Free Republic

An internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security document indicates that a controversial program designed to predict whether a person will commit a crime is already being tested on some members of the public voluntarily, CNET has learned. If this sounds a bit like the Tom Cruise movie called "Minority Report," or the CBS drama "Person of Interest," it is. But where "Minority Report" author Philip K. Dick enlisted psychics to predict crimes, DHS is betting on algorithms: it's building a "prototype screening facility" that it hopes will use factors such as ethnicity, gender, breathing, and heart rate to "detect cues...

Got home from the airport last night just in time to see Channel 8's piece on how Dallas PD and the FBI are prepping for the 10th anniversary of September 11. Would have been home a little sooner, but, ya know, I stopped by a Northwest Highway construction site. Oh -- and I was briefly detained by a man with a badge at Dallas-Fort Worth International. Perhaps I should explain. I was out of town yesterday, in Los Angeles. Left Tuesday night, came back Wednesday night. Very uneventful. Left the hotel room just long enough to do an interview. Arrived...

Straight out of Minority Report a new Homeland Security program would subject Americans to pre-crime interrogations and physiological scans to detect people who are intending to commit a terrorist act at sports stadiums, malls, airports and other public places has moved closer to being implemented after the FAST program passed its first round of testing at an undisclosed location in northeast US. The system uses a computer program that studies physiological indicators of a person, such as heart rate and the steadiness of a person’s gaze, and then uses the data to make a judgment on whether that individual has...

To hear them tell it, the five police agencies who apprehended 39-year-old Oregonian David Pyles early on the morning of March 8 thwarted another lone wolf mass murderer. The police "were able to successfully take a potentially volatile male subject into protective custody for a mental evaluation," announced a press release put out by the Medford, Oregon, police department. The subject had recently been placed on administrative leave from his job, was "very disgruntled," and had recently purchased several firearms. "Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers," the release said. Fortunately,...

Check out this YouTube VIDEO. It features an interface a lot like what Tom Cruise was doing in the movie, "Minority Report." The kewlest thing was manipulated NASA maps.

Live thread as the RATS challenge the certification of the Ohio electoral Votes.

In Britain, Big Brother really is watching you almost everywhere, according to civil liberties campaigners alarmed by the proliferation of spying machines in trains, buses, high streets, sports stadiums and perhaps soon even in clothes. "In terms of western democracies, we are by far and away the most spied-upon nation," Mark Littleton, second in command at citizens' rights group Liberty, told AFP. One camera for every two adults Britain is already home to 10 percent of the entire world's close circuit television (CCTV) cameras. By 2007 it will have 25 million of them - one for every two adults in...

<p>REDMOND, Wash. -- First Microsoft set out to put a computer in every home. Now the software giant hopes to put one in every vehicle, too.</p> <p>"We'd like to have one of our operating systems in every car on Earth," said Dick Brass, vice-president of Microsoft's automotive business unit. "It's a lofty goal."</p>

Rupert Murdoch's Twentieth Century Fox is facing a furious backlash from film fans who have received unsolicited phone calls to promote the video and DVD of its Tom Cruise movie Minority Report. The film giant this week launched Britain's first voicemail message campaign to persuade film buffs to buy the movie. It marks a significant development in the aggressive world of direct marketing - consumers have had to tolerate junk-mail on their door mat for years, and are now battling with the electronic equivalent, spam emails - but it is believed this is the first time anyone has attempted a...

SPOILER!!! Do not proceed if you do not wish to know the plot secrets. . . . . . . . . Ok, I saw this last night and none of us could figure this out. Most likely it's just a careless hole in the plot. Now, if the (bad man) set up cruise's character by getting that man to pretend he was the one that killed Cruise's kid, how did he know Cruise would find him? The only reason Cruise found him was because the PreCogs saw him murdering him. But how could he murder him, if he didn't...

Hi everybody! I just thought I would let you know that I am now a Pre-Cog, spending all my time just floating around here in the Pre-Cog Tank. I can't really say it is a barrel of laughs being stuck in the Pre-Cog tank. What I wouldn't do for a just a brewski and a turkey sandwich. Unfortunately that is a no-no. I just gotta float around here 24/7 transmitting future murders. There are two other Pre-Cogs here in the Pre-Cog tank. A male and female Pre-Cog. The female is no fun. Not only does she have a shaved head...

Steven Spielberg has seen the future - and much of it, in his enthralling new SF thriller starring Tom Cruise, is already here. Minority Report is set in 2053, in Washington, DC. But the metropolis Cruise inhabits is an eerie extrapolation of big cities everywhere today where civil liberties are being eroded in the name of public security. In the new, improved future, crimes are detected even before they can be committed. People are detained without evidence of their wrongdoing, save what an elite pack of psychics foresee as their criminal intention. Last week's arrest in the US of the...

Speiberg pulls of a winner, may set a new record for product placements, dark with great cinematography, consumerism run amok. Based on the Philip K. Dick short story set in 2054, the future is bleak, go long on Visine, the retinal scans get overplayed to the Nth degree. Eye popping special effects, Cruise control on the Lexus was breaking the speed limit. Squealberg changes pace in the blink of an eye. Strange (negative)Religious overtones worshiping the precogs in the Temple. Keep your retinas peeled durring the surgical recoverery scene, backgrond video shows a Fox promo for O'Reilly. I Cant believe...

EXCLUSIVE: SPIELBERG SIDES WITH BUSH ON FBI PRECRIME; FILM WARNS OF FUTURE GOVERNMENT ROLE; DREAMWORKS EXEC CALLS ASHCROFT 'SCARY' "I am willing to give up some of my personal freedoms in order to stop 9/11 from ever happening again," masterdirector Steven Spielberg declares... MORE...