Slashdot Mirror
ACLU Files for Info on New Brain-Scan Tech
An anonymous reader writes "According to their website, the ACLU has filed a FOIA request seeking information on the new Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging service being made available to the government for use on suspected terrorists which can produce 'live, real-time images of people's brains as they answer questions, view images, listen to sounds, and respond to other stimuli. [...] These brain-scanning technologies are far from ready for forensic uses and if deployed will inevitably be misused and misunderstood," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "This technology must not be deployed until it is proven effective -- and we are a long way away from that point, according to scientists in the field,"'"
It's more than that. You shouldn't even know that you have nothing to hide. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
I have had to take a lie detector test for work. I get really paniced under pressure and they could not get a good reading cause my vitals were always high.
Well yeah, this time the tinfoil hat joke is on-topic, expect a flood of such comments :p
python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
Why would it need to be effective? If you could use this thing to trick the suspected terrorist into revealing information, isn't that an effective use of the system? The ACLU seems to want the world to know that the technology doesn't work. All that will do is make interrogation of suspects less effective.
My other first post is car post.
As with lie detectors, I assume that these are used to cause the to usee spontaneously provide a (truthful) confession, not for accuracy. Hey, it's not torture.
And if will filter out the purposefully deceptive ones, the only politicians we will have left are compulsive liars or sociopaths.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I heard a lecture by an American professor researching this kind of systems about a year back. It was interesting, but I don't remember all the details. Here is what I remember from the lecture.
He got defence grants (DARPA?), but was rather open with what they were doing and what they could do. He was using MRI and CT and tried to figure out what people were thinking of. His goal was to construct a lie detector. He used neural networks that were trained information about activity in different parts of the brain. He had to retrain the networks for each test subject, but were developing more general networks.
He had bad resolution in both time and space (In time he couldn't measure things shorter than around 10 seconds). The MRI could give continuous information while the CT was more of a one shot deal due to the radioactive isotopes used.
He could tell if people were thinking about various things. He could tell the difference between somebody thinking of a saw, a house and a hammer. He could not tell the difference between a hammer and a sledge.
He could not tell the difference between somebody thinking of a man and a woman. But he could tell the difference in some cases between people thinking of grownups and children.
He could tell the difference between somebody thinking of different classes of words (substantives, verbs etc).
He had barely begun with lies, but mentioned that it was an exceptionally hard area to do research on. Back then there was more or less no research in the area. Just the problem with finding somebody that lies in the proper way while in the MRI machine was quite clearly a hard problem, not to mention checking when he was lying.
There was one of these late-night Open University* programs on a few years ago that covered something very similar (although I suspect a little less advanced).
Basicly people were sat infront of a screen and displayed keywords, pictures of people or places etc. and had the general level of electrical avtivity going on in their brains recorded. Later on the activity log was matched against the timeline of what they were looking at and you could very clearly see the difference between questions that had no relation to them and questions that did.
It's not a magic solution to interigation, but if you ask the right questions properly (which includes things that they know nothing about, or for example showing pictures of cute puppies or family members etc.) then it could really help as there's no known way to control these specific reactions (as it's possible with traditional lie detectors.
I'm sure the professor was an American, but I can't remember his name.. any help finding how this progressed and how it compares to what's discussed in the article would be cool.
* To you non-british people, the OU is a university in which you can study at home/abroad and shows educational material late at night on the 'public' TV channels.
Paraphrasing, the 10th amendment covers state's rights. The ACLU doesn't really come on my radar screen as staunch defenders of state's rights, but then again, most of what I know about them comes from the ranting of their detrtactors. That the ACLU wouldn't do much work about the 10th amendment makes sense if they construe themselves to be interested in *personal* liberties, but I digress.
Also paraphrasing, the 9th amendment protects rights not specifically enumerated in the constitution. Can you point out some glaring examples where the ACLU has been silent on a purportedly 9th amendment issue?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
They are concerned about the use of brain image scans as an adjunct tool for interrogation of captured terrorists - and yet have seldom (if ever) lifted a finger to defend my rights under the 9th
The 9th amendments is about implied rights not specifically otherwise mentioned in the constitution. The ACLU certainly can't be accused of not defending implied rights, such as those of privacy, death, etc.
and 10th amendments,
Look into Gonzales v. Raich.
and NEVER defended the individual's rights under the 2nd amendment.
ACLU: "The national ACLU is neutral on the issue of gun control. We believe that the Constitution contains no barriers to reasonable regulations of gun ownership. If we can license and register cars, we can license and register guns... The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court's long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual's right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia."
It ain't their bag, baby. The NRA is pretty good at that one though.
Come on ACLU - you have more important things to spend your resources on. Start with US Citizens first.
1. Suspected terrorists aren't necessarily, or even generally, foreign nationals.
2. The ACLU's concern is that this type of interrogation will be used on US citizens.
3. The ACLU is a private organization that can choose to take on the battles it finds to be important.
As a final point, your subject says "some people's rights but not others", but your argument seems to focus on "some rights and not others". There's a big difference.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
In WWII's 1945, America was facing at least several more months of massive deaths, even in victory over Japan. Perhaps a permanent counterinsurgency in occupied Japan. Or joint occupation of Japan/Pacific with Russia, as in Europe. The atomic bombs had already been tested to "work" (massive explosions, but still only "local" effects) in the American desert.
In other words, reliable enough, compared to the alternative.
However, not tested enough to protect ourselves from fallout and other contamination. And certainly not tested as "diplomacy" to avoid the next half-century nuclear Cold War, which stood only a single syllable away from extinction at least once.
Scientists usually don't insist on anything before the government (or anyone else) uses their discoveries - they're almost never in such a powerful position. Even in this case, a libertarian activist organization is trying to stop the government from (ab)using this technology before it's reliable.
Vast power brings vast responsibilities. Big decisions about giant risks like this need to be made by responsible, informed who understand the consequences, and are liable when they're wrong. We can't afford our $3.5TRILLION government, with its miniscule accountability, beta testing devices like this before the law is even ready, let alone the machines.
--
make install -not war
Requiring to be polygraphed for a job is fucked up, but it is also not the point. What they did was illegal, the fact that they got away with it is unfortunate, but it does not reflect an error in the system.
It is a completely different situation when it comes to law enforcement. If you say no to a polygraph, there is not shit they can do about it. They can't use the fact that you said no to a polygraph as evidence, so it really has no consequence whether you said no or not. It might throw some suspicion your way, it might make their job a little harder, but if they wish to take you to court they need solid evidence. Solid evidence which, in all probability wont be there if you are innocent.
That's not too say that no innocent people ever gets convicted of a crime. Obviously they do, but people don't do time because of failed polygraphs, or their refusal to take one.
I also believe dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was worth the cost, as I believe my detailed description some of the costs of a continued war spelled out. To anyone not walking around with a fascist stick up their ass, that is.
That still doesn't mean we understood the cost of the fallout to protect ourselves, as is also obviously true. To anyone without a fascist stick up their ass.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is most certainly libertarian, committed to nothing but defending our liberties. From fascists with terrorist sticks up their ass.
As any fool could guess, and anyone with a brain doesn't have to guess, no one should be waving around these ridiculous devices as if they worked to "extract truth". Any more than that Star Wars "missile defense shield" works to protect us, or Bush's FEMA protected New Orleans, or anything else shiny and expensive that you fascists worship when so ordered by a waving flag.
But of course, since you vote for Bush as often as possible, need thousands of random "ignorant goat herders" tortured in concentration camps like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, you demand we attack someone, no matter how effective or just. Because you're a sadist - that's what makes fascism so appealing to you. And that stick up your ass.
You people are the answer to Osama's prayers: such scared pussies that seeing terrorism on TV immediately makes you burn any liberties that make our country worth living for. Disgusting cowards projecting their fear onto every strong patriot available, who must be Communists when they protect the people from government tyranny.
Oooh, calling it "the G" makes you sound like such an insider. As if you had any power, any more than a single termite devouring the Constitution with the rest of its mindless brood. I require you to immediately report to one of "the G's" test centers to tweak this sexy Mystery Machine into working order. It's your patriotic duty... there, that always works with you zombies. I won't have to deal with you anymore on Slashdot, because you'll be able to fax your posts directly to Cheney after the tests are completed. If you need to keep posting anyway, just stick it up your ass. It's your best feature.
--
make install -not war
After 48~60 hours, mild auditory and visual hallucinations begin.
From that point on, it's downhill.
Between 72~100 hours, hallucinations & paranoia take over.
After 100 hours, you can induce hallucinations through suggestion.
I suggest you try it sometime.
See how well you take it.
I've taken one, in an attempt to clear my name when I was falsely accused of a very serious crime. I learned first hand that what you say is true. What was most telling were my results. The machine showed a definite reaction above the nominal borderline for all questions relating to the crime, however the examiner felt that I was telling the truth. The final result? Inconclusive. The examiner explained to me after I took the test that false positives like that are quite normal. When accused of something really serious like that many normal people will have extremely strong reactions to ANY mention or question about the crime, even if they're 100% innocent.
So you can quite easily fail a polygraph simply because you're freaked out that you were accused of whatever they want to administer the polygraph for. In the end I wasted my time (and their's at least) for I was unable to prove my innocence with the polygraph.