In the wake of the attempted Christmas air-bomb attack (being referred to tongue-in-cheek as the “Fruit of Ka-Boom” bomber by some members of more conservative media outlets), President Obama has asked that new technologies be developed for defense purposes that will assist in determining threats prior boarding commercial airliners.

At present, debate continues to rage over the ethics behind using full-body scanners that, essentially, render a person “visually nude” using digital imaging equipment (of this technology, Left-wing pundit James Carville has angrily expressed to the press that he doesn’t endorse technology that allows people in airports “to measure his penis”). Other more extreme technologies have been suggested and shot down, and many Libertarian activists and scholars are warning that even full-body scanners that allow full body visualization of the external extremities of a would-be terrorist don’t prevent suspects from carrying dangerous equipment in less-convenient (or maybe just less comfortable) bodily cavities. So how do defense contractors hope to deal with this problem? Simple; they’ll just start reading people’s minds.

Last year, an article featured on this site dealt with various computer programs that were billed by the Libertarian Cato Institute as “Orwellian” due to the way they intended to probe people’s intentions for the sake of Homeland Security, as seen in the excerpt below:

According to the report, as well as sources with Fox News, the new system the DHS plans to implement is called MALINTENT, which the Cato institute referred to as being

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Author: Micah Hanks

Micah Hanks is a writer, researcher, and podcaster. His interests include areas of history, science, archaeology, philosophy, and the study of anomalous phenomena in nature. He can be reached at info@micahhanks.com.

One Reply to “Forget Frisks; So-long Scanners: Airports Will Read Your Mind”

  1. For every measure, there will always be a countermeasure.

    A recent debate happening in Mexico has been sparked by the intention of a Congressman to regulate social networks. The reason for this is that some people have been starting to use Twitter to report the areas where the Police install alcohol-detection tests, intended to spot & detain drivers with above-level alcohol in their blood stream

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