Brain scanning to catch terrorists

The EU has been testing new ways to catch terrorists, and a method of brain scanning could be the way to weed them out.

This would be used in sensitive locations, such as airports and borders to catch those that might have successfully forged documents, although the research hasn't shown how long such scans would take.

source

This is rather frightening. As this technology advances, are they going to be able to scan and translate all of our thoughts?

I seriously doubt the use of this will be limited to spotting "terrorists," As the definition of "terrorist" gets increasingly vague, this technology will be used to spot any and all thought considered "subversive." This is George Orwell's Though Police (link) brought to life. These are truly scary times.


TA

Wow that is incredible technology. How long before it comes into general use. That must take incredible processing power.

I can see it now, "Sir take off your shoes, okay, now your pants, ok now your shirt, okay now get into this MRI machine and we'll check your brain patters to see if your a terrorists, ok your clear, NEXT"

I'd hate to see those lines.

reply to post by justsomeboreddude

Yeah, i imagine this takes some heavy-duty processing power. The specs probably haven't been released but i'm going to have a look anyway. I'm curious, myself.



reply to post by Republican08

Speaking of processing power, i doubt this stuff comes cheap. No telling how much more an airline ticket is going to cost once this is implemented. I wonder just how accurate these things are? That would directly affect the wait time in an airport. If it flags every third person, the lines really are going to be hell.


TA

S & F

The US govt is already doing that, they do it by the satellite. I know certain areas of US with middle eastern population (like Jersey City, NJ) are regulary scanned by the US govt to see if any terrorists or sleepers are there in that area. They read minds of the people thorugh the satellite.

See this thread below and you will get an idea as to what the satellite mind control technology is capable of.

US Govt Mind Control

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,

What next?????

They cant anymore tell a terrorist by the brainwaves than i can tell a terrorist by looking at the size of his hands. :shk:

THEY want US to think they are able to, wow....these people are sick.

reply to post by dgtempe


I hear you, and by whoms terms is it that one may be a 'terrorist', is it a quran in ones back pocket, is it a McCain bumper sticker still on. Is it a confederate flag, is it a war veteran.

It's tough, good thing its in mother Russia.

reply to post by dgtempe

THEY want US to think they are able to

Exactly. This has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with exerting control over the population. I'm sure they're hard at work decoding the meaning of every type of brainwave produced so they know just what we're thinking and when.


TA

Ah yes, the Thought Police.

Good grief. Not the dreaded Thought Po po.

Just how stupid do they think we are? Dont we get any credit for brains?

Oh wait how can they scan our brain when..... we dont have any.

I think the idea here is that the brain scan is unique to each person, like fingerprints or DNA, and this isn't a mindreading or anything like that, or testing physical responses like a lie detector does. I can't see it being very useful unless they already have a brain scan of the terrorist in their database. I think that on a practical basis that this is kind of stupid, unless a giant repository of brain scans were created, and, well, I think most of us would be against that kind of thing on the grounds of privacy concerns.

reply to post by DragonsDemesne
I think they would have better luck checking for sweating.

reply to post by DragonsDemesne

I think that on a practical basis that this is kind of stupid, unless a giant repository of brain scans were created

There is AI which identifies a human brain signature uniquely, and then adjusts accordingly, so the need for a repository of brain scans does not arise. While each brain is unique, the composition and functionaing of the human brain is largely similar, it is like finger prints, you know how many fingers are there, and what is a thumb or index finger, infact you know what a palm of the hand is, the diference in people is the pattern of lines on the palm of you hands

How do they differentiate between 'terrorists' and general .. 'evil doer's' . If they had the Bush administration come pass through one of these checkpoints , they are going to flag up red everytime , arent they ? . Can you see the likes of Cheney and Bolton making it past a scan like this without a warning flag going off ?

[edit on 14-5-2009 by Gun Totin Gerbil]

reply to post by Gun Totin Gerbil

How do they differentiate between 'terrorists' and general .. 'evil doer's'

They probably can't. This thing isn't designed to spot terrorists. That's just a cover story. I can only speculate on the actual purpose of this technology is, but cracking down on terror isn't it.


TA

Would anyone care to explain what type of scan is used?

reply to post by TheAssociate


I bet anyone with plain old anxiety would set these things off.

reply to post by WonkoTheSane


Here is a more slightly more in depth explanation. It's an article on behavioral screening but it relates to this technology.


TA

reply to post by sunny_2008ny


I still don't see how it would identify terrorists. Suppose for example that Osama in disguise walks through an airport. If we have his brain on file, the device beeps an alert that bin Laden has come through. If we don't, it does nothing.

The other possibility (which I think is not what they are doing based on the article) is that it is scanning for physical indicators of 'terrorist tendencies' in the way a lie detector test checks pulse and breathing rate and that kind of thing. I hope that's not what they are doing, because if it's based on that, it's probably pseudoscience and doesn't actually work.

edit: Oh, great, I just read the article linked by the last poster and it is using the technology in my second paragraph. I still don't think it will work.

[edit on 14-5-2009 by DragonsDemesne]

reply to post by DragonsDemesne


Odds are, they're being vague about this deliberately. The actual technology they plan on using is probably about a decade ahead of the info they release to the public. And i still doubt that "spotting terrorists" is the main goal of furthering this technology. Sounds like a cover story to me.


TA