[tt] WP: Nita Farahany: The Government Is Trying to Wrap Its Mind Around Yours

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Nita Farahany: The Government Is Trying to Wrap Its Mind Around Yours
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103296_pf.html
Sunday, April 13, 2008; B03

Imagine a world of streets lined with video cameras that alert
authorities to any suspicious activity. A world where police
officers can read the minds of potential criminals and arrest them
before they commit any crimes. A world in which a suspect who lies
under questioning gets nabbed immediately because his brain has
given him away.

Though that may sound a lot like the plot of the 2002 movie
"Minority Report," starring Tom Cruise and based on a Philip K. Dick
novel, I'm not talking about science fiction here; it turns out
we're not so far away from that world. But does it sound like a very
safe place, or a very scary one?

It's a question I think we should be asking as the federal
government invests millions of dollars in emerging technology aimed
at detecting and decoding brain activity. And though government
funding focuses on military uses for these new gizmos, they can and
do end up in the hands of civilian law enforcement and in commercial
applications. As spending continues and neurotechnology advances,
that imagined world is no longer the stuff of science fiction or
futuristic movies, and we postpone at our peril confronting the
ethical and legal dilemmas it poses for a society that values not
just personal safety but civil liberty as well.

Consider Cernium Corp.'s "Perceptrak" video surveillance and
monitoring system, recently installed by Johns Hopkins University,
among others. This technology grew out of a project funded by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- the central research
and development organization for the Department of Defense -- to
develop intelligent video analytics systems. Unlike simple video
cameras monitored by security guards, Perceptrak integrates video
cameras with an intelligent computer video. It uses algorithms to
analyze streaming video and detect suspicious activities, such as
people loitering in a secure area, a group converging or someone
leaving a package unattended. Since installing Perceptrak, Johns
Hopkins has reported a 25 percent reduction in crime.

But that's only the beginning. Police may soon be able to monitor
suspicious brain activity from a distance as well. New
neurotechnology soon may be able to detect a person who is
particularly nervous, in possession of guilty knowledge or, in the
more distant future, to detect a person thinking, "Only one hour
until the bomb explodes." Today, the science of detecting and
decoding brain activity is in its infancy. But various government
agencies are funding the development of technology to detect brain
activity remotely and are hoping to eventually decode what someone
is thinking. Scientists, however, wildly disagree about the accuracy
of brain imaging technology, what brain activity may mean and
especially whether brain activity can be detected from afar.

Yet as the experts argue about the scientific limitations of remote
brain detection, this chilling science fiction may already be a
reality. In 2002, the Electronic Privacy Information Center reported
that NASA was developing brain monitoring devices for airports and
was seeking to use noninvasive sensors in passenger gates to collect
the electronic signals emitted by passengers' brains. Scientists
scoffed at the reports, arguing that to do what NASA was proposing
required that an electroencephalogram (EEG) be physically attached
to the scalp.

But that same year, scientists at the University of Sussex in
England adapted the same technology they had been using to detect
heart rates at distances of up to 1 meter, or a little more than
three feet, to remotely detect changes in the brain. And while
scientific limitations to remote EEG detection still exist, clearly
the question is when, not if, these issues will be resolved.

Meanwhile, another remote brain-activity detector, which uses light
beamed through the skull to measure changes in oxygen levels in the
brain, may be on the way. Together with the EEG, it would enhance
the power of brain scanning. Today the technology consists of a
headband sensor worn by the subject, a control box to capture the
data and a computer to analyze it. With the help of government
funding, however, that is all becoming increasingly compact and
portable, paving the way for more specific remote detection of brain
activity.

But don't panic: The government can't read our minds -- yet. So far,
these tools simply measure changes in the brain; they don't detect
thoughts and intentions.

Scientists, though, are hard at work trying to decode how those
signals relate to mental states such as perception and intention.
Different EEG frequencies, for example, have been associated with
fear, anger, joy and sorrow and different cognitive states such as a
person's level of alertness. So when you're stopped for speeding and
terrified because you're carrying illegal drugs in the trunk of your
car, EEG technology might enable the police to detect your fear or
increased alertness. This is not so far-fetched: Some scientists
already are able to tell from brain images in the lab whether a test
subject was envisioning a tool such as a hammer or a screwdriver or
a dwelling, and to predict whether the subject intended to add or
subtract numbers. Just last month, scientists announced a new study
aimed at decoding visual imagery in the brain.

Although brain-based lie-detection technology has been quite
controversial and has only been tested on a limited basis, early
researchers have claimed high accuracy at detecting deception. But
there's a problem: Most brain-based lie-detection tests assume that
lying should result in more brain activity than truth-telling
because lying involves more cognition. So these lie-detection
methods may fail in sociopaths or in individuals who believe in the
falsehood they're telling.

Whether such technology will be effective outside the laboratory
remains to be seen, but the very fact that the government is banking
on its future potential raises myriad questions.

Imagine, for example, a police officer approaching a suspect based
on Perceptrak's "unusual activity" detection. Equipped with remote
neural-detection technology, the officer asks her a few questions,
and the detection device deems her responses to be deceptive. Will
this be enough evidence for an arrest? Can it be used to convict a
person of intent to commit a crime? Significant scientific hurdles
remain before neurotechnology can be used that way, but given how
fast it's developing, I think we must pause now to ask how it may
affect the fundamental precepts of our criminal justice system.

Americans have been willing to tolerate significant new security
measures and greater encroachments on civil liberties after the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Could reports of significant
crime reduction such as that seen by Johns Hopkins, or incidents
such as the student shootings last year at Virginia Tech or more
recently at Northern Illinois University, be enough to justify the
use of pre-crime technology? Could remote neural monitoring together
with intelligent video analytics have prevented those tragedies? And
if they could, should they be allowed to?

These are just some of the questions we must ask as we balance
scientific advances and the promise of enhanced safety against a
loss of liberty. And we must do it now, while our voices still
matter. In a world where private thoughts are no longer private,
what will our protections be?

nita.farahany at vanderbilt.edu

Nita Farahany, an assistant professor of law and philosophy at
Vanderbilt University, is the editor of the forthcoming "Genes and
Justice: The Impact of Behavioral Genetics and Neuroscience on
Criminal Law."