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

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

[Blaine Hilton]

Now this is a rather disturbing article. I've always thought it was something that people can check out brain function and all of that, however I never thought off it as being a privacy concern. This article though brings up some interesting points. Such as having brain scans be a condition to being hired, much like a drug test of today. This at first seems shocking, but it is commonly accepted to take a drug test without any objections. With the heightened security concerns around the globe I believe people, as a whole are willing to work towards a "more secure" future.

The problem I see though is people are not thinking broad enough. Technologies such as this can be used on a large scale against humanity. I believe the consequences of such abilities need to be addressed in a uniform manner, without always talking about the terrorists that will kill us all anyway. How far will society let the security over take our lives? I for one do not want to end up living in a military state where every body that does not have blonde hair, blue eyes, and a perfect attitude is destroyed. Do you?

Go calculate something

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.

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.

DMCA

[wowbagger]

I'm sorry, but I hold the copyright over my brain and the information therein, and your brain scanner is an unlawful circumvention device under the DMCA.

My lawyers will be calling.

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

[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

[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.

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.