crimes; don't punish their thoughts.

And since the thoughts of a person in a free society are no one's business but their own, the government needs to stay out of our brains and stop conccerning itself with our thoughts.

Re:Got a whole lotta hype

[TopShelf]

Since I've worked in warehouse/distribution environments for the last several years, I heartily disagree. Put plain & simple, you don't want some crackhead/stoner/junkie driving a forklift around your warehouse. From the employer's perspective, it's common sense to try and screen users out ahead of time.

Now, whether this argument extends to non-equipment operating personnel is potentially another matter. The main motivation there is probably insurance related. Now don't get me wrong - personally, I think pot should be legalized. But drug users do represent a higher risk in terms of attendance and health care issues, so from the employers perspective that makes them expendable...

Re:This is scary, or is it just over-reaction?

[RatBastard]

You want to test my blood/urine/etc... for drugs? Get a search warrant or get the hell out. My body is more private than my house. People put up with random/compulsery drug tests because they have been brainwashed by the whole "War on Drugs" debacle that it is a Good Thing to test people with no Probable Cause whatsoever.

Brain scanning like this, combined with genetic testing will create a tiered populous with those deemd "fit" (and deemed by who, exactly?) at the top, and the great unwashed masses at the bottom.

It seems almost inevitable that humanity keeps trying to organize itself into the lords and the serfs.

The Spartans

[RatBastard]

Could soldiers be screened for homosexuality?

You know what's really funny about this? The most feared army in Greek times, the Spartans, were all gay. Many of them fighting shoulder to shoulder with their lovers.

Re:The Spartans

[RatBastard]

I'd post anonymously if I posted that drivel, too. The problem isn't trust, it's homophobia. As long as straights suffer an irrational fear that every gay man is going to rape them or seduce them (and God forbid that you actually like it!) your comment is true. When you realize that it's Sgt Butch, who has saved your life ten times, carried your broken and bloody body ten miles to the aid station and taken a bullet to save another wounded soldiers life is gay, and Pvt. Chauncy is just some slightly effemenite, but totally straight man, that you find out what an ass you really are.

And no, I'm not gay. I have known gays all my life, and have been in situations where my safety, and even my life, has been in the hands of homosexuals. At no point was my trust in their ability compromised.

I want this for a programming tool...

[NetSettler]

The most conservative view of the brain's power say that it's a computer program. The most elaborate theories also envision that there are other structures like souls that can't be 'caught on tape'. Strangely, I'd be the hardcore conservatives wanting to use this technology are statistically more likely to be those who say we have unmeasurable souls. Just a guess. But if it's so, I wonder how they rationalize that.

But let's take the conservative view--that the brain is just a computer program that is trillions or quadrillions of times more complex than your average programming project for work. Now we're talking about hooking us up to a machine that has no idea what a single line of source looks like, no idea what data has been preloaded, and is just going to watch the approximate equivalent of the blinking lights on the console and tell me if my program is not only functioning correctly now, but whether it's predicted to function correctly in the future?

Geez, forget core dumps, stack debuggers, tracing tools, and all that. I just want one of these cool push-button debugging tools for writing programs!! People pay enormous amounts for teams of people to pour over source code for days or weeks or more on projects so trivial as today's... and it's apparently all wasted. We could have solved the whole Y2K problem by just letting this machine watch the blinky lights on the front of some COBOL boxes and tell us that the planes wouldn't crash and the elevators wouldn't stop. Why didn't we rush them into production if they were this close to ready?

Or is it possible that the effectiveness is slightly oversold?

Re:The Truth Machine

[sirgoran]

I have to disagree with you. People need privacy. There is no reason for anyone to know everything about what I say, think, or do.

I have nothing to hide, but my privacy is my own.
Am I gay? No.
Am I a criminal (Caught or not)? No.
Am I trying to hide something? No.
But, if I look at a woman and think to myself, "Boy I'd sure Like to F*** her!" That thought is my own and not something that anyone has the right to know about me. Thinking that doesn't make me a rapist nor someone to fear or "keep tabs" on.

Much like if I thought to myself, "Boy, the President is a dumb sonofabitch." That too is not something that I feel is something that should be public knowledge nor held against me. Just because I might think something doesn't make me guilty of anything.

Much like this discussion, it's my opinion and I should be the one to choose if and when I want to share it.

Everyone has a right to their own personal privacy. Just because someone enjoys their privacy, it doesn't make them a criminal. Did you ever think that it might protect you FROM the criminals? What would happen if everyone could know if you were scared of them. Wouldn't that make you a target of those that would exploit that fear?

Any kind of brain scanning that invades my privacy, or makes public my privacy is wrong.

That's my two bits on the matter.
-Goran