Replacing Metal Detectors With Brain Scans 327
Zordak writes "CNN has up a story about several Israeli firms that want to replace metal detectors at airports with biometric readings. For example, with funding from TSA and DHS, 'WeCU ([creepily] pronounced "We See You") Technologies, employs a combination of infra-red technology, remote sensors and imagers, and flashing of subliminal images, such as a photo of Osama bin Laden. Developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person's reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration — signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack.' Sensors may be embedded in the carpet, seats, and check-in screens. The stated goal is to read a passenger's 'intention' in a manner that is 'more fair, more effective and less expensive' than traditional profiling. But not to worry! WeCU's CEO says, 'We don't want you to feel that you are being interrogated.' And you may get through security in 20 to 30 seconds."
cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:5, Insightful)
wonderful piece of technology known as the polygraph before..... don't polygraphs also rely (in part) on body temperature, heart rate and respiration?
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Also, depth of respiration, skin resistance, and blood pressure.
A good operator can usually tell if someone is deliberately trying to prevent them from establishing a baseline, but people with something to hide used to carry a thumbtack to poke their fingers with during questioning. It was supposed to allow them to concentrate on the pain instead of the questions, and prevent, or mask, the emotional/physical response that the machine could pick up. Then someone got caught and the operators would check for poke marks in the skin.
I guess one could concentrate on a mental image of Sarah Palin in a nipple bra to counter the Bin Laden image. Or, Dick Cheney as a Chippendale dancer.
Must...poke...out...mind's...eye....
Re: (Score:2)
I guess one could concentrate on a mental image of Sarah Palin in a nipple bra to counter the Bin Laden image. Or, Dick Cheney as a Chippendale dancer.
While I haven't had to take a polygraph yet, I look forward to answering "What was your question? I'm sorry, my mind is busy erasing certain parts to protect itself. Ahh, there we go. No more Dick Cheney is my brain ever again."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Or, there could be subliminal/sub-aural phrases such as "The Bush", instead of "Bush"...
It would be funny if someone could hack the systems and generate lots of erections and pre-coital drainage in the waiting area... It would be... bemoaned, as it ... could.. become...the wading area...
The men's area could be called... "Area 5.1" (shorter for Area 51, for the obvious dimension."
The VIP lounge could be called "The SHAPE of Things to COME"....
Could give a whole new meaning to "The Day they Earth Stood... STE
Eight, sir; seven, sir; six, sir; five, sir. (Score:2, Interesting)
Or listen to a particularly annoying song, as Alfred Bester suggested.
Ten, sir, said the Tensor
Tension, apprehension
And dissension have begun.
http://tenser.typepad.com/tenser_said_the_tensor/2004/03/a_word_of_expla.html [typepad.com]
I think Kylie's 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head [youtube.com]' would work pretty well today.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, yeah, a "good" psychic can also usua
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the person being tested doesn't know if he is lying then what is the point of taking the polygraph!
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:5, Insightful)
don't polygraphs also rely (in part) on body temperature, heart rate and respiration?
Polygraphs measure those things, but don't do much with the data. The main purpose of a polygraph is not to detect lies, but to intimidate the person being questioned. The idea is to trick the person into thinking that the polygraph is infallible and can determine when they are lying. This gives the interrogator another way to pressure the person into talking. (The person may incorrectly believe that the interrogator "already knows" or may reveal secrets because they feel that they no longer have any control--they don't feel culpable since they can't hide secrets from the machine.) Of course admitting that this is the purpose of a polygraph would undermine the tactic.
I'm guessing this new technology will be much the same: it won't actually work by measuring anything useful; but it may have a psychological effect that makes people easier to interrogate. This might be (marginally) useful for uncovering the occasional teenager smuggling pot, but I doubt it will do anything useful when it comes to terrorism. This quote is hilarious:
Developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person's reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration -- signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack
For this to be true--for them to actually have calibrated their machine in a rigorous way, so that it can detect "terrorist intentions" with any kind of certainty--they would need to have tested it with a statistically-significant number of terrorists. Somehow I doubt their R&D facility has a few hundred terrorists in lockup (willing to lie and not lie on demand). I'm guessing their actual sample size was closer to zero. In other words they are just guessing that someone with "terrorist intentions" will exhibit similar physiological responses to someone who is nervous for other reasons.
Yet another worthless security measure being sold to worthless security organizations.
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:5, Funny)
It's an israeli company. They'll probably just calibrate it with everyone who passes through their borders. Everyone would get grouped in to two categories. Israeli or Terrorist.
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone would get grouped in to two categories. Israeli or Terrorist.
Right. Like when you go through Israeli passport control, and they ask
"Why are you here, business or pleasure?"
"Business"
"Occupation?"
"No, just a two day meeting."
Re: (Score:2)
I guess that's the problem with a lot of the security measures, is that they work on (perhaps informed, but not necessarily tested) assumptions about the scenarios they're trying to prevent.
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:5, Funny)
Yet another worthless security measure being sold to worthless security organizations.
Let's capitalize on that. We could go into the buisness of selling "anti-terrorism rocks" to the government and airports. I'll get the rocks, you sell it to the security orgs.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that wonderful piece of technology known as the polygraph before.....
Nobody said it had to be perfect. It just has to be more useful than the methods they currently employ. This only has to be more accurate then the current practice. The current security is slow, stupid and irrational. Honestly, this doesn't sound that much better. But, unless we totally scrap the system and go back to the 1960's security measures (not freaking likely given the level of politician and media inspired fear), I'll settle for a system that results in less hassle when I fly.
Re: (Score:2)
But, unless we totally scrap the system and go back to the 1960's security measures (not freaking likely given the level of politician and media inspired fear), I'll settle for a system that results in less hassle when I fly.
Why not scrap the system and use the money we are wasting to put an armed air marshal or two on every flight? I don't think box-cutters are going to be particularly effective against firearms....
Re: (Score:2)
Why not scrap the system and use the money we are wasting to put an armed air marshal or two on every flight? I don't think box-cutters are going to be particularly effective against firearms....
I would love that. Still have to have bomb scanners though. Bomb > gun. And you can hide a bomb almost anywhere, so you've got to have metal detectors and shoe removal. Or you could hide the bomb in personal electronics, got to check those...
And we're right back where we started. Damn.
Re: (Score:2)
And we're right back where we started
Well, we could just accept the fact that nothing can make us completely safe from terrorists and personally I'd rather live with the 0.00000001% chance of dying in a terrorist attack than surrender my civil liberties and live in fear. Something tells me that this isn't very likely to happen though.
Guess I'll be driving for the foreseeable future. It's not all bad though -- you get to control the music selection and don't have to put up with shitty food and horrible customer service ;)
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a much bigger problem with bombs: They don't require informed consent.
See the case of Nizar Hindawi [wikipedia.org], who attempted to sneak a bomb on an El Al flight by tricking his pregnant girlfriend into taking it with her -- having her go through any intention scanner would show her to be completely trustworthy and innocent -- because she was. That's a problem that is exists for bombs, but not (easily) for guns. After all, it's not like you'd look in your carryon half-way through the flight, find a gun you didn't expect there, and go "OMG! Got to hijack the plane!"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
After all, it's not like you'd look in your carryon half-way through the flight, find a gun you didn't expect there, and go "OMG! Got to hijack the plane!" ...unless someone asked you to, starting the sentence with "Would you kindly..."
Re: (Score:2)
Or a bunch of passengers beating the person into submission, no firearms needed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why stop at beating them into submission?
Because some people are a bit more civilized than the those who would attempt kill random strangers?
Re: (Score:2)
Why not scrap the system and use the money we are wasting to put an armed air marshal or two on every flight? I don't think box-cutters are going to be particularly effective against firearms....
until, of course, a non-marshal gets a hold of one of those guns...
Re:cuz nobody has EVER been able to fool that (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You're correct that security doesn't need to be perfect to be useful--as long as it helps, that's something.
However, a major problem occurs when people over-estimate the quality of a security measure. Two immediate consequences are (1) security overall may decrease as people mistakenly rely on an ineffective tool; and (2) people are falsely accused. In the extreme case of over-confidence in technology, a person can not only be falsely accused but also falsely detained, charged or even convicted. It is dange
Re: (Score:2)
Polygraphs are not admissible in a court of law due to the inherit unreliability of polygraph test examiners to accurately determine if the subject is being truthful.
Fortunately for those more concerned with "security" than rights (or real security for that matter) court standards are much much higher than what is used in airports.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
AC or not, the parent poster hits on a key issue. Flying nowadays has become a stressful enough situation. Trying to make a flight on time, trying to get through a security checkpoint that may have no one waiting, or a line out the wazoo (meaning a possible missed flight), hoping you remembered to take all the metal our of your pockets (change, keys, etc), wondering whether you will get that one airport security guy who insists that you cannot take your lighter with you (for your cigarettes) even though the
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The specific problems I thought of immediately were:
1) people who are afraid of flying/crowds/etc or just prone to panic attacks would most likely set this off far more often than terrorists. Not to mention the fear of setting this off causing people to be more nervous.
2) Actual terrorists would probably be organized enough to take this into account and pop a valium or two before going through the security checkpoints. I mean, c'mon. The circumstances are a lot less controlled than a polygraph, and are ther
What if your pissed because of a family call... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the airport can generate anger,fear, and frustration in most people.
How good can this really be?
Re: (Score:2)
How good can this really be?
That depends on what your goal is. The goal of the creators of said device is, like most 'biometric security' companies, most likely, to extract money from taxpayers pockets. For that purpose I'd suggest the approach is a bit too farfetched sci-fi, and not portrayed in enough Hollywood productions to achieve sufficient pocket penetration to extract significant amounts of money.
For actual security value rates like most such measures, somewhere between useless to counterproductive;
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure the airport can generate anger,fear, and frustration in most people.
Especially if that airport is Atlanta.
Re: (Score:2)
Once these technologies are in place, a passenger may pass through a security screening without realizing it. For example, passengers could use an automated check-in system or gaze at a screen with departures information without realizing they've just been exposed to the words "Islamic jihad" written in Arabic.
It's going to cause anyone who can read Arabic to freak out.
Last time I checked, that was a fairly good percentage of the world. It would probably make as much sense as putting up an English advertisement in Dulles saying, "ARE YOU READY FOR FEDERAL POUND-ME-IN-THE-ASS PRISON?"
It would make everyone who can read English a little freaked out, terrorist or not.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Somethings wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about someone who is carrying a weapon without their knowledge? That won't show up on the scans. I could see the supplement current screening technologies if it ever is deployed, but not replace them.
Let's not even start about false positives....
Re:Somethings wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Step A. Someone purposely handles explosives or better saturates their shins/shoes with a chemical that would set off the bomb detector.
Step B. Go to an airport and purposely brush by/touch people luggage.
Step C. Watch as airport grinds to a halt with massive numbers of false positives.
Even better spill some of this chemical in a doorway carpet so that lots of people would walk in every direction with it on their shoes.
How would an airport rationally handle something like this?
1. They could simply close the airport and wash every surface (I guess this would considered an physical DDOS)
2. Turn off the devices and go back to manually searching every article. (Slow but people would still get through)
3. Leave the devices on and just process all the people who come up positive. (Slow but people would still get through)
I'm not sure that an airport would have a really good way to combat this. I guess one way would be to put sniffer type devices discretely through the airport that you could use to map out the location of certain chemicals. Then set up the airport with doors that could be closed remotely so that when something like C4 is detected in some area you could seal the area, etc.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What about someone who is carrying a weapon without their knowledge? That won't show up on the scans.
No problem. All they have to do is ask each passenger if they packed their own bags and if they have been out of their possession at any time. If they lie, WeCU will detect it!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
What about someone who is carrying a weapon without their knowledge? That won't show up on the scans.
For guns and knives, that obviously wouldn't be a security risk. Unless you happen to have a terrorist taking a plane ride he didn't intend to hijack because he didn't think he could smuggle a gun on baord.
A timed bomb would be a bigger issue, but that would probably be detectable with the usual measures. Also, have terrorists even tried this before? It seems to me they have more willing suicide bombers than they have people who know how to make good bombs. Lets not forget that most terrorist attacks so
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Let's not even start about false positives....
TSA Agent: Sir, please step aside for more screening.
Nervous Traveler: What seems to be the problem?
TSA Agent: You set off our Spazz Detect 1000 by your nervous behavior.
Nervous Traveler: Oh, that. Well, uh this is a bit embarrassing to admit, but you see I'm flying home to my wife and it seems I misplaced my wedding ring. Really.
TSA Agent: Uh-huh. Well, sir, we'd be more than glad to help you look for it. *snaps on rubber glove*
Somebody introduce these guys to Bayes Theorem (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, let's do...
What many people don't realize is that detection procedures with very impressive-sounding statistical properties [wikipedia.org] generally do horribly at catching rare events.
Imagine some very impressive numbers. Suppose that this procedure has 99.999% sensitivity -- it catches nearly every wannabe terrorist who tries to board a plane intending to do harm. And suppose it also has 99.999% specificity -- out of 100,000 innocent passengers, 99,999 will be correctly identified as innocent, and only 1 will be a false alarm. Sounds good, right?
Not really. In a given year, only a very small number of passengers are wannabe terrorists -- say, 10 per year. (That's probably high.) On the other hand, there are 1.6 billion air passengers [worldmapper.org] per year (that may be a low estimate, since it's a 2000 number). So if this were implemented worldwide, then in a given year, we can assume that this profiling procedure will flag 160,010 people as terrorists. Only 6 x 10^-5 of those will be actual terrorists.
Of course, those hypothetical sensitivity and specificity numbers are unrealistically, ridiculously good. With more realistic numbers, the problem gets much worse. Even if the detection procedure is very sensitive and very specific -- and I doubt that it is -- the low base-rate of terrorism means that an enormous number of people will be falsely accused of being terrorists.
You're in a desert walking along in the sand... (Score:4, Funny)
Can it also detect replicants?
Re: (Score:2)
I still think the SG-1 response to the Replicant question was the best.
Because I too am a turoise.
(a humanoid alien responding while not knowing what a turtoise is).
Thoughtcrimes (Score:4, Insightful)
Better not thing any doubleplus ungood thoughts, or have a friend that's Muslim.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Brain scans? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure you don't.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:4, Funny)
I can see it now...someone hacks the system and substitutes subliminal porn images for the bin Laden pictures. Talk about provoking a physiological reaction...
Sir, is that an AK-47 in your pocket?
Wow, that's creepy (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now it is used to find terrorists, but this technology can be used in reverse. Flashing images of the president and the national flag, anyone don't respond positively get singled out... Such uses are very disturbing.
Re: (Score:2)
Not only disturbing but also absolutely useless. There is not one terrorist that this would have caught. As pointed out, they have no idea what results will show on the machine when an actual and real terrorist tries to board the plane.
This says nothing of how easy it will be now to attack any other mass transportation system other than airplanes, or infrastructure, or water supplies, or food supplies etc. All that this amounts to is a huge waste of money and time. While they put so much effort and money in
Re: (Score:2)
As a Canadian, I'd have to say: yes.
It's fucking freezing out there!
Re: (Score:2)
Hey man, the thread about the auto industry bailout is elsewhere. :)
Re: (Score:2)
It makes me infuriated. Look, there is evidence to show that if the pre-9/11 intelligence gathering and analysis processes had been what they should have been, the tragedy of 9/11 would never have happened.
When we invest in such systems as this, what the government is saying is that despite their new information and ability to show improvement on pre-9/11 processes to prevent further incidents, they are not going to do anything about their failures. They'd rather just inconvenience citizens because in doing
Re: (Score:2)
Welcome to the world of tyranny of the majority.
This is what happens when Libertarian Ideals are set aside because "the people want ______"
Fill in the ______ with any number of options, and you'll start to see why it is Tyranny. Especially if the ______ has any economic costs.
We know where the Terrorists are. We are too afraid of what the "world" will think if we try to do anything about them. Because most of them live in places that generally like those kinds of people around.
And if the latest incident in
The article states: (Score:5, Funny)
Well, no. Not unless you start putting Ninjas on every plane. Everyone knows that Ninjas > Kung Fu fighting.
Apparently, Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting...
tl;dr WTF?
Re: (Score:2)
"It is possible today to hijack an aircraft using only five or six able-bodied passengers who are well-trained in Kung Fu fighting," he says. "There is no technology in place in airports to detect a threat like that."
Well, no. Not unless you start putting Ninjas on every plane. Everyone knows that Ninjas > Kung Fu fighting.
Apparently, Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting...
tl;dr WTF?
Ah, color-me-stupid, but I thought the shortcomings of detection on the ground were mitigated by our armed Air Marshals?
I mean Ninjas are good, but last time I checked .357 SIG > Ninjas, if you're any good with a firearm.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean Ninjas are good, but last time I checked .357 SIG > Ninjas, if you're any good with a firearm.
.45s have more stopping power ;) Either way though I hope the ninja doesn't have his own ranged weapon [wikipedia.org]....
Re: (Score:2)
Man, those cats are fast as lightning.
In fact, it is a little bit frightening...
Recruiting Ninjas is starting a never ending cycle (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Recruiting Ninjas is starting a never ending cy (Score:5, Funny)
Snakes?
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds of an old Jimmy Wang-Yu movie. He's trying to teach his students the secrets of jumping, which it turns out have nothing to do with plyometrics and everything to do with mentally altering your body weight. He has this huge wicker basket filled with stones, and he makes the students run around on the edge while he removes stones. They don't believe it's possible, so he dumps all the stones, and runs around the edge of the basket without tipping.
Later he and his students are attending a huge to
Re: (Score:2)
"Great, now I have that song in my head..."
You're welcome. You can thank us after you've taken your polygraph.
Re: (Score:2)
"Apparently, Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting.."
Great, now I have that song in my head...
Here ya go... This should help get that song out of your head. [rathergood.com]
Control (Score:5, Insightful)
And how did they devise a control for this?
AFAIK, there's no biometric scans of the 9/11 terrorists, so it's just like the company is guessing anyway. For all we know, terrorists could be the only completely calm people going through security, as they're the only ones not worried about arriving at their destination late.
Re:Control (Score:5, Funny)
as they're the only ones not worried about arriving at their destination late
But what if they are late arriving in paradise and someone else gets the virgins?
Re:Control (Score:5, Funny)
But what if they are late arriving in paradise and someone else gets the virgins?
I'm sure they've got that covered as part of the normal course of things. After all, the afterlife is the one place where everyone arrives late.
*ba-dum pssssh*
Re: (Score:2)
And they STAY virgins!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And they STAY virgins!
Wouldn't it be ironic if they actually were virgins? "Your going to put WHAT in WHERE?", "Ouch! Ow! Ouch! Stop it! That hurts!" Hardly my idea of a good time ;)
Re: (Score:2)
But what if they are late arriving in paradise and someone else gets the virgins?
Then they will just have to go to the Bahamas! [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I would think that a terrorist would be pretty calm while headed to his plane. He's probably been through repeated training as to what to do/say during the airport security phase. He's also convinced that the actions he's about to undertake will get him into heaven and surround him with 72 virgins. If you were going to undertake something that was "guaranteed" to give you 72 virgins to do with as you please, you'd be pretty calm and happy about it too.
I recently went on a trip and went through airport se
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
AFAIK, there's no biometric scans of the 9/11 terrorists
AFAIK the TSA has not caught a SINGLE terrorist. Even the "shoe bomb" guy made it onto the plane, and was stopped by his fellow passengers.
Everyone would fail. (Score:5, Funny)
At some point, people will get so pissed off at getting poked, prodded, searched, scanned, monitored and tracked to see if they are terrorists, that they will wind up deciding that it is actually easier to become terrorists themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
This reminds me of Voltaire's joke, "In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others." If the joke needs explaining, it is this: steps to deter treason (or increase loyalty) will often have the exact opposite effect. Of course, that is all fine and just as it is the best of all possible worlds, and for what do admirals exist but to be executed for their failures? Similarly, for what to travelers exist for other than to be poked and prodded, to become terror
Re: (Score:2)
"Apology accepted, Captain Needa."
It's Worthless (Score:2)
What if random traveler A is thinking about terrorist activities in Mumbai and is afraid for their family right when they happen to walk through the little flashy thing (even if they don't know it)? The system would flag them as TERRORIST PROBABLY and they'll get arrested and cavity searched for no reason. Meanwhile the terrorist who focuses on bunnies and happy flowers and goes about his business wil
As always.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If I know I'm nothing but an elevated heartbeat away from being branded a suspected terrorist by airport security, well guess what? I'd probably have an elevated heartbeat.
Yes, precisely analogous to the "white coat effect". Time to coin "TSA effect" then.
The big picture is: (Score:2)
(2) We musn't just look at the potential good. There is also enormous potential for abuse. Probably enough to outweigh any good it might do.
Re: (Score:2)
Our legal standards abhor "fishing expeditions" by the authorities.
You've gotta be more specific about which country you live in. It's obviously not the same country as I live in. TSA has every right to search you at random, or for any made-up-on-the-spot reason. I once was selected for a full search in Missoula because "an interesting substance" was showing up on my laptop case. Yeah, it's called drywall dust from a construction site. Same thing that's on my shoes and my jacket, along with 6 different kinds of clay from Wyoming.
insane (Score:2)
My intention may be harmless but those who hid a bomb in my bag may have other ideas. How does scanning my brain help then?
I smell fear here... (Score:2)
Quick, let's beat them up.
Nervous fliers everywhere will now have something legitimate to fear.
It's times like this I wish I weren't an atheist so I could revel in the knowledge that the people involved in producing this destructive rubbish will rot in hell for eternity.
And whats the false positive rate? (Score:2)
This might not actually be so bad if it worked. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no ill intentions, but I hate going anywhere unarmed. Maybe I could finally fly without having to give up my knife and sidearm.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny? Hell, I'm serious.
Subliminal bin Laden (Score:2)
"Damnit, I'm not a terrorist! I just have a bizarre beard-and-turban fetish!"
Cause that's better... (Score:2)
Just great. (Score:2)
And someone will think, this guy [wikipedia.org]... :-)
(The subconscious mind works in strange ways.)
hehe the invisible theater (Score:2)
Airport security is a sham as is anyway. It's all just a show to make you feel safe. They'll, of course, have to detain, torture, and execute the odd innocent as a sign that the invisible force of knowing is working. Kind of like playing a "death lottery" every time you fly.
Minority report precrimes (Score:2)
Seems to me that they'd be catching people that were carrying only legal items. It wouldn't be a stretch for an evildoer to put their toothpaste and mouthwash in someone else's carryon luggage intending to get it back later if the innocent got through security.
Of course, I don't know who you'd plant it on. The families with screaming babies and old ladies seem to be the only people who get randomly selected to get the truly invasive screenings.
And? (Score:2)
<p>Or signals a former sexual abuse victim might unwittingly emit for the mortal fear of possibly undergoing a cavity search?</p>
<p>Fear is a crime. Guilt is a crime. Your emotions are a crime. Time for your Prozium.</p>
Don't worry, be happy (Score:2)
Don't worry, we don't want you to feel interrogated. We just want to know everything about you. Results will be posted in the cafeteria.
Oh the tyranny of average... Just wait until they start singling out people for not fitting profile American 2.0, because they didn't recognize the last American Idol contestant on the subliminal. Think it's far fetched? Think again. In other, unrelated news, cattle mutilations are up.
Mmm... Snake Oil... (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly, about the only sinister thing about this is that there are people in officialdom who are so fundamentally brain-dead they actually believe the claims of whatever idiot is trying to sell this.
Even when interrogators have the time and money to hook people up to the most sensitive equipment available there is no technology that can determine to reasonable accuracy whether a person is lying in answer to a given question, nevermind their exact mindset or intentions in the next few hours.
Now we are supposed to believe that some gadget can automagically determine whether or not somebody wants to blow up a plane when they walk past it and are flashed a "subliminal image" of osama bin-laden?
I could go on about the sheer idiocy of assuming that somebody's reaction to a popular hate figure defines their politics or intentions. I could start about how peoples wildly varying mental states and physiologies make such simplistic measurements useless. But frankly it's not even worth deconstructing an idea this stupid in detail. Anybody dumb enough to believe in this fairy story clearly either suffers from paranoid psychosis or is so mentally deficient as to be beyond any form of rational argument.
missing tag: securitytheatre (Score:4, Insightful)
EVERYBODY KNOWS that if some asshole tries ANYTHING on a plane, the only thing to do is for the passengers to immediately stomp the life out of the motherfucker, no ifs, no ands, no buts. Just take him apart.
EVERYBODY KNOWS that, including the terrorists. As a consequence, there is really no point to screening people at airports.
If people want to blow up a plane, it's a lot easier to book a flight, check your bags full of bombs that are hooked up to timers, and then let it rip. The security at the checkpoint is ludicrous, and the security for checked baggage is even worse. So, if you want to blow up a plane, it's not hard.
If you want to commadeer the plane a la 9/11, the passengers will take you out before you even get to the cabin. They know they have nothing to lose.
So, as a consequence, there is NO point in this idiotic security theatre. None whatsoever. And the smiling jackasses who come up with this Orwellian technology are vampiric leeches with their fingers up the butt of the reactionary militarists and an invertebrate Congress.
And all it means is that flying on an airplane is just that much more insulting and that much more irritating, and that much less worth the trouble.
RS
Perfectly Safe World (Score:4, Insightful)
Are there really people out there who think we can achieve a perfectly safe world? Spending more and more money for ever smaller incremental gains in safety? Is the cost really worth it? Is giving up your rights really worth it?
At some point you have to stop and say look, there's an inherent danger in life. Your own body can turn against you. Are you willing to give up all your money and all your rights to feel safe? But what's left to be worth living if you've given everything up?
I cringe every time I hear about somebody dying in some unique way, because I know there are going to be laws that follow to ensure that never happens again. Unfortunately, those laws tend to be far more overreaching and subject to abuse in ways that are far beyond what incident initiated them.
People die. Dying is a part of life.
20-30 seconds...Until you get a False Positive (Score:3, Interesting)
OMFG (Score:5, Insightful)
That's it... if there was any question about where that "too far" mark may be, we can be sure they have gone well beyond that point.
Now they can screen for all sorts of things... "gay"? "pedophile"? Who else can we decide to hate and persecute?
If all this stuff could potentially save my son's life, I still say NO!!
Pause for a moment to let the gravity of that sink in. Now go back and realize that there is more chance of a drunk driver killing him than a "terrorist." Regardless of which may happen, it will always feel tragic and there is no way to effectively protect ourselves from everything. This crap has got to stop.
and any one how shows any smarts does not get the (Score:3, Funny)
and any one how shows any smarts does not get the job.
Re:Testing (Score:4, Funny)
Where do I sign up?
Follow the guys in fancy black suits and shades to the white unmarked van? Sure!
Re:Testing (Score:5, Funny)
Well thats one virgin, 79 to go.
Any more volunteers?
Re: (Score:2)
Heh, reminds me of that cop that filed assault charges on a prisoner that farted next to him. Biological attack indeed. Taking things out of context and going to the extreme seems to be the fashion nowadays anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Besides, you're talking about people in airports. Of course they'll have elevated heart rates, breathing, and blood pressure.