General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf possible, would you support a brain scan warrant?
If there was a technology that could, literally, read your mind, then should it be available to law enforcement subject to a warrant?
Now, before you say "that would be self-incrimination", understand that medical physical procedures can be ordered. You can be compelled to give blood, gene, hair and other samples on probable cause. You can have your metabolism tested, your fingerprints taken, you stomach pumped and your cavities examined. You can have your urine, feces, and respiration tested.
You will not be compelled to give them information. You will sit in a chair, a device pointed at your head, and it will download the contents of your memory.
You don't have to be suspect, you could just be a witness.
Should such a technology be used for law enforcement, or should it be off limits?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Huh... I may have just come up with the idea for a sci fi book there....
Seriously, great question, though. I guess I would consider thoughts on the order of "papers and effects", Constitutionally: it would be allowed, but only with a warrant.
tkmorris
(11,138 posts)Edited to add: I don't support the other forced medical submissions you listed either.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)You don't have a right against self-incrimination - people do it all of the time.
You have a right not to be compelled to testify against yourself - i.e. you can't be punished for refusing to do so of your own volition. Here, there's no volitional act - you just sit in a chair and the device reads, say, electromagnetic emanations from your brain. Just like leaving fingerprints on a doorknob or the scent of your cologne.
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)But an interesting question to be sure, and a great point for discussion.
Leaving your fingerprints on a doorknob or footprints in the mud are passive acts. But say for example I have to submit to a blood test because I'm a DUI suspect. The results of that test are admissible only because by the act of accepting a driver's license--in exchange for permission to drive--I have waived my 5th rights in this particular situation.
Therefore having to sit in a chair, likely at the police station, certainly seems like something you are being compelled to do. No doubt if this ever became available, law enforcement would love it, and no doubt being at certain events or in certain places would constitute your permission to have your brain scanned, just as you now waive your Fourth Amendment rights by the act of entering an airport.
I'm not a lawyer; my entire legal education consists of two semesters of business law and a season of Ally McBeal.
That said, the idea scares the hell out of me; I'm such an old-school libertarian that I find having to put a license plate on my car a bit intrusive.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)All current evidence points to each brain being unique in how it stores information. You could never accurately decode each individual's electromagnetic pulses to formulate precise thoughts into any recognizable pattern, thus most of what could be surmised would be similar to lie detector tests, which are inadmissable.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)We found it in a crashed alien spaceship, and it is as reliable as reading a genome. Okay?
You can't fly faster than sound either, because no mechanical system can work in a supersonic enironment. That was also believed.
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)There are no lie detector tests admissable in a court and that is simpler technology.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Polygraphs are essentially subjective.
When you were taking algebra, and the question was "If x+y=3 and y=2, then what is x?" did you answer "But y isn't 2, so I can't solve for x"?
It is "assume for the sake of argument that there is such a technology". Quibbling with the arguendo assumption is a non sequitur.
Let me ask you this, if you were standing on Mars, could you breathe? The answer is not "there's no way to get to Mars."
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)could only be even more subjective than lie detector tests because each brain is unique.
Studies have shown pathways alter when one section of a brain is damaged.
Thus, there would be no way possible to accurately translate these unique patterns. There is no rosetta stone, no primer, for being capable of doing so as there would need to be a primer for each individual.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)All I have to do is engage in the suspension of disbelief.
I don't do that on internet forums.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)MohRokTah's grandfather visits Einstein and keeps saying, "There's no way I could read the time on a clock aboard a passing train going near the speed of light. And another thing, Albert, you couldn't send my twin that far and fast in a spaceship and have enough food on board..."
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)there are large patterns to look within that follow certain rules, along with various parts doing very specific things.
Its not exact, obviously, but I wouldn't categorize it with lie detectors, which are complete bullshit.
Here's an example of technology extracting images from a brain:
exboyfil
(17,857 posts)why it may be so difficult to actually access memories.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/memories-may-not-live-in-neurons-synapses/
The idea that synapses store memories has dominated neuroscience for more than a century, but a new study by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, may fundamentally upend it: instead memories may reside inside brain cells.
As for the clip. As I understand the experiment it is not accessing memories but basically interpreting real time brain activity when watching a video. In other words it is using the patient's eyes and visual cortex of the brain as a movie camera.
To answer the question. I have no problem with a completely reliable technology to access memories from subjects so long as a warrant with sufficient probable cause is involved. I just don't think we will ever get there.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)them, in other words, the memories that make you you are mostly made up by your brain to try to create a consistent narrative. They may have some relation to reality, but the further back in time you go with those memories, the more tenuous it is.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,470 posts)...it is a right of the accused to "be confronted with the witnesses against him".
6A:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
If the technology would be perfected, like the polygraph, one of the issues is the lack of independence in that the you can't confront nor examine yourself nor effectively participate in convincing a jury why they would have reason to doubt you.
The additional difficulties of how we somewhat effectively remember things more as we would like than as they happened would make such interpretations more art than science.
jmowreader
(50,451 posts)I'd be a hell of a lot more worried about what criminals could do with a brain scanner than what the cops could...walk past a guy wearing an expensive suit, push a button...zap! You got his ATM PIN, his home address, his SSN, place of business...just as good as dumpster diving without the coffee grounds and used diapers.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Like infra-red images of roofs, but your head instead.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)I'm way ahead of them!
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)But for different reasons.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)I mean, thats essentially why they "need" all this other shit, too. The drug war.
FSogol
(45,356 posts)Unfortunately, I read them 35 years ago so can't remember how it turned out.
On edit, probably Philip K Dick too.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)FSogol
(45,356 posts)jmowreader
(50,451 posts)...this kinda reads like Philip K. Dick's "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" or Paul Verhoeven's "Total Recall."
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)-- Mal
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)It cannot possibly be narrowly drawn enough to not protect the privacy that every human being should be afforded. Should I wish to debate in my head how to kill my mother-in-law and dispose of her carcass, or watch dwarf porn, I should be free to do so without governmental interference.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)It's not illegal to consider killing your mother and disposing of her body.
If you did, though, what is the justification for saying no one is allowed to find out?
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Regardless of what we think, our thoughts are our own. We cannot control them, can never be responsible for them, so there's no legal merit to exploring and finding them out.
What we choose to express....talking, on social media, in a diary, in physical actions we take.....we've taken an act that subjects us to lawful warrant.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)Remembering is behavior and transient. You won't be able to scan a brain and see a memory any more than you can scan leg muscles to see how many steps you took that day. That information is not stored that way.
Even you could "see" the internal talking it would be equivalent to speaking out loud and protected.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Just because you spoke out loud, doesn't make it protected. If you confess to a friend on the telephone, and that call is being monitored subject to warrant, your statement is certainly admissible.
The proscription is against compelling you to testify, it is not s guarantee against self-incrimination generally. Otherwise, confessions themselves would not be admissible.
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)Sure, anyone can volunteer to have their thoughts read.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)I can do that with your diary, why not your memory?
aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)Its more like talking.
struggle4progress
(118,039 posts)First, despite the claims of the prosecution's so-called expert witness, this device is no more reliable than the common "lie-detector," for which many supposed "experts" in the past made similar grandiose claims: it cannot and does not provide the information it is alleged to provide but merely provides a gross indication of physical correlations, which the prosecution's so-called expert then interprets as producing evidence that cannot be produced
Second, were it actually possible to read the results of this device, as accurately as the prosecution's so-called expert claims, the results would be unreliable for the same reason that all eyewitness testimony is unreliable, that is, because memory is plastic and ultimately depends on various unknowable conditioning factors, as a result of which any individual memory is unreliable by itself
Third, the results of this device are unreliable because dreams and imaginations can be remembered, as well as actual events, and there is no good reason to think that this device can distinguish an imagination about the crime from an actual memory
Fourth, the results of this device are inadmissible for the same reason that memories "recovered" by hypnosis are unreliable: all persons are somewhat subject to suggestion, and there is no way to distinguish outputs from this machine, induced entirely by the suggestion of the interrogators, from outputs resulting from the outputs naturally resulting from memory, accurate or not
Fifth, the results of this device are inadmissible for the same reason that confessions resulting from coercive interrogation are inadmissible: the device requires careful detection of billions of very tiny neural impulses, which can only be measured and interpreted in very long sessions, during which the suspect's brain is subjected to extensive probing by electro-magnetic fields which themselves affect brain activity, exhausting and confusing the subject
In view of the lateness of the hour, perhaps you will permit us to recess until tomorrow, your honor, since I have approximately fifty more objections to this device, which I would like to state clearly to the court before I offer several weeks of testimony in support of the objections
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)struggle4progress
(118,039 posts)of caput apri (commonly known as the pig-headed rule), as well as the principle Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres (which can be loosely translated as three things are especially galling) and the Magnum Carta decision (see Dirty Harry -v- Feelin Lucky, Hollywood 1971)
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)This is actually more reliable than eyewitness testimony.
Everything you have said about memory and confusion of fantasy, or implanted suggestion is true.
Nevertheless, every court in the country admits eyewitness testimony, and recollections of witnesses.
That much merely renders this device AS reliable as having people recall memories and describe them.
However, an additional factor renders this more reliable. Because, as flawed as human memory can be, it remains an additional factor that witnesses can choose to commit undetected perjury. In other words, while memory and perception are fallible, this device - in contrast to testifying humans - does not lie.
Kilgore
(1,733 posts)MindPilot
(12,693 posts)that wasn't mine.
Kilgore
(1,733 posts)KentuckyWoman
(6,666 posts)and reconnect the loose screws. Otherwise I dare say they'll only be shocked at how any human could have made it 60+ years and still know so little......
Seriously, it's like a haunted house in there.....
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)You talking whole new ground here so you better be careful.
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)...
greyl
(22,990 posts)DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)Beyond that, I don't have strong feelings.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)I would support it upon warrant/probably cause/reasonable suspicion where the issue at hand is a violent felony or a national security issue like treason or material support to an enemy that has been or is suspected to be in the process of being committed.
Not for civil matters, torts, misdemeanors, non-violent felonies or fishing expeditions. No other information gleaned from such a scan would be permissible to be used or stored.
Monk06
(7,675 posts)as the Vulcan Mind Meld
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)I could see this for a suspect with the proper levels of review and sign-off. If we're ever at the point where we can actually do brain scans, we'd probably also have the capability to extract only relevant information.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]
NutmegYankee
(16,177 posts)If someone can't be secure in their own thoughts, then they have no liberty at all.
Even the limitation of a warrant is not enough here. Never in human history could a person read another persons deeply held thoughts. I realize that individuals whose standard approach to anyone in authority is to drop to their knees and unzip a fly will always trust that a warrant is issued due to probable cause. However, any faith I could have in that was shattered by the general warrants from the FISA court. Such a technology would clearly be abused.
CommonSenseDemocrat
(377 posts)kelly1mm
(4,719 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)It's just collection of physical evidence, like your blood, genes, etc..
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)It's a point about which I am undecided, but I lean towards "hell, no." That's a visceral reaction, not a lucid one. I think the knee-jerk comes at least partly from a feeling that an affirmative answer will be used to justify techniques that are not so cut-and-dried.
When Hutcheson was writing about fundamental rights, one that seems to have slipped out of the conversation was that "A man has a right to his own conscience." It is, as it happens, about the only fundamental right left that government cannot deprive one of if it so chooses. (Well, they can deny you the exercise of those other rights, not your possession of them, if you believe in the whole "fundamental rights" shtick) Part of the exercise of the right to conscience is to damn-well refuse to give evidence if you choose to, whatever the cost to public weal. Obviously, in the case of other physical evidence, that's a big fat "tough luck," because the government will extort what the government wants to extort. I doubt society would suffer a permanent breakdown if the procedure were denied, but I also doubt it would suffer a permanent breakdown if it were not. The chance that such a technique would be abused or exploited is ultimately no greater than the chance of abuse or exploitation of any other power. I see no real benefit or penalty to the technique, mostly because I don't really think our justice system is much concerned with justice anyway. Thus as a gedankenexperiment, I find it fairly uninteresting, because the virtues or merits of the procedure are far secondary to the social implications.
On an emotional level, I feel we've already gone too far in denying privacy in pursuit of criminal retribution (I don't say "justice," because it's rarely about that). But though I feel strongly that an individual has a right to go to hell in his own way, I also concede that social necessity (or convenience, as may happen) may warrant some disability being placed upon the individual who does so. As a "nolo contendere" plea is treated the same as a guilty plea, so should be a refusal to submit to such a procedure.
-- Mal
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)malthaussen
(17,066 posts)Mental science is far from an exact science in the first place. "Psychopath" and "sociopath" are bandied around every time somebody does something cruel (for some reason or other, we have dispensed with the concept of "evil." I'd point out that nothing in the definition of psychopath requires that he do violence or harm to anyone, including himself. Yet many who are supposedly in-balance mentally can cause no end of pain.
At any rate, you're changing the subject. You asked if a technique should be enforceable by a warrant, not if some people were bad. My opinions lean quite firmly to the freedom of the will, and I do not consider it demonstrable that some wills are not free because it is impossible to will evil. But just because I have the right to be as nasty or kind as I want, does not mean that society may not penalize or reward me for whatever conduct it finds expedient. Which it will, at pleasure.
-- Mal
Iggo
(47,487 posts)w0nderer
(1,937 posts)(and i believe it shouldn't be)
then hopefully 2 things will happen
1 Mental firewalls (hw/wetware or linguistic (see Snowcrash(Neal Stephenson)) will be developed
and
2 Mental 'retalitoring virii' and encryption will be developed
ie..read my mind, infect your own and go mad
Then again I'm all for Strong Crypto as well and don't believe there should be back doors in it either (which is probably the similarity that inspired your post)
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)I mean, so I use an external device to store my thoughts. What's the difference?
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)but it doesn't matter
the post(yours) created what was needed:
provoking thought about apple as well as mental scanning (and i'm glad that happened)
i was talking mental encryption actually, may want to read Neal Stephenson (as i recommended) before replying
wetware is not necessarily external nor is hardware
now..yes..once the tech you describe exists..probably not
imagine a person thinking in ...oh dunno reverse sanskrit symbols with trident encryption
and we all think in some form of symbols...right?
now how would reading h{is,er} mind help?
it wouldn't unless mind is a universal language
tblue37
(64,979 posts)scans, even in relatively free, secular, humanistic states, it is a constant struggle to protect individual freedom against state encroachment. Can you imagine a Cheney, a Trump, a Giuliani, an Arpaio, a Rumsfeld, with the power (and cooperative judges and courts, like those who already rubber stamp warrants for unreasonable searches) with the power to rummage around inside the brain of a person opposing their policies? Not only could they abuse that person's rights, but they could also find out who else he knows in a resistance movement, like Occupy.
Think of the preemptive raids already conducted against peaceful protest groups. Think of the way the PATRIOT Act is used to charge innocent people with supporting terrorists.
No, I would not approve of such a violation!
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)LeftishBrit
(41,190 posts)While brain imaging might be able to show the broad category of things a person is thinking about (e.g. words/ faces/ physical actions), I don't think that individual thoughts will have precise, unique brain representations that could enable the mind to be 'read' by technology. Even if single-cell brain recordings became possible in humans, I don't think precise mind-reading would be possible - though such brain recordings might offer a clue when combined with many other contextual factors.
If it ever does become possible, then there will be a LOT of privacy issues to resolve.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,780 posts)...yes, I'd support that.
Do you know what else I'd support? IRS audits;congressional hearings into labor practices; and a bar on the awarding of government contracts for companies that don't cooperate in the investigations of dead, known, murderous terrorists.
fullautohotdog
(90 posts)That's physical evidence. That's not testifying against yourself.
'nuff said.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Downwinder
(12,869 posts)a cavity search or stomach x-ray?