This is really frightening.
Invasive techniques used to determine a person’s truthfulness are the ultimate invasion of privacy. While the author here focuses on the use of polygraphs and “brain fingerprinting” in criminal investigations, it’s important to understand that such techniques don’t stop there.
I felt hounded out of a promising national security career after an FBI polygraph suggested I might be gay. I wasn’t criminally charged or disciplined, I suppose because polygraphs aren’t considered reliable enough. So, the idea of something MORE reliable coming along makes me more than just a little apprehensive.
I know personally and painfully how polygraphs can be used to hurt members of marginalized minorities, because it happened to me. Power is always abused if it exists: that’s an axiom of human nature.
Searching for and perfecting the power to effectively read a person’s memories sounds to me dystopian in the extreme.
Legislation must be enacted to prevent this sort of power from being developed and from ever being used by any agent of government. Privacy is or ought to be an inalienable right. No American should ever fear the government will develop or use technology to invade their brains and memories.
This is my story, for anyone interested:
