- Airport security screeners may soon try to read the minds
of travelers to identify terrorists. Top Stories
-
- Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
have told Northwest Airlines security specialists that the agency is developing
brain-monitoring devices in cooperation with a commercial firm, which it
did not identify.
-
- Space technology would be adapted to receive and analyze
brain-wave and heartbeat patterns, then feed that data into computerized
programs "to detect passengers who potentially might pose a threat,"
according to briefing documents obtained by The Washington Times.
-
- NASA wants to use "noninvasive neuro-electric sensors,"
imbedded in gates, to collect tiny electric signals that all brains and
hearts transmit. Computers would apply statistical algorithms to correlate
physiologic patterns with computerized data on travel routines, criminal
background and credit information from "hundreds to thousands of data
sources," NASA documents say.
-
- The notion has raised privacy concerns. Mihir Kshirsagar
of the Electronic Privacy Information Center says such technology would
only add to airport-security chaos. "A lot of people's fear of flying
would send those meters off the chart. Are they going to pull all those
people aside?"
-
- The organization obtained documents July 31, the product
of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Transportation Security
Administration, and offered the documents to this newspaper.
-
- Mr. Kshirsagar's organization is concerned about enhancements
already being added to the Computer-Aided Passenger Pre-Screening (CAPPS)
system. Data from sensing machines are intended to be added to that mix.
-
- NASA aerospace research manager Herb Schlickenmaier told
The Times the test proposal to Northwest Airlines is one of four airline-security
projects the agency is developing. It's too soon to know whether any of
it is working, he says.
-
- "There are baby steps for us to walk through before
we can make any pronouncements," says Mr. Schlickenmaier, the Washington
official overseeing scientists who briefed Northwest Airlines on the plan.
He likened the proposal to a super lie detector that would also measure
pulse rate, body temperature, eye-flicker rate and other biometric aspects
sensed remotely.
-
- Though adding mind reading to screening remains theoretical,
Mr. Schlickenmaier says, he confirms that NASA has a goal of measuring
brain waves and heartbeat rates of airline passengers as they pass screening
machines.
-
- This has raised concerns that using noninvasive procedures
is merely a first step. Private researchers say reliable EEG brain waves
are usually measurable only by machines whose sensors touch the head, sometimes
in a "thinking cap" device. "To say I can take that cap
off and put sensors in a doorjamb, and as the passenger starts walking
through [to allow me to say] that they are a threat or not, is at this
point a future application," Mr. Schlickenmaier said in an interview.
-
- "Can I build a sensor that can move off of the head
and still detect the EEG?" asks Mr. Schlickenmaier, who led NASA's
development of airborne wind-shear detectors 20 years ago. "If I can
do that, and I don't know that right now, can I package it and [then] say
we can do this, or no we can't? We are going to look at this question.
Can this be done? Is the physics possible?"
-
- Two physics professors familiar with brain-wave research,
but not associated with NASA, questioned how such testing could be feasible
or reliable for mass screening. "What they're saying they would do
has not been done, even wired in," says a national authority on neuro-electric
sensing, who asked not to be identified. He called NASA's goal "pretty
far out."
-
- Both professors also raised privacy concerns. "Screening
systems must address privacy and 'Big Brother' issues to the extent possible,"
a NASA briefing paper, presented at a two-day meeting at Northwest Airlines
headquarters in St. Paul, Minn., acknowledges. Last year, the Supreme Court
ruled unconstitutional police efforts to use noninvasive "sense-enhancing
technology" that is not in general public use in order to collect
data otherwise unobtainable without a warrant. However, the high court
consistently exempts airports and border posts from most Fourth Amendment
restrictions on searches.
-
- "We're getting closer to reading minds than you
might suppose," says Robert Park, a physics professor at the University
of Maryland and spokesman for the American Physical Society. "It does
make me uncomfortable. That's the limit of privacy invasion. You can't
go further than that."
-
- "We're close to the point where they can tell to
an extent what you're thinking about by which part of the brain is activated,
which is close to reading your mind. It would be terribly complicated to
try to build a device that would read your mind as you walk by." The
idea is plausible, he says, but frightening.
-
- At the Northwest Airlines session conducted Dec. 10-11,
nine scientists and managers from NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett
Field, Calif., proposed a "pilot test" of the Aviation Security
Reporting System.
-
- NASA also requested that the airline turn over all of
its computerized passenger data for July, August and September 2001 to
incorporate in NASA's "passenger-screening testbed" that uses
"threat-assessment software" to analyze such data, biometric
facial recognition and "neuro-electric sensing."
-
- Northwest officials would not comment.
-
- Published scientific reports show NASA researcher Alan
Pope, at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., produced a system
to alert pilots or astronauts who daydream or "zone out" for
as few as five seconds.
-
- The September 11 hijackers helped highlight one weakness
of the CAPPS system. They did dry runs that show whether a specific terrorist
is likely to be identified as a threat. Those pulled out for special checking
could be replaced by others who do not raise suspicions. The September
11 hijackers cleared security under their own names, even though nine of
them were pulled aside for extra attention.
-
- http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020817-704732.htm
|
