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Terrorist 'pre-crime' detector field tested in United States
Nature News ^ | 27 May 2011 | Sharon Weinberger

Posted on 05/27/2011 11:04:58 PM PDT by neverdem

Screening system aims to pinpoint passengers with malicious intentions.

Planning a sojourn in the northeastern United States? You could soon be taking part in a novel security programme that can supposedly 'sense' whether you are planning to commit a crime.

Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) programme designed to spot people who are intending to commit a terrorist act, has in the past few months completed its first round of field tests at an undisclosed location in the northeast, Nature has learned.

Like a lie detector, FAST measures a variety of physiological indicators, ranging from heart rate to the steadiness of a person's gaze, to judge a subject's state of mind. But there are major differences from the polygraph. FAST relies on non-contact sensors, so it can measure indicators as someone walks through a corridor at an airport, and it does not depend on active questioning of the subject.

The tactic has drawn comparisons with the science-fiction concept of 'pre-crime', popularized by the film Minority Report, in which security services can detect someone's intention to commit a crime. Unlike the system in the film, FAST does not rely on a trio of human mutants who can see the future. But the programme has attracted copious criticism from researchers who question the science behind it (see Airport security: Intent to deceive?).

From fiction to fact

So far, FAST has only been tested in the lab, so successful field tests could lend some much-needed data to support the technology. "It is encouraging to see an effort to develop a real empirical base for new technologies before any policy commitments are made," says Tom Ormerod, a psychologist in the Investigative Expertise Unit at Lancaster University, UK. Such testing, he adds, could lay the groundwork for a more...

(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Testing
KEYWORDS: dhs; fast; malintent; physiology; science
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1 posted on 05/27/2011 11:04:59 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Boondoggle


2 posted on 05/27/2011 11:06:44 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Hawk)
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To: neverdem
Paging Philip K. Dick...
3 posted on 05/27/2011 11:08:17 PM PDT by thecodont
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To: neverdem

Good men did nothing. We deserve this.

How many could have acted when blatantly unconstitutional laws were passed, but never did? Farming laws, monopoly laws, firearms laws? Nothing at all was done then, and we deserve what our masters give us today.


4 posted on 05/27/2011 11:08:22 PM PDT by wastedyears (SEAL SIX makes me proud to have been playing SOCOM since 2003.)
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To: neverdem

The ghost of Stalin roars with laughter.


5 posted on 05/27/2011 11:10:59 PM PDT by Psalm 144 (Voodoo Republicans: Don't read their lips - watch their hands.)
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To: neverdem

It would seem the only way to prove this device works would be to have an actual terrorist commit a terrorist act. Then they could go back and see what his screening test showed.


6 posted on 05/27/2011 11:17:28 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post)
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To: neverdem

The only problem is the fact that they’ll only use it on little old ladies, nuns and little girls. After all, it would be “profiling” if we made certain people a target of this passive detection system.


7 posted on 05/27/2011 11:24:21 PM PDT by Cementjungle
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To: neverdem

It kinda works like this.

8 posted on 05/27/2011 11:25:13 PM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: neverdem
Sounds like total BS to me.

I could have heartburn and be stressed-out over my business trip and this bogus technology would probably identify me as a terrorist. Just another excuse to harass you for no reason.

9 posted on 05/27/2011 11:26:16 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open ( <o> ---)
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To: wastedyears

I’m afraid you may be right; America is finished. And all it took was 19 muslim psychopaths to hand the enemies of freedom within, a license to run amok. We have perhaps our final opportunity in Nov. 2012, and should demand that the incoming President and Congress DEFUND THE TSA IMMEDIATELY.


10 posted on 05/27/2011 11:28:28 PM PDT by Frank_2001
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To: Frank_2001

I should say BOTH the TSA and DHS ought to be disbanded.


11 posted on 05/27/2011 11:30:37 PM PDT by Frank_2001
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>> a novel security programme that can supposedly ‘sense’ whether you are planning to commit a crime.

Something like a SWAT team assassinating a Marine in front of his family?


12 posted on 05/27/2011 11:34:01 PM PDT by Gene Eric (*** Jesus ***)
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To: neverdem

So the movie producer was prescient?


13 posted on 05/27/2011 11:58:09 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is another agitator for republicanism like Sam Adams when we need him?)
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To: Frank_2001

The DHS is ANOTHER government agency we don;t need. ANOTHER catastrophe that the Dems succeeded in inducing a Bush into.


14 posted on 05/28/2011 12:04:04 AM PDT by ZULU (Lindsey Graham is a nanometrical pustule of pusillanimous putrescence)
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To: neverdem

Oh, great, a thought crime detector, one more step to a total police state.


15 posted on 05/28/2011 12:06:02 AM PDT by calex59
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To: smokingfrog

Hell I just don’t understand why they don’t profile. I can’t wrap my head around that. I read somewhere that 90 percent of all terroist acts are commited by muslim men between the ages of 19-34. Why not just screen them instead of little ole grandma.

The Political Correctness in this country is killing us


16 posted on 05/28/2011 12:21:35 AM PDT by YoungBlackRepublican
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To: calex59
Oh, great, a thought crime detector, one more step to a total police state.

You have been identified as a potential threat.

17 posted on 05/28/2011 12:22:49 AM PDT by Jeff Winston
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To: wastedyears; Frank_2001
People did act. Their where lawsuits against most if not all government over reach.

Look at the cases. They somehow where able to keep Social Security when it is a blatantly unconstitutional law. They where able to find a right to privacy in the Constitution and then used that in order to protect NO ones privacy unless it dealt with abortion. They where able to keep the entire patriot act, much of which is blatant over reach and has been reinstated year after year for almost a decade.

I am also pretty sure that in the end The Supreme Court will find ObamaCare constitutional. Have they ever stood up against the government theft of our money against our will.

We are on the threshold of complete tyranny and it all started in the last Great Depression,They are using this one to kill off all our freedoms.

18 posted on 05/28/2011 12:24:38 AM PDT by Jim from C-Town (The government is rarely benevolent, often malevolent and never benign!)
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To: wastedyears
How many could have acted when blatantly unconstitutional laws were passed, but never did? Farming laws, monopoly laws, firearms laws? Nothing at all was done then, and we deserve what our masters give us today.

The boomers have been rolling back those gun laws for 25 years.

19 posted on 05/28/2011 12:26:41 AM PDT by ansel12 ( JIM DEMINT "I believe [Palins] done more for the Republican Party than anyone since Ronald Reagan")
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To: Psalm 144

The ghost of Stalin is green with envy.


20 posted on 05/28/2011 1:21:25 AM PDT by AnAmericanAbroad
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