The official blog of the Libertarian Party
August 09, 2007
Try not to look guilty
For the guys who sport tin foil hats and live in remote cabins nestled deep in the woods of New England, I have to give them some credit. It appears that after decades of unsubstantiated paranoia, they might just have something to fear with the recent moves by the Bush administration to monitor nearly every move an American makes.
Under Project Hostile Intent, scientists will aim to build devices that can pick up tell-tale signs of hostile intent or deception from people's heart rates, perspiration and tiny shifts in facial expressions.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security commissioned the project, and appealed to private security firms and other government laboratories for help.
The plans describe how systems based on video cameras, laserlight, infra-red, audio recordings and eye tracking technology are expected to scour crowds looking for unusual behaviour, with the aim of identifying people who should be approached and quizzed by security staff, New Scientist magazine reports.
DHS officials hope the system to begin trail phases in U.S. airports by 2012.
The project is also expected to investigate developing a lie detector-type test that can be used remotely - an advantage because it would not interfere with the flow of a crowd and it could be used without the target's knowledge.
The government is using their typical justification for this program, saying it will help identify would-be attackers. Just how many would be attackers come through U.S. airports? A rough estimate would put it at well below statistically irrelevant. Therefore, just who will be pulled aside, interrogated and perhaps detained? Well, anybody who might be a little nervous about hiding a few Cuban cigars, or maybe even travelers jittery about possibly forgetting to unplug the coffee pot before leaving for a trip.
Experts suggest that the program has many obstacles in its way, such as how "terrorists" might show an array of issues to fool the system, or how innocent people will frequently show up on the radar as potential "terrorists."
Anthony Richards, a counter-terrorism expert at St Andrews University who has worked on Britain's ability to pre-empt a major terrorist attack, agreed that the project faced substantial hurdles.
"There could be all kinds of reasons that might make people behave in certain ways that have nothing to do with terrorism. If you have heightened security and there are a lot of police around, it could be possible that you can feel and look guilty even when you haven't done anything wrong.
But this doesn't seem to be a problem for an administration that has no issue with wrongly detaining innocent people or spying on citizens as long as it's in the name of national security.
One question yet to be answered is how will this impact behavior. Former Congressman Bob Barr raises this point in his op-ed piece published recently in the Washington Times about the New York surveillance program:
Whether in Bentham's world, or Plato's or Orwell's, the central task is to modify behavior by convincing people that the government — that entity with power over their lives — may be watching them all the time or at any particular time. As 20th-century American philosopher and advocate of personal freedom Ayn Rand noted, taking away a person's privacy renders to the government the ability to control absolutely that person.
Barr also notes studies that have proven this effect on behavior from surveillance.
Among secret wiretaps, Executive Orders that can strip you of your financial assets without even being charged and now a system that can have you hand-cuffed for appearing apprehensive for any reason, one has to wonder if we're now entering a period of the American legal system where suspicious intentions are just as guilty as the crime itself.
Didn't this happen in Minority Report?
Posted by Andrew Davis at August 9, 2007 11:01 AM
Reader Comments:
So I could get through airport security, be pissed off because I had to almost strip down to my underwear to get through, get dressed and as I am walking away justifiably pissed off I could set off this new system with my "agitation" and be harassed again?
If the damn expensive tickets hadn't already turned me off to flying than this has. This is why I don't even mess with flying anymore unless I have no other choice. It is easier just to drive.
Oh, but if I drive more, and more and more people also shun the airlines and drive, the airlines might go broke. Then the government would have to step in and give them some sort of huge subsidy to stay in business, paid for out of my pocket.
So, the government makes it such a pain to fly that people stop flying. When people stop flying the airlines go broke and look to the government to save them. The government saves them with our money, taken involuntarily from us.
So either way we are paying the airlines.
Good times.
I wouldn't mind seeing the supporters of such heinous policies get subjected to the very things they condone (example: Rush Limbaugh). That'll teach them a painful lesson. I have every reason to be concerned, but at the same time, government incompetence prevents them from doing this on a much wider scale.
Shane -- tell that to the people of England, whom already face surveillance of a similar nature as pedestrians on public streets.
The best answer to this problem, in my opinion, is sousveillance: recorded observation from "below" rather than "above". Keep our government on watch, at all times.
LOL! Boob Barr! Wasn't/isn't he the/a Republicreep stinking drug war head cheerleader?..and now the loud pecksniff is working his yap about big, bad government abuse?!?..
Yikes!!
(With 'Libertarians' like these chuckleheads who needs Republicrats?!) ;o)
Congratulations Clark. You made a good point without refering to "illion$" or "federal re$erve token$"
Clark, unlike our current Clown-In-Chief, SOME people are able to admit they might have been WRONG once. I figure we need about 50 million more voting folks like Bob Barr in this benighted nation.
I can think of lots of scenarios where people ight be nervous or uneasy. My wife hates flying but she's the farthest thing from a terrorist. My family members like their coffee. That raises the heart rate. So many reasons this is a stupid premise BESIDES the fact that it violates the Constitutional right to be secure in our persons.
Welcome to 1984, George Orwell was RIGHT. We the people must save this Republic!!
Hmmm... a surveillance device that can register 'hostile intent'....
Wonder how many people like me it'll get? They can look at me any time of day or night and register hostile intent, on the borderline of violent intent.
Why? Because a group of people with the power to take away my freedom and even my life are coming to me and demanding that I pay top dollar for the privilege of being SPIED ON, that's why! And I don't consider it irrational that the proper response, the *just* response, is for anyone spying on someone for no reason, just at random, to see a hostile response heading their way. After all, a bullet through the meaty part of your thigh doesn't do any more to destroy your ability to be secure in your life than the constant threat of being taken away for political incorrectness does to mine.
THAT is justice.
man i am scared of the future of this country. i mean we are becoming less and less free every year. every day really. i used to be a democrat until i saw the light. i understood the problem with republicans, with their tradionalist intolerances, but as the typical college student that i was, i was ignorant of the excesses of the modern liberal movement. now as a libertarian, my liberal friends think i have become a right wing conservative because i worry about privacy, more than i worry about gay marriage. don't get me wrong, i'm for gay marriage, but if we are being spied on by government, then gay rights really won't mean that much.
VERN WROTE: "I figure we need about 50 million more voting folks like Bob Barr in this benighted nation. (END)
Isn't Bobo Barr STILL a meatheaded drug warrior?
Drug prohibition appears one of the worst, most stoooooooopid, harmful Republicrat policies EVER..yet apparently this loud dope Barr STILL doesn't get it!..Yet somehow now he's some 'Libertarian leader'/spokesperson!!
(one wonders if they're kissing Rush Windbag's arse trying to get him to say he's some 'Libertarian' too!..that's all we need!..Limbaugh's dildoheads 'fixing' the party/platform, etc..)
Limbaugh is nowhere near a libertarian. He is authoritarian, totalitarian, and many other "arians" but nothing that starts with "liberty."
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So I could get through airport security, be pissed off because I had to almost strip down to my underwear to get through, get dressed and as I am walking away justifiably pissed off I could set off this new system with my "agitation" and be harassed again?
If the damn expensive tickets hadn't already turned me off to flying than this has. This is why I don't even mess with flying anymore unless I have no other choice. It is easier just to drive.
Posted by: Matt at August 9, 2007 02:24 PM