To me the ultimate question is whether a court will rule that an "alarm" from this computer program constitutes reasonable suspicion for a detention/investigation or probable cause for a search or arrest. Very scary if the answer is yes. That they are using it outside of an airport suggests a venue where there is no "implied consent" to arbitrary search.

And as always with this stuff, their "test" is useful only for counting the number of false positives generated, since the number of terrorists is so infinitesimally small that it is effectively zero and the false positives are guaranteed to outnumber the terrorists. Even if the machine incorrectly identifies only 0.1% of innocent people as terrorists, that means 1000 harassments of innocents per million people screened, when it's extremely unlikely that even 1 of those million people was an actual terrorist.

Why is the northeast so often their test bed for this stuff? Yes, they say it's not BOS, but it's still the area. BOS was a test bed for the gropes, and early NoS adopter, etc. Why does the cradle of liberty put up with this?

Flying doesn't stress me in the least.

On the other hand? Any interaction with TSA, immigration, customs etc always has me feeling nauseous - not because I have anything to hide, but because of the power wielded by these folks.

If FAST becomes a reality at airports? Travel is going to become more of a pain than it already is.

From a TSA Privacy Impact Assessment: PDF

FAST researchers are currently verifying and validating five sensor types that can detect these cues:

(1) A remote cardiovascular and respiratory sensor to measure heart rate and respiration, which allows for the calculation of heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration rate, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia.

(2) A remote eye tracker, which is a device that uses a camera and processing software to track the position and gaze of the eyes (and, in some instances, the entire head) of a subject. Most eye trackers will also provide a measurement of the pupil diameter.

(3) Thermal cameras that provide detailed information on the changes in the thermal properties of the skin in the face will help assess electrodermal activity and measure respiration and eye movements.

(4) A high resolution video that allows for highly detailed images of the face and body to be taken so that image analysis can determine facial features and expressions and body movements, and an audio system for analyzing human voice for pitch change.

(5) Other sensor types such as for pheromones detection are also under consideration.



The TSA's Red Team failure rates are off the charts in doing their core mission of keeping weapons, explosives and incendiaries off of commercial aircraft. What better way to address these security failures than to devote time and money on junk science. :rolleyes:

Also note on page 2 of the document I linked that it is referred to as Future Attribute Screening Technology Mobile Module. Does that mean we can expect this at the "thousands" (TSA spokesperson's own admission) of public events the TSA shows up at every year?

The privacy impact statement is quite interesting. I noticed that they claim their human research subjects have provided informed consent - yet they're now running running a field trial in a "large venue" - presumable a public area with hundreds or thousands of people that could not possibly have given consent. I wonder how that will be explained.

Deception is second nature to most politicians - they're not going to display any of the warning signs. ;)

I hope someone has sent this bovine excrement over to Drudge so he can expose it to the media at large...

The TSA has to be stopped, come hook or crook. If that means lawbreaking, civil disobedence, or outright war, then bring it.

My stress is directly related to my fears and interaction with TSA, not flying or terrorists.

Just wonderful - they are going to "catch" women having hot flashes (3); people searching the crowd for their family or friends (2); people afraid of getting on an airplane and those suffering trepidation regarding their upcoming visit to the checkpoint (1) and people arguing with others (4).

Mmmhahahhaa... When have false positives ever mattered to the TSA?

In TSA arithmetic, a false positive is GREAT - allows you a pretense to do any kind of full search you want.

Why not simply a random number generator, Ouiji board, or one of those stoplights with a button that I remember being used at Mexican customs in the mid-80s.

All would be a hell of a lot cheaper, and it still gives the TSA an opportunity for a hidden button to "randomly" search suspicious characters and hot babes. :D

Genuine shock... Genuine surprise... Elevated heartrate... pupil dilation... the threat's legitimate...

Oh, dear, it looks like The Bad Guys are going to have to become sociopaths in order to get past this.

This is a joke, right?

And just how much is this Farcical And Ridiculous Technology (FART®) gonna cost and will it be as successful as SPOT has been? ;)

If that was all that a false positive generated, I could be more accommodating. But if you get a false positive from the explosives test, it's game over - you don't fly.

Which is funny, because in a way it's admitting that you also must have a bomb but they're damned if they can find it.

And this is the REAL reason for this "technology" - to catch the anti-TSA posters from FT. @:-)