by Sherry R. Deatrick

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Does anyone remember the science fiction film Minority Report?

It told the story of a dystopian and technocratic future, in which a sophisticated computer system enabled law enforcement to detect potential criminal activity before it happens. In the film, this effort was spearheaded by the "Federal Department of Precrime" in Washington, DC.

Well, as so often is the case, life has imitated art — with chilling results. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has cooked up something with the sinister name of MALINTENT, a computer system that can literally read a human being's mind and thoughts. That is, if the hype is to be believed.

What is this MALINTENT? It's a program that claims to be able to monitor and analyze a person's facial features and physical cues to evaluate their potential intent to do harm to others. A network of MALINTENT sensors will theoretically be put into place at airports, as well as large event venues like sports stadiums and shopping malls, etc. Then, as the sales pitch has it, anyone who thinks bad thoughts will instantly be detected and can presumably be tackled by security. The system does what it does without actually physically contacting a person — it operates remotely and supposedly has the ability to accurately read your heart rate and body temperature, and then make judgments regarding whether you're a potential criminal based on that data.

Even without considering the terrifyingly Orwellian implications of such a device, the legal ramifications are sure to keep attorneys busy for decades to come. The public safety issues are numerous, since it's safe to say that MALINTENT cannot possibly be 100 percent foolproof, and the project could end up being more of a menace than a boon to public safety and personal freedoms.

Personally, I think the idea that a computer sensor system can remotely predict a person's malicious intent via bodily cues is preposterous. There are many types of humans with different temperaments, and it's a statistical certainty that terrorists must run the gamut from the shifty and twitchy sort, to the icy calm, cool and collected kind. The advance buzz being generated about MALINTENT's mind-reading and personality-assessing abilities seemingly describes a product that sounds like something straight out of L. Ron Hubbard.

According to a recent report on Fox News Network, Homeland Security put Project MALINTENT to a field test at a technology conference somewhere in Maryland by turning the experimental device on more than 100 "mostly unwitting" human subjects. Now, that alone should be enough to start ringing alarm bells — there's clearly great potential for public safety to be jeopardized by such a device that purports to be protecting that safety. The Fox News story stated that MALINTENT has met "rigorous safety standards to ensure the screening would not cause any physical or emotional harm," but the details of just what these rigorous safety measures are have not, to my knowledge, been fully disclosed. It certainly sounds as if the subjects are being placed in an electromagnetic field greater than that of the everyday store security system or cell phone radiation.

Other questions that haven't been resolved include:

• Who determines the accuracy of a MALINTENT reading when the computer says you're a terrorist?
• How can someone be detained or arrested just because a computer program says you look like you're thinking bad thoughts?
• How can any of this stand up to scrutiny in a court of law?
• Who will have access to the personal data about your thoughts and medical readouts that the program gleans? (They claim the data will not be stored.)
• What oversight abilities will be in place to make sure the technology is not misused for personal gain and/or mischief?

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