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,"'"

Comments

Re:Misunderstood? How about unreliable!

[F_Scentura]

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.

Re:Sounds like a good alternative to political deb

[lawpoop]

And if will filter out the purposefully deceptive ones, the only politicians we will have left are compulsive liars or sociopaths.

Something similar

[drspliff]

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.

Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others

[mypalmike]

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.