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General Interest => Tacitus' Realm => Topic started by: Ursus on June 25, 2011, 10:02:03 AM

Title: Terrorist 'pre-crime' detector field tested in United States
Post by: Ursus on June 25, 2011, 10:02:03 AM

Published online 27 May 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.323

Terrorist 'pre-crime' detector field tested in United States (http://http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110527/full/news.2011.323.html)
Screening system aims to pinpoint passengers with malicious intentions.

Sharon Weinberger

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.

The tactic has drawn comparisons with the science-fiction concept of 'pre-crime', popularized by the film Minority Report, in which security services can detect someone's intention to commit a crime. Unlike the system in the film, FAST does not rely on a trio of human mutants who can see the future. But the programme has attracted copious criticism from researchers who question the science behind it (see Airport security: Intent to deceive? (http://http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100526/full/465412a.html)).

From fiction to fact

So far, FAST has only been tested in the lab, so successful field tests could lend some much-needed data to support the technology. "It is encouraging to see an effort to develop a real empirical base for new technologies before any policy commitments are made," says Tom Ormerod, a psychologist in the Investigative Expertise Unit at Lancaster University, UK. Such testing, he adds, could lay the groundwork for a more rigorous randomized, controlled, double-blind study.

According to a privacy-impact statement previously released by the DHS, tests of FAST involve instructing some people passing through the system to carry out a "disruptive act". Ormerod questions whether such role-playing is representative of real terrorists, and also worries that both passengers and screeners will react differently when they know they're being tested. "Fill the place with machines that go ping, and both screeners and passengers start doing things differently."

In lab tests, the DHS has claimed accuracy rates of around 70%, but it remains unclear whether the system will perform better or worse in field trials. "The results are still being analysed, so we cannot yet comment on performance," says John Verrico, a spokesman for the DHS. "Since this is an ongoing scientific study, tests will continue throughout coming months."

Some scientists question whether there really are unique signatures for 'malintent' — the agency's term for the intention to cause harm — that can be differentiated from the normal anxieties of travel. "Even having an iris scan or fingerprint read at immigration is enough to raise the heart rate of most legitimate travellers," says Ormerod.

Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, a think-tank based in Washington DC that promotes the use of science in policy-making, is pessimistic about the FAST tests. He thinks that they will produce a large proportion of false positives, frequently tagging innocent people as potential terrorists and making the system unworkable in a busy airport. "I believe that the premise of this approach — that there is an identifiable physiological signature uniquely associated with malicious intent — is mistaken. To my knowledge, it has not been demonstrated," he says. "Without it, the whole thing seems like a charade."

As for where precisely FAST is being tested, that for now remains a closely guarded secret. The DHS says that although the first round was completed at the end of March, more testing is in the works, and the agency is concerned that letting people know where the tests are taking place could affect the outcome. "I can tell you that it is not an airport, but it is a large venue that is a suitable substitute for an operational setting," says Verrico.


© 2011 Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited.

Title: Comments: "Terrorist 'pre-crime' detector field tested..."
Post by: Ursus on June 27, 2011, 10:31:34 AM

Comments (http://http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110527/full/news.2011.323.html) left for the above article, "Terrorist 'pre-crime' detector field tested in United States (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=37451#p402084)" (by Sharon Weinberger, 27 May 2011, Nature):


2011-05-27 10:44:28 AM · Posted by: Christos Chinopoulos

Can FAST yield false-negative if the person has taken beta-blockers?

2011-05-28 02:49:40 PM · Posted by: Markoff Chaney

The issue shouldn't be weather it works, but that this couldn't in any way be more antithetical to the ENTIRE CONCEPT OF LIBERTY. The entire concept of liberty.

2011-05-30 07:28:04 AM · Posted by: John Byrnes

As demonstrated by the GAO Report on TSA’s programs, which include Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), SPOT, VIPER, etc. these methods that use of adrenaline-driven aggression indicators, i.e. Deception Detection or its derivative microexpressions do identify those with criminal intent to smuggle; they do not identify the terrorist or perpetrator of murder/suicide. Only with intent-driven Cognitive Aggression indicators can one identify the terrorist. To learn more visit

http://blog.AggressionManagement.com (http://blog.AggressionManagement.com)

Now controversial full-body scanners along with "Enhanced Patdown" are being implemented in airports, however, smugglers and terrorist overseas are now placing their contraband within their body-cavities making them oblivious to these methods. It is, therefore, reasonable to ask TSA, “What’s next?�

Although there is a clear relationship between adrenaline-driven Primal Aggression in humans and animals, intent-driven Cognitive Aggression is pure human. It is Cognitive Aggression that represents the most lethal aggressors, those murder/suicide or terrorists and murders or combatants. A further delving into my blog will explain these two types of aggression in more detail.

I believe there are synergies between our two practices. Please review our blog (http://blog.AggressionManagement.com (http://blog.AggressionManagement.com)) and select, “TSA Has Been Missing Terrorists Because They Have Been Unable To Foresee And Thereby Prevent These Terrorists’ Acts.� I would be very interested in further dialogue.[/list]
2011-05-30 10:52:10 AM · Posted by: David Yates

The antithesis of U.S. law is the presumption of guilt. Guilt, then, necessarily hinges upon the actual commission or provable conspiracy to commit a criminal act. Even if an individual contemplates a crime but does nothing to carry it out that person is innocent under the law. Who hasn't considered doing something unwise or illegal but changed their mind after having thought it through? Should they be arrested or surveilled based upon the objective speculation of a machine? What psychological conditions produce the physical responses detectable by such a machine? Perhaps anger at a spouse, anxiety of travel to an important, time sensitive event, a wedding, a funeral or injury of a loved one might do it.
This is why lie detector (polygraph) tests are inadmissible as evidence in court. We already treat allegedly innocent people as criminal suspects every time we illegally search travelers at airports on the assumption that treating everyone as a potential terrorist is somehow preferable to proper police work. This mindset probably stems from the failure of said police work to prevent 9/11 and the resulting embarrassment of the various agencies involved. So, rather than correcting their mistakes, they simply oppress everyone.
There is, of course, the underlying agenda of complete social control by those in power. That, ultimately is what we all must resist. This Orwellian approach must be stopped.

2011-05-30 11:27:34 AM · Posted by: james pisano

one small comment... in the movie they were able to actually see into the future via those three gifted people. so they were NOT testing or measuring 'intent' as most of the people had not intended yet, to commit the crimes they were supposedly going to commit. the technology in this article supposedly measures one's intention to do something in the future that one has already decided to to, which obviously is applicable in the case of a terrorist and a plane.

whatever it measures, there will always be people who should test positive who don't and likely those that will test positive falsely. but everyone wants to be safe. tough issue.

2011-05-30 12:14:49 PM · Posted by: oderfla zepol

Debido al naciente estudio de la expresion mental reflejada en el cuerpo, es decir en el rostro y las expresiones corporales, se debe seguir una metodologia aplicada a cada una de las razas existentes en el mundo,la manifestacion de los pensamientos necesariamente debe reflejarse en la anatomia de cada uno de los seres que intervienen en estas pruebas,no es complicado saber el tipo de expresiones de cada ser humano a cada una de las preguntas que se les pudiesen hacer fisicamente y tanto la expresion dirigida (cuestionarios) y la expresion de gancho (tomar en aeropuertos y puertos de entrada de cada pais al azar)cuentan con una metodologia que necesariamente debera conllevar unas reglas basicas las cuales si les interesan se las puedo hacer llegar.......

2011-06-01 04:20:39 AM · Posted by: Stephan Lloyd Watkins

Isn't there a fundamental clause in the US constitution that states "Innocent until proven guilty"? If you do not commit a crime, how can you be found guilty of a crime. To me this is akin to the 1920-1950's FBI techniques of knowing a murderer or criminal by measuring there head deminsions, or the way they look. If I just search all the people boarding a flight for an Instriment to carry out a terrorist attack, isn't that good enough.

Personally, I do not want to live in a world where my government has a tab on me every secound, and I have to worry constiantly about how my face looks, or if I make the wrong movement setting off a terrorist switch say ina new your crowd, just to get halled in for such an act. It is now comming to the point of my movements being legislated by police, or policing agencies.

Sincerely,

Stephan lloyd Watkins

2011-06-01 09:32:57 PM · Posted by: Stephen Fletcher

This kind of technology has been available for some time.

From

http://www.mindjustice.org/2003_survey.htm (http://www.mindjustice.org/2003_survey.htm)

In the October 2001 Signal Magazine article, “Decoding Minds, Foiling Adversaries,� John Norseen of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company declared, “We are at the point where this database has been developed enough that we can use a single electrode or something like an airport security system where there is a dome above our head to get enough information that we can know the number you’re thinking,....� According to the January 3, 2000 US News and World Report, “The National Aeronautic and Space Administration [NASA]... have all awarded small basic research contracts to Norseen,... -portions of them classified....�[/list]
2011-06-01 09:37:01 PM · Posted by: Stephen Fletcher

This kind of technology has been available for some time.

From

http://www.mindjustice.org/2003_survey.htm (http://www.mindjustice.org/2003_survey.htm)

In the October 2001 Signal Magazine article, "Decoding Minds, Foiling Adversaries, John Norseen of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company declared, "We are at the point where this database has been developed enough that we can use a single electrode or something like an airport security system where there is a dome above our head to get enough information that we can know the number you're thinking"
According to the January 3, 2000 US News and World Report "The National Aeronautic and Space Administration [NASA]... have all awarded small basic research contracts to Norseen,... -portions of them classified"[/list]


© 2011 Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited.