FAST: DHS Funds Body Signals Scan Project
[ABOVE: FAST Body Signal Scans won't look like this--we hope.]
COMING TO A FUTURE AIRPORT NEAR YOU?
Travelers to be Detained Unless Body Signals are JUST RIGHT
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE, BABY!
Under the guise of security with convenience, the Department of Homeland Security is funding a project that will measure signals coming from a person’s body and decide whether to question him/her.
From Will airports screen for body signals? Researchers hope so:
“The Homeland Security-funded project is Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST. Instead of focusing on whether you have hidden explosives or whether you’re carrying a weapon, sensors and cameras located at security checkpoints would measure the natural signals coming from your body — your heart rate, breathing, eye movement, body temperature and fidgeting. Those physiological signs, measured together, will indicate whether you might have the desire or intent to do harm, project manager Robert Burns said.”
Sounds good, right?
Well, what exactly will they be looking for?
A checkpoint screener would not look at the results individually, but would consider them together when deciding whether someone should be sent for questioning, Burns said.
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Is anyone raising questions about this? There’s no doubt this technique constitutes a “search”. Only question will be if it’s “unreasonable”. So, at some point along the way, a court challenge may be expected.
Another roll of the Courts Dice.
The ACLU is already concerned.
Civil liberties groups maintain this screening technology is an invasion of privacy.
“Nobody has the right to look at my intimate bodily functions, my breathing, my perspiration rate, my heart rate, from afar,” said Joe Stanley of the ACLU.
The criteria for pulling people in for further questioning sound like something out of Orwell in our opinion.
And a screener wouldn’t be targeting just people with elevated levels.
“We’re going to look for the elevation, but we’re also going to look for the absence of signals, which is just as indicative of being something that has to be resolved,” Burns said.
This all sounds a bit like Airport Security by the Three Bears.
If the person’s body signals are too high: they’re going in for questioning. If the person’s body signals are too low: they’re going in for questioning. To escape unscathed on a future flight, your body signals will have to be “just right”.
Doesn’t sound all that convenient–if you’re one of the those with funky body signals that day.
If you’re too high or low, then it’s “Come with us, please”.
If you’re just right, breathe a sign of relief and continue walking. All you’ll get is a bored look from the screener.
Two questions come to mind.
First, might there be some people–not terrorists–who will be nervous about the body screen and whether they’ll be detained in the first place?
Are the screeners going to be screened? One would hope not.
Both the guard with the bored look and the one who thinks, “I’ve got a live one here” seem like poor candidates to pass the DHS’s own body signals screening test.
Which might prove to be inconvenient for the DHS screening employees.
h/t: Hot Air
by Mondo Frazier
images:
* http://www.wired.com
* http://www.thedreamenclosure.com
