'pre-crime' detection Homeland Security

[jasonxe]

Homeland Security moves forward with 'pre-crime' detection | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

An internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security document indicates that a controversial program designed to predict whether a person will commit a crime is already being tested on some members of the public voluntarily, CNET has learned.

If this sounds a bit like the Tom Cruise movie called "Minority Report," or the CBS drama "Person of Interest," it is. But where "Minority Report" author Philip K. Dick enlisted psychics to predict crimes, DHS is betting on algorithms: it's building a "prototype screening facility" that it hopes will use factors such as ethnicity, gender, breathing, and heart rate to "detect cues indicative of mal-intent."

"If it were deployed against the public, it would be very problematic," says Ginger McCall, open government counsel at EPIC, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.

Elsewhere in the document, FAST program manager Robert Middleton Jr. refers to a "limited" initial trial using DHS employees as test subjects. Middleton says that FAST "sensors will non-intrusively collect video images, audio recordings, and psychophysiological measurements from the employees," with a subgroup of employees singled out, with their permission, for more rigorous evaluation.

FAST is designed to track and monitor, among other inputs, body movements, voice pitch changes, prosody changes (alterations in the rhythm and intonation of speech), eye movements, body heat changes, and breathing patterns. Occupation and age are also considered. A government source told CNET that blink rate and pupil variation are measured too.

Although DHS has publicly suggested that FAST could be used at airport checkpoints--the Transportation Security Administration is part of the department, after all--the government appears to have grander ambitions. One internal DHS document (PDF) also obtained by EPIC through the Freedom of Information Act says a mobile version of FAST "could be used at security checkpoints such as border crossings or at large public events such as sporting events or conventions."

DHS is being unusually secretive about FAST. A February 2010 contract (PDF) with Cambridge, Mass.-based Draper Laboratory to build elements of the "pre-crime" system has every dollar figure blacked out (a fleeting reference to an "infrared camera" remained).

Relying on ambiguous biological factors to predict mal-intent is worrisome, says McCall. "Especially if they're going to be rolling this out at the airport. I don't know about you, but going to an airport gives me a minor panic attack, wondering if I'm going to get groped by a TSA officer."

Update 2:12 p.m. PT: A Homeland Security spokesman has just provided this additional statement to CNET: "The FAST program is entirely voluntary and does not store any personally-identifiable information (PII) from participants once the experiment is completed.

 

[Cold Highway]

This makes me want to vomit

 

[Kandahar]

DHS is betting on algorithms: it's building a "prototype screening facility" that it hopes will use factors such as ethnicity, gender, breathing, and heart rate to "detect cues indicative of mal-intent."

WTF, Homeland Security?

 

[Temporal]

History works in circles... and we always repeat the same stupid things over and over again.

 

[atrasicarius]

But remember, only criminals need to be worried. Or people who are going to become criminals. Or people that the DHS thinks are going to become criminals, based on incredibly sketchy technology. And remember, complaining about anything the DHS does is tantamount with admitting that you're going to become a criminal, because only criminals need to be worried.

:doh

 

[1Perry]

"If it were deployed against the public, it would be very problematic," says Ginger McCall, open government counsel at EPIC, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.

So why waste the money?

 

[Alyssa]

Sounds strangely Orwellian.

 

[lpast]

Law enforcement can never win with the people...either one side condemns them for not doing enough...or the other side condemns them for doing too much.

If you want CRIME PREVENTION...you have to give up some liberties PERIOD...if you want to take the risk of you an yours getting hurt fine...just dont blame law enforcement for it having happened

 

[jasonxe]

"If it were deployed against the public, it would be very problematic," says Ginger McCall, open government counsel at EPIC, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C.

So why waste the money?

Probably a get quick rich scheme like with florida drug testing thing.
They ideology think it's correct
Or to see what else they can get away with on the American public. Kinda like this bad kid...

 

[d0gbreath]

This makes me want to vomit

I wouldn't do that if I were you. It could be seen as the nervous stomach of a pre-criminal.

They might make you stay in a field where a prison will be built next year.

 

[Alyssa]

Law enforcement can never win with the people...either one side condemns them for not doing enough...or the other side condemns them for doing too much.

If you want CRIME PREVENTION...you have to give up some liberties PERIOD...if you want to take the risk of you an yours getting hurt fine...just dont blame law enforcement for it having happened

To hell with that. i'd rather have a side arm.

 

[Goshin]

I don't like this much.

 

[Cold Highway]

I wouldn't do that if I were you. It could be seen as the nervous stomach of a pre-criminal.

They might make you stay in a field where a prison will be built next year.

Ha true but they'll declare me an illegal alien instead

To hell with that. i'd rather have a side arm.

Exactly

 

[Befuddled_Stoner]

Just a matter of time before we’ve got UK style cameras everywhere, recording our every movement and analyzing our body language. Cell phones in our pockets to track our location, social media to map out our network of social connections, internet cookies and credit/debit cards to determine our habits and proclivities. Take all that data, crunch it in sophisticated algorithms and you can predict all sorts of scary ****. Massive matrices of correlations can determine what products you’ll buy, who you’re likely to fall in love with, how/when you’re gonna die, what laws your likely to break and what lies you’ll buy from people selling bull****.

In the future, the only thing that will protect us from an intrusively omniscient state is the mundanity of our lives. As long as you don’t do anything interesting, only low level sifting programs will see your data. Do something that deviates from the norm, like not using the average number of TP sheets per bowel movements, and suddenly you’ll have voyeurs watching you because criminals/terrorists also like to use three extra sheets of toilet paper.

 

[lpast]

To hell with that. i'd rather have a side arm.

I have many

 

[Temporal]

Wow... you know if they could make thoughts a crime, they so would at this point.

From fiction to reality. As if the intrusive pat downs weren't enough, now we have facial profiling in order to get onto airplanes.

I can't help but think back to all my insane travel days with sleep deprivation, improper meals, dealing with lineups and delays... some piece of software could now call that a threat of terrorism.

Our country has gone to the dogs.

 

[nonpareil]

Law enforcement can never win with the people...either one side condemns them for not doing enough...or the other side condemns them for doing too much.

Wrong. Law enforcement has been praised by people many times, that to me is a "win".

If you want CRIME PREVENTION...you have to give up some liberties PERIOD...if you want to take the risk of you an yours getting hurt fine...just dont blame law enforcement for it having happened

This is illogical. The answer is not either of the extreme - total freedom or zero freedom. The answer is somewhere in between. If after giving the police the power (and paying them) to check people who act suspiciously and they fail to act within this capacity, then we have every reason to blame the police for failure at their job.

Where it is outside their capacity, like predicting crime where a reasonable person would not have been able to predict, I don't think anyone blame them.

 

[Cold Highway]

In the future, the only thing that will protect us from an intrusively omniscient state is the mundanity of our lives. As long as you don’t do anything interesting, only low level sifting programs will see your data. Do something that deviates from the norm, like not using the average number of TP sheets per bowel movements, and suddenly you’ll have voyeurs watching you because criminals/terrorists also like to use three extra sheets of toilet paper.

It shouldnt have to come to that though, people should be rejecting this bull**** on a massive scale. However some wont because of one of two things; 1. Their guy is in power scumbags, 2. The typical "if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear" pond scum.

 

[conservativeguy]

This contraption is beyond vile.

Picture yourself getting off a really irritating phone call with the office or a client. You are walking down the concourse to wait for your three hour delayed flight to leave. You are really seething at this point. Out of a side door comes a pack of TSA goons. They surround you and start asking you what you are thinking about doing?

This program needs to be stopped. Mind reading? Seriously, how much more of our liberty can we surrender before we have none left?

 

[Μολὼν λαβέ]

This contraption is beyond vile.

Picture yourself getting off a really irritating phone call with the office or a client. You are walking down the concourse to wait for your three hour delayed flight to leave. You are really seething at this point. Out of a side door comes a pack of TSA goons. They surround you and start asking you what you are thinking about doing?

This program needs to be stopped. Mind reading? Seriously, how much more of our liberty can we surrender before we have none left?

Just another way to spend tax dollars and for big government to have more control over it's citizens. Hey Big Brother...

 

[Ikari]

This makes me want to vomit

Why do you hate America?

 

[Ikari]

Sounds strangely Orwellian.

There's nothing strange about it. The government has been using 1984 as a playbook for some time now. We got our forever war, we got our hate on, we got more intrusive government coming in on our rights, a bit more surveillance and we're there. I wonder how many of the "small government conservatives" oppose this form of large government?

Does anyone else feel like these are the twilight days of our Republic?

 

[tessaesque]

My god, can you imagine all of the false-positives on this thing? Those of us with anxiety disorders or mild xenophobia would be in constant contact with authorities...or constantly imprisoned. The reaks of "thought-crime" mentality.

 

[Alyssa]

Does anyone else feel like these are the twilight days of our Republic?

This "Republic" is already dead.

 

[Cold Highway]

Why do you hate America?

lol I hate thugerment and its thugs in addition I hate everything already