Fr:    Lee Bellinger, Publisher
Re:    Coming Soon to Air Travel: Another Crazy Experiment to Foist on Fliers?
Mind-Reading
Mind reading of air travelers? That's right – we're in for another goofy technology created with lavish Department of Homeland Security grants to its favored high-tech companies...
...and yet another population-control experiment to foist on the submissive travelling public.
That "strip search" backscatter x-ray technology has certainly made its creators rich. The bettin' man in me just can't wait to see which well-connected crony capitalist makes a fortune on this latest hair-brained scheme. But the freedom-loving American in me sees yet another crazy bureaucratic initiative that needs to be strangled in its crib.
To be sure, brain-mapping technology is a real and growing field. And it is certainly based on far better science than the old Soviet-era ESP experiments. So yes, scientists are inching closer every day to creating technology that can read which parts of your brain are most active – as well as map facial expressions – to essentially read your emotional state.
This could be great news for medicine and health – between you and your doctor. But in the hands of Big Government (which already punishes peoples' thoughts when it comes to hate-crime prosecutions), the implications of mind-reading schemes are a bit scary. A recent report in The Telegraph (UK) revealed these breakthroughs:

    In Canada, they've developed a method of using brain scans to predict what physical action a person is about to do before he or she does it, something that could have many benefits to amputees, for example.
    At the University of Utah, they're matching brain signals to actual words, which could benefit someone who has lost the ability to speak.

But the danger is when central governments co-opt this technology using taxpayer funds, only to provide a means to their ends. The feds are already rapidly expanding the use of new surveillance methods.
"The vast government apparatus of 'national security' does not keep us safe so much as threaten our liberties by regarding the entire citizenry as a threat."– Ron Paul, Liberty Defined
Social Media Monitoring
In a past Executive Bulletin, we revealed that Bernanke and the Fed are using technology to monitor social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others. Why a central bank needs to read, analyze, and record mundane comments about daily life or view your holiday party photos is anyone's guess! The point is, they're investing big in that capacity.
The CIA, Department of Homeland Security, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA), and most recently the FBI are just some of the agencies eager to get their hands on such technology.

    An article at InformationWeek.com says, "In addition to its own aim to build a data-mining tool, the FBI also will likely benefit from the fruits of IARPA's research... seeking to create technology that will continuously analyze and mine data... to help it better forecast global events."
    Foxnews.com says, "The system sought... would fuse together everything from Web searches to Wikipedia edits to traffic webcams to 'beat the news' by predicting major events ranging from economic turmoil to disease outbreaks."

The problem: under the guise of more security, these surveillance technologies monitor and report the activities of innocent citizens and result in a loss of freedom