ACLU Seeks
Information About Government Use of Brain Scanners in Interrogations (6/28/2006)
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: media@aclu.org
Group Says Technology Should Not Be Deployed
Until It Is Proven Effective
NEW YORK-- In the face of suspicions that the government is using
cutting-edge brain-scanning technologies on suspected terrorists
being held overseas or at home, the American Civil Liberties Union
today announced that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) requests with all the primary American security agencies.
"There are certain things that have such powerful
implications for our society -- and for humanity at large -- that we
have a right to know how they are being used so that we can grapple
with them as a democratic society," said Barry Steinhardt, Director
of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "These
brain-scanning technologies are far from ready for forensic uses and
if deployed will inevitably be misused and misunderstood."
The most likely technology to be used for
anti-terrorism purposes is Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(fMRI), 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. Two private companies have announced that they
will begin to offer "lie detection" services using fMRI as early as
this summer. These companies are marketing their services to
federal government agencies, including the Department of Defense,
Department of Justice, the National Security Agency and the CIA, and
to state and local police departments. "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," said Steinhardt. "What we don't want is to open our
newspapers and find that another innocent person has been thrown
into Guantánamo because interrogators have jumped to conclusions
based on a technology no one understands very well."
Experts in the field say that the science to back up
any reliable use of fMRI as a "lie detector" or "mind reader" simply
does not exist. At most, correlations have been observed
between certain brain patterns and particular, highly controlled
behaviors produced in laboratory experiments. But experts note
that these early experiments on a few American college students are
a long way from real-world settings, involving individuals in widely
varying situations and with widely varying cultures, intelligence
levels and states of mind. The ACLU's FOIA
requests were filed yesterday with the Pentagon, NSA, CIA, FBI and
Department of Homeland Security. "These
brain-scanning technologies have potentially far-reaching
implications, yet uncertain results and effectiveness," said
Steinhardt. "And we are still in our infancy when it comes to
understanding the underlying processes of the brain that the
scanners have begun to reveal. We do not want to see our
government yet again deploying a potentially momentous technology
unilaterally and in secret, before Americans have had a chance to
figure out how it fits in with our values as a nation."
The ACLU’s FOIA request is available online at www.aclu.org/privacy/gen/26031res20060628.html.
A video of an ACLU-sponsored forum featuring
experts discussing the use of fMRI as a “lie detector” is
online at www.aclu.org/future.
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