Leslie Stahl makes some very interesting comments on the morality and ethics of mind-control.

Here are mine:

1. The technology called FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance) is old and archaic actually. Mengele and others were “reading” brain waves via magnetic resonance graphing in the early 70’s. Boston-Logan Airport is already using new light-wave beams to scan and read air traveler’s intentions before they board the planes.

2. The German individual Stahl interviewed was very hesitant to reveal exactly who had the mind-reading technology today. Again, just look at the U.S. Patents issued in the last decade to realize the height and breadth of the mind-control explosion — and keep in mind that patents are usually applied for after the technology has been proven to be commercially viable via working models.

3. The FMRI “computer” that “reads the mind” is just one side of the coin. It is much, much easier to produce emotions and impulses into the brain than to actually read the brain via computer programs.

4. This technology needs much more bandwidth space than is currently provided by analog signals in order to be implemented. Thus, the need to switch to digital signals exclusively.

5. This technology, in the wrong hands, is a bigger threat to individual freedom than any standing army.

6. Is Homeland Security the “wrong hands”? Why is this just now beginning to be reported by such news programs as “60 Minutes”?

Read this patent abstract, and then read my exposé on digital TV once again in the context of Stahl’s report.

USP # 6,488,617 (December 3, 2002)

Title: Nervous System Manipulation by EM Fields from Monitors.

Issued to: Loos, Hendricus.

Abstract: Physiological effects have been observed in a human subject in response to stimulation of the skin with weak electromagnetic fields that are pulsed with certain frequencies near 1/2 Hz or 2.4 Hz, such as to excite a sensory resonance.

Many computer monitors and HD TV screens, when displaying pulsed images, emit pulsed electromagnetic fields of sufficient amplitudes to cause such excitation. It is therefore possible to manipulate the nervous system of a subject by pulsing images displayed on a nearby computer monitor or DIGITAL TV set. For the latter, the image pulsing may be embedded in the program material, or it may be overlaid by modulating a video stream, either as an RF signal or as a video signal.