- FAIRFIELD, Iowa (Reuters)
- A technique called "brain fingerprinting," which seeks to probe
whether a suspect has specific knowledge of a crime, could become a powerful
weapon in national security, its inventor believes.
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- Lawrence Farwell, a Harvard-educated neuroscientist who
founded Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories Inc. 12 years ago and runs the
company from a small town in southern Iowa, believes the technique could
emerge as the next big thing in law enforcement and intelligence.
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- "From a scientific perspective, we can definitively
say that brain fingerprinting could have substantial benefits in identifying
terrorists or in exonerating people accused of being terrorists,"
Farwell said.
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- But first the controversial technique, which has had
some success, must overcome the skepticism of some experts who are reluctant
to embrace it.
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- Brain fingerprinting works by measuring and analyzing
split-second spikes in electrical activity in the brain when it responds
to something it recognizes.
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- For example, if a suspected murderer was shown a detail
of the crime scene that only he would know, his brain would involuntarily
register that knowledge. Under Farwell's system, that brain activity is
picked up through electrodes attached to the suspect's scalp and measured
by an electroencephalograph (EEG) as a waveform.
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- A person who had never seen that crime scene would show
no reaction.
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- Many scientists have studied the initial spike in brain
activity, known as the p300, that peaks at between 300 and 500 milliseconds
in response to a stimulus. Farwell's contribution was to develop something
he calls the MERMER (Memory and Encoding Related Multifaceted Electroencephalographic
Response) that measures the pattern of brain response up to 1,200 milliseconds
after the stimulus has been administered.
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- MURDER SOLVED
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- In 1999, Farwell used his technique to solve a 1984 murder
in Missouri. Police strongly suspected a local woodcutter, James Grinder,
of kidnapping, raping and murdering Julie Helton, a 25 year-old woman,
but had lacked the evidence to convict him. He agreed to undergo brain
fingerprinting to demonstrate his innocence.
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- Farwell flashed on a computer screen details of the crime
that only the murderer would have known, including items taken from the
victim, where the victim's body was located, items left at the crime scene
and details of the wounds on the body of the victim.
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- "What his brain said was that he was guilty,"
he said. "He had critical, detailed information only the killer would
have. The murder of Julie Helton was stored in his brain, and had been
stored there 15 years ago when he committed the murder."
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- Grinder pleaded guilty a week later in exchange for a
sentence of life in prison, avoiding the death penalty. He also confessed
to three other murders of young women.
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- In 2000, brain fingerprinting underwent its first legal
challenge in the case of Terry Harrington, an Iowa man who had spent 23
years in prison for the 1978 murder of a security guard. Farwell's tests
suggested conclusively that Harrington was innocent since he did not have
knowledge of the crime scene.
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- The judge in the case admitted the evidence but did not
free the suspect, saying it was not clear test results would have led to
a different verdict in the original trial. The case is before the Supreme
Court of Iowa.
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- Farwell has done work for both the FBI and the
CIA and has been contacted by foreign governments, including some in the
Middle East.
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- Still, critics are dismissive.
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- SNAKE OIL
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- "It's pure snake oil. There's no evidence you can
determine evil intent or anything else from brain fingerprinting. It's
the 21st century version of the lie detector test, which also doesn't work
very well," said Barry Steinhardt, who directs a technology program
for the American Civil Liberties Union.
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- A General Accounting Office report in 2001 found that
CIA, FBI, Department of Defense and Secret Service officials did not at
this stage foresee using brain fingerprinting because of the expertise
needed to employ the technique and because it would likely be of limited
usefulness.
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- The CIA, for example, explained that to administer brain
fingerprinting, an investigator would have to know enough details of a
particular event to test an individual for knowledge of that event. In
counterintelligence, such specific details are not always available.
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- Farwell countered by citing a 1993 test he conducted
for the FBI in which he identified 11 FBI agents from a group of 15 people.
"If we can detect someone trained by the FBI, we should be able to
detect someone trained by al Qaeda," he said.
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- However, just like lie detector tests, the technique
requires the cooperation of the subject. A suspect could simply refuse
to cooperate by closing his eyes and refusing to watch the prompts flashed
on the screen before him.
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- If and when the technique is widely accepted, a judge
may have to decide whether to admit test results as evidence.
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- Independent scientists contacted by the GAO investigators
raised various objections to brain fingerprinting and said it needed more
work into issues such as how memory was affected by drugs and alcohol,
mental illness and extreme anxiety during crime situations.
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- Still, William Iacono, a professor of psychology and
neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, said he was confident that
brain fingerprinting would eventually establish itself for many applications,
including the investigation of carefully planned premeditated crimes.
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- Meanwhile, Farwell is pressing on. He wants to explore
the use of brain fingerprinting to detect and monitor the onset of Alzheimer's
Disease.
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- He also sees commercial interest from advertisers anxious
to measure how effective their commercials are, which parts are remembered
and which forgotten.
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- "It takes time for new technologies to win acceptance,
but it's only a matter of time," he said.
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