ACLU Files for Info on New Brain-Scan Tech 257
An anonymous reader writes "According to their website, the ACLU has filed a FOIA request seeking information on the new Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging service being made available to the government for use on suspected terrorists which can produce 'live, real-time images of people's brains as they answer questions, view images, listen to sounds, and respond to other stimuli. [...] These brain-scanning technologies are far from ready for forensic uses and if deployed will inevitably be misused and misunderstood," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "This technology must not be deployed until it is proven effective -- and we are a long way away from that point, according to scientists in the field,"'"
First post(?) (Score:3, Funny)
Pesky scientists! Won't let the government fry terrorists just because the proof isn't surefire. Imagine!
Re:First post(?) (Score:2)
Because when you don't, you get crap like 'lie detectors'.
Re:First post(?) (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that a court of law is where most 'terrorists,' detained by the gov't, have ended up.
A better idea is if the Alphabet Agencies (CIA/DoD/NSA/DoJ/etc) uses FMRI's for security screenings, in the same way that polygraph's are used. That way science can build up a body of knowledge at the Federal Gov'ts expense and the results can be backed up with polygraphs.
Re:First post(?) (Score:2)
Re:First post(?) (Score:5, Informative)
Polygraphs can't back up shit. They're a pile of crap. There are no physiological reactions that can be specifically atributed to deception. That's why they're not permitted as evidence in any court. Why do you think it is that the two possible results of a polygraph are "shows signs of deception" or "inconclusive"? Polygraph results are highly subjective interpretations of ill-defined measurements. Baseline questions are asked that supposedly set the thresholds for "truth" and "deception", but the machines largely rely on the subject's subconscious fear that the machine is catching them in the lie. There isn't a red light or buzzer on the machine that goes off every time the subject lies. What you have is just one man's opinion of what a lot of jumpy marks on graph paper mean in relation to your guilt or innocence-- influenced, of course, by his guess, based upon what he has heard about you, and deductions he draws from how you appear and act.
Re:First post(?) (Score:4, Informative)
What's Really On Your Mind? (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, reliable enough, compared to the alternative.
However, not tested enough to protect ourselves from fallout and other contamination. And ce
Crapping a Batshit Crazy Wingnut (Score:3, Interesting)
That still doesn't mean we understood the cost of the fallout to protect ourselves, as is also obviously true. To anyone without a fascist stick up their ass.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is most certainly libertarian, committed to nothing but defending our liberties. Fr
Tinfoil hats (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tinfoil hats (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tinfoil hats (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tinfoil hats (Score:2)
Phil
Re:Tinfoil hats (Score:2)
Re:Tinfoil hats (Score:2)
Re:Tinfoil hats (Score:2)
Re:Tinfoil hats (Score:2, Interesting)
Silly people! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Silly people! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Silly people! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Silly people! (Score:2)
Re:Silly people! (Score:5, Funny)
I thought the reliable test was to see if the terrorist floats.
Misunderstood? How about unreliable! (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at lie detectors, we still don't understand those and they have proven time and time again to be faulty at best. Depending on this a sole source of information is foolish.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Misunderstood? How about unreliable! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Misunderstood? How about unreliable! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Misunderstood? How about unreliable! (Score:2)
As with lie detectors, I assume that these are used to cause the to usee spontaneously provide a (truthful) confession, not for accuracy.
Any chance I could get my hands on one of those brain scanners in order to figure out what this guy is saying? ;-)
Faulty systems can still work some of the time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Faulty systems can still work some of the time. (Score:2)
Re:Faulty systems can still work some of the time. (Score:5, Informative)
Or they know that that question is the one you think they did. I had to be polygraphed for a job ("Of course it's voluntary. We're just not hiring you because we liked the other guy's hair better."). In the pre-interview, they ask if you've ever been questioned by police, so I said yes. Which is true. When I was a kid, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Didn't do a damn thing, and the cops knew it, but this guy didn't ask them. He asked me about it 45 times in the machine, and obviously that question was important, and it made me nervous every time.
They don't actually tell you the results of those things, but for some reason, I went from being a lock with, "It's just a formality. Call when they're done, we'll get you set up," to not answering my calls for a week until they called to tell me they offered the job to someone else.
Obviously I can't be sure that's why. Maybe my fly was open. But the polygraph's the only reason I can think of.
What I particularly loved was at the end, the guy looks upset and says, "Were you controlling your breathing?" Yes! You strapped a frigging cable around my torso and told me to keep still! Stupid frigging *grumble* *grumble*...
Re:Faulty systems can still work some of the time. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Faulty systems can still work some of the time. (Score:3, Interesting)
Requiring to be polygraphed for a job is fucked up, but it is also not the point. What they did was illegal, the fact that they got away with it is unfortunate, but it does not reflect an error in the system.
It is a completely different situation when it comes to law enforcement. If you say no to a polygraph, there is not shit they can do about it. They can't use the fact that you said no to a polygraph as evidence, so it really has no consequence whether you said no or not. It might throw some suspicion y
Re:Faulty systems can still work some of the time. (Score:2)
And no one would ever use a single source of information for that kind of thing...
Such as depending on the testimony of 'Curveball' as proof of mobile chemical weapons factories in Iraq?
Re:Faulty systems can still work some of the time. (Score:2)
I have no idea who the hell curveball is. That being said - intelligence operations is NOT the same as a court of law. In intelligence, it is very, very, VERY rare that you get the equiv. of a smoking gun. 99.9999% of the time, the most you get is a balance of probabilities
Re:Faulty systems can still work some of the time. (Score:2)
I would recommend to anyone who is against lie-detector type machines to look at this bayesian reasoning introduction [yudkowsky.net]. The link does not discuss lie detectors in particular, but demonstrates how it is possible to scientifically use machines that are 60%/40% right/wrong etc..
In this actual case I feel the ACLU is preying on the fact that most people
Re:Misunderstood? How about unreliable! (Score:2)
Depending on this a sole source of information is foolish. I don't think anybody is talking about using it as a sole source of information. Even if they *are* - once the technology has been proven - would that be a bad thing?
Fingerprints were accepted long before we had any real unders
ACLU (Score:5, Funny)
One step closer... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a good alternative to political debate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like a good alternative to political deb (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like a good alternative to political deb (Score:2)
I think your plan relies on incorrect assumptions.
Re:Sounds like a good alternative to political deb (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like a good alternative to political deb (Score:2)
Re:Sounds like a good alternative to political deb (Score:2)
With the assinine activities of the elected officials lately I am under the impression that they are all either singly or in combination:
a) on some seriously good drugs
b) totally batshit fucking nuts
c) be
Effective? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Effective? (Score:2)
Re:Effective? (Score:2)
Re:Effective? (Score:2)
Re:Effective? (Score:2)
Wha tdoy ouge twhe nyo udis ectahu manbra in? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wha tdoy ouge twhe nyo udis ectahu manbra in? (Score:3, Funny)
No entry found for disect.
Did you mean dissect [reference.com]?
Are you really that lame, or did you just spell it that way to save a character because you ran out of space?
Unless we magically isolated the "lying" part (Score:2, Informative)
In the field (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a joke right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, research into decision making processes and incentives by psychologist and economists using fMRI is in its infancy. To believe that we could accurately detect lies with fMRI when we don't even know how people make decisions or react to incentives is impossibly optimistic. The promise of a reduced sentence for telling the truth could completely change the fMRI results. The fact that the Guantanamo guard that kicked the sh*t out of you last week is in the room could completely change the fMRI results. The color of the room may change the fMRI results. And so on . . .
We just don't have enough historical data to do this reliably.
Re:This is a joke right? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is a joke right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a joke right? (Score:2)
There is tremendous pressure on intel guys to crack the network, and if the detainees contact or knowledge is not exciting/terrifying enough, well, we have ways of making him talk more.
This is basically phrenology with pretty lights instead of bumps on the head.
A better system... (Score:2)
I for one (Score:3, Funny)
oh crap......now they can tell I'm lying about that.
Comments (Score:5, Informative)
Now as for the issue at hand, it is certainly premature to use fMRI as a reliable lie detector or something like it. However, the article does not really specify how it is being used. If data is being collected to advance the reliabilty of this tool as a lie detector then it could be effective sooner rather than later.
Re:Comments (Score:2)
Re:Comments (Score:2)
I doubt you'd be able to drop the actual speed of neural firing down to the scanning speed (if it really is 1s or more) but you might be able to get more simulated temporal resolution if you make the activity you're looking for occur over longer periods.
If we're talking about interrogation of suspected terrorists, I doubt that shooting them up on some barbituates is really off the table. A whole lot of things that might not be "appropria
The technology a year ago (Score:2, Interesting)
He got defence grants (DARPA?), but was rather open with what they were doing and what they could do. He was using MRI and CT and tried to figure out what people were thinking of. His goal was to construct a lie detector. He used neural networks that were trained information about activity in different parts of the b
Something similar (Score:5, Interesting)
Basicly people were sat infront of a screen and displayed keywords, pictures of people or places etc. and had the general level of electrical avtivity going on in their brains recorded. Later on the activity log was matched against the timeline of what they were looking at and you could very clearly see the difference between questions that had no relation to them and questions that did.
It's not a magic solution to interigation, but if you ask the right questions properly (which includes things that they know nothing about, or for example showing pictures of cute puppies or family members etc.) then it could really help as there's no known way to control these specific reactions (as it's possible with traditional lie detectors.
I'm sure the professor was an American, but I can't remember his name.. any help finding how this progressed and how it compares to what's discussed in the article would be cool.
* To you non-british people, the OU is a university in which you can study at home/abroad and shows educational material late at night on the 'public' TV channels.
Why is this a "Civil Liberties" issue? (Score:4, Informative)
The results, if any, will be presented in courts, with experts from defense and prosecution debating their merits in front of juries. This happens to fingerprints, DNA, speed radars, and all other technologies used in crime-fighting.
In short, I feel, my ACLU donation is being misused...
Re:Why is this a "Civil Liberties" issue? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why is this a "Civil Liberties" issue? (Score:2)
From the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/us/24aclu.html?e x=1306123200&en=cd8a5fd1f6941a5d&ei=5090&partner=r ssuserland&emc=rss [nytimes.com]
By STEPHANIE STROM
Published: May 24, 2006
The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal administration.
"Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director sho
Re:Why is this a "Civil Liberties" issue? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why is this a "Civil Liberties" issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, I feel, my ACLU donation is being misused...
But not your tax dollars? (Which unlike your donation, isn't voluntary..)
Basically what you're saying here seems to be that law enforcement should be allowed to use whatever hokey crackpot ideas it wants to, and it's up to the courts to say if it's no good or not?
First off, if the government is subjecting people to any kind of scans, be it speed radars or palm-reading, that is a civil rights issue, and something we should be given the full and complete details of. That is definitely an ACLU issue in my book.
Second, the courts can only test what's being put in front of them. Should this stuff go unquestioned as long as noone uses it in court? I don't think so. In particular when it's being used on non-US citizens which you apparently can incarcerate nowadays without bothering with a trial.
Third, as a taxpayer, why the heck shouldn't I be concerned about the validity of any law-enforcement method (or any method in general) the government is blowing my money on? If the FBI is making phone calls to the Psychic Hotline to find out where Osama is, then you bet I'm concerned, regardless if that'll hold up in court or not!
But what are they using it FOR? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Developing intelligence to interdict terrorist acts.
2) Developing evidence to be used in criminal prosecution against the person being scanned.
1 is fair game. Terrorism and actions to prevent it is war, while MRI doesn't cause pain or damage to the subject (unless he happens to have, say, shrapnel in his body to be yanked on by the magnet).
2 is a violation of the prohibitions against unreasonable search and compelling an accused to testify against himself.
Seems to me the government has a choice: They can use the device on the suspected terrorist if they decide it's worth letting him go later (rather than prosecuting him) for detecting and stopping the plot.
Once they've extracted info with it and used it in their further actions, it will be essentially impossible to show that evidence they collect later was in no way derived from the information they extracted using the machine. It becomes "fruit of the poisoned tree" and inadmissable.
(By the way: Don't bring up the Geneva Accords. They specifically exclude people who violate certain "rules of civilized warfare", such as fighting in uniform, correctly identifying themselves, targeting only war infrastructure rather than civilians, etc. Terrorists miss on many of these qualifications, and it only takes one. Such people are NOT SUPPOSED to get the convention-specified treatment of a prisoner of war. This was done deliberately in the original formulation of the accords, to create an incentive for fighters, armies, and the organizations that field them to obey the rules in turn.)
Re:But what are they using it FOR? (Score:2)
Re:But what are they using it FOR? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ob. Futurama Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Morbo: "Morbo demands an answer to the following question. If you saw a delicious candy in the hands of a small child. Would you seize and consume it?"
John Jackson: "Unthinkable."
Jack Johnson: "I wouldn't think of it."
Morbo: "What about you, Mr. Nixon? I remind you that you are under a truth-o-scope."
Nixon [sweating]: "The question is vague. You don't say what kind of candy and whether anyone is watching. And anyway I certainly wouldn't harm the child."
Even if fMRI had anything like the accuracy needed (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that the polygraph works in this basic manner:
The examiner asks you a whole bunch of filler questions, claiming these are 'controls.' These results are all ignored. Questions in this phase are things like "Is today Tuesday?". Then the examiner intersperses the real controls (he's already lied to you about what they are), questions which they'll preface with ominous portents if you answer affirmatively, so the examiner assumes you're going to lie about them ("Have you ever cheated on a girlfriend? Have you ever used marijuana?).
Then the examiner takes the second controls and compares them to his test questions. If you're test questions exceed the response from the (presumed to be lying) controls, the examiner assumes you're lying. Thus, telling the truth throughout the entire procedure is liable to land you in hot water. (For more information, from an admittedley 'biased' site, but I think they're pretty clear can be found at http://www.antipolygraph.org/ [antipolygraph.org]).
However, a true lie detector test would require a much more coherent defintion of what a lie is, which is very hard to create. Most people would agree that actively misleading somebody with no regard to your factual knowledge is lying. This also tends to be a useless type of lie in these situations because people get there stories mixed up, or they don't think through all the details. Much more common types of lies, are witholding useful information while truthfully relating aspects of the response, or changing the context of the answer, and other things which mislead but do not show complete disregard for the truth. The best lies in the intelligence useful/lessness sense are those that only minorly distort the truth, but in a particularly significant way.
Until you can metrize all these different types of not being truthful, or of avoiding certain facts etc, and until you can metrize their reponses for each individual (my guess is that this type of thing will have a high variance between people), you can't produce anything that can reasonably be called a scientific lie detector.
Today we scan terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
The government will prevail, unfortunately (Score:4, Informative)
So are polygraph tests, yet these are routinely used in a "forensic" capacity.
Since when has the unsuitability of polygraphs for forensic use [psychologymatters.org] ever stopped the government from using such technology to their own purposes?
Bravo to the ACLU for taking this on. Unfortunately, their actions will be minimalized over the government's assertion that this technology will catch more terrorists. And before you know it, you'll be submitting to brain scans during your next employment interview, or police interrogation.
I can see it now.... (Score:4, Funny)
Investigator: What were you doing on the 8th of June?
*** CLANK *** CLANK *** CLANK ***
Suspect: What?
*** CLANK *** CLANK *** CLANK ***
Investigator: What were you doing on the 8th of June?
*** CLANK *** CLANK *** CLANK ***
Suspect: WHAT?!
*** CLANK *** CLANK *** CLANK ***
Investigator: WHAT WHERE YOU DOING ON THE 8TH OF JUNE?!
*** CLANK *** CLANK *** CLANK ***
Suspect: WHAT?! I CANT HEAR YOU!!
*** CLANK *** CLANK *** CLANK ***
Investigator: WHAT WHERE YOU...
Investigator: Can you turn the noise on this thing down?
Technologist: Not really, but I'll see see what I can do.
*** THUNK *** THUNK *** THUNK ***
Investigator: What were you doing on the 8th of June?
*** THUNK *** THUNK *** THUNK ***
Suspect: WHAT?!
(those MRI scanners are *real* loud)
Voight-Kampf? (Score:2, Insightful)
Holden: You look down and you see a Terrorist, Leon, he's crawling toward you-
Leon: Terrorist, what's that?
Holden: Know what a Democrat is?
Leon: Of course.
Holden: Same thing.
It's The outside, Not The Inside (Score:3, Funny)
Gosh I hate this stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
I can see it happening right now, I get interrogated because I'm a suspect who was near a crime scene I don't know about. They hook me up to a lie detector/FMRI, then the big question comes along, "did you murder [person]?" I would freak regardless of whether or not I'd done it, simply because of the weight of the situation. Possibility of prison for life, even if I hadn't done a thing. I have a feeling people are too interested in their own agenda (which in this case would be convicting _someone_ like me, even if I didn't do it and they don't think I did) to worry about looking at all the evidence. They can't even fight for their own rights, why should they give a hoot about mine? Lie detector says I broke out in sweat and my pulse quicked when they asked me if I was the murderer. There's no way that thing could ever know my history and interpret the results objectively in light of the evidence. I'd be the 20% that lie detectors incorrectly fail.
Re:Not a real concern (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:3, Insightful)
The ACLU claims to defend "civil liberties." The 2nd, 9th, and 10th Amendments should be included in that, regardless of what other organizations do!
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:2)
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:2)
Well, that and the fact that I'd like to find a "one-stop shop" organization to donate to that'll work to protect all my rights.
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:2, Insightful)
Planned Parenthood and NARAL do a good job of defending the Abortion Amendment, yet this doesn't stop the ACLU from devoting resources to abortion rights.
The ACLU also duplicates the work of the NAACP, etc.
Yet when someone points out that the ACLU refused to defend the Second Amendment, somebody always points out that "The ACLU doesn't need to do th
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:3, Informative)
And they're even welcome to print their poster on the bill of rights that leaves off the second (and a couple of others) entirely. (Even if it is as revolting as flag burning, it IS free speech.)
But IMHO they crossed a line when they provided a lawyer for the shooting victim of a crook to sue for damages the person from whose locked safe the gun ha
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:3, Informative)
Do you have any?
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the ACLU won't touch gun rights, because they don't believe they exist:
http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14523res20020304.h
I think they're wrong, but that that doesn't mean I think the ACLU are doing wrong by defending my other rights. Interestingly enough, it appears possible for people to disagree on one subject while agreeing on a different one!
They're not even consistent. (Score:2)
It's not just an issue of cherrypicking, it's an issue of outright hypocrisy.
Okay, so they think that the 2nd Amendment is a "collective" right. I think that's stupid, and you'd have to be both biased and illiterate to think that, but fine. But somehow, I doubt they think that about the 1st Amendment, which uses the exact same language to confer it's (according to the ACLU) individual right.
Amendement 1: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom o
Re:They're not even consistent. (Score:3, Insightful)
that's ridiculous. The collectivity notion stems directly from the interpretation of 'militia.' The right to petition has no such clause.
Calling them hypocrites for not supporting gun rights, when they've come out and said "we don't believe gun control is unconstitutional" is sort of dumb. You're just being mad at them because they're named badly. You mi
Re:They're not even consistent. (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, why wouldn't the writer just have said 'the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed'? Or just shortened the whole thing and said "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, their right to bear arms shall not be infringed"?
No, it's pretty obvious that "the people" were introduced intentionally, and it's silly to assume that "the people" in the context of the 2nd Amendment refers to such a fundamentally different concept than the same word does when used in the 1st (and in all the other Amendments).
It's a two-part phrase; really it's not that complicated. The form is "[justification], [directive]." The whole bit about the militia doesn't change the essential fact that the Authors said "the right of the people...". If you want to change the meaning of that use of "people," then you necessarily have to be open to varying its meaning based on context elsewhere, and for reasons I've already pointed out, that's not something that most people want to do. In fact, it would be rather dangerous.
And while you may think my accusation of hypocrisy at the ACLU is merely sour grapes, I think it's far from it: the ACLU purports to defend 'civil liberties,' but in picking and choosing how they want to interpret the very documents that define civil liberties in this country in order to fit their preferences, it undermines their accountability as far as I'm concerned. If you can twist the meaning of a line so straightforward as the Second Amendment, then certainly you can't be trusted on other, far more complex issues.
Therefore I have no problem in using one's interpretation of the Second Amendment as a sort of litmus test for one's understanding of the Constitution, and of civil liberties generally. If you manage to fuck something that basic up, I don't even want to know what sort of a mess you're going to make of some of the higher-digit Amendments.
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:3, Insightful)
"Baldwin's pro-Communist leanings lasted until 1939 when he was disillusioned by the Nazi-Soviet pact and broke off all radical ties"
Yes, that's what I said.
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:4, Insightful)
Reno v. ACLU:Communication Decency Act [cornell.edu]
Just remember that not all those that oppose the Neo-Con-Republicans are super liberals. Normal people seem to enjoy freedom as well.
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:2)
I hate it when people accuse the republicans of things that just aren't true.
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:3, Insightful)
or is there?
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:2)
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:3, Interesting)
Also paraphrasing, the 9th amendment protects rights not specifically enumerated in the constitution. Can you point o
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:2)
Re:The ACLU - some people's rights but not others (Score:5, Interesting)
The 9th amendments is about implied rights not specifically otherwise mentioned in the constitution. The ACLU certainly can't be accused of not defending implied rights, such as those of privacy, death, etc.
and 10th amendments,
Look into Gonzales v. Raich.
and NEVER defended the individual's rights under the 2nd amendment.
ACLU: "The national ACLU is neutral on the issue of gun control. We believe that the Constitution contains no barriers to reasonable regulations of gun ownership. If we can license and register cars, we can license and register guns... The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court's long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual's right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia."
It ain't their bag, baby. The NRA is pretty good at that one though.
Come on ACLU - you have more important things to spend your resources on. Start with US Citizens first.
1. Suspected terrorists aren't necessarily, or even generally, foreign nationals.
2. The ACLU's concern is that this type of interrogation will be used on US citizens.
3. The ACLU is a private organization that can choose to take on the battles it finds to be important.
As a final point, your subject says "some people's rights but not others", but your argument seems to focus on "some rights and not others". There's a big difference.
Re:do not mod this up.. (Score:3, Funny)
Prepare...
Re:Trivial to fool (Score:2)