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The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

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Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#31

Post by dragonwriter »

rayiner wrote: post #28
shit_parade wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We live in a world where the government can drop a nuke on Japan, vaporizing tens of thousands of civilians (including some American POWs), and that's 100% legal. hahaha, ok maybe you are just insane. How is that legal, are you invoking the Bush doctrine[0] of pre-emptive strikes, although to call that legal is a stretch. Are you suggesting that during a declaration of war it becomes legal? Currently under internati…

The Constitution is a domestic instrument. It does not limit what the United States can do abroad, and the founders were clear that it wasn't meant to do any such thing. Indeed, the concern during the drafting was not about how to limit the government's powers abroad, but how to ensure that it could still act as a sovereign entity abroad despite being limited domestically.

> The Constitution is a domestic instrument.

The Constitution is the basis of all US government authority, it is not merely a "domestic instrument".

> It does not limit what the United States can do abroad,

Several provisions of the Constitution directly and explicitly concern what the United States can do abroad, and which institutions of the United States government are entitled to do those things, so that seems an implausible interpretation.

> and the founders were clear that it wasn't meant to do any such thing.

The founders were quite of different minds on many points, and you can often find founders on multiple sides of any issue (including matters of Constitutional interpretation.) Where's the evidence that the founders, collectively, were "clear" on this point?

> As for "international law"--there is no such thing.

The Constitutions grant of power to Congress to "To define and punish [...] offenses against the law of nations;" certainly seems to suggest that they thought that the "law of nations" was not a phrase that referred to something nonexistent.

> The U.N. is not a sovereign entity

No, its a product of treaty, ratified by the US Senate under the provisions laid out for such in the Constitution.

Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#32

Post by gknoy »

hurin wrote: post #29
jimktrains2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so lets assume the cameras work. For the same reasons polygraphs have no basis in science, nor would these. I fucking hate the TSA and am fucking furious every time I have to wait to be sexually molested. I'm also worried that they'll fuck up and I'll miss my flight. I'm nervous because I'm worried. I'm constantly looking around to find out how many TSA agents are just fucking around doing nothing. Yet, I'm not a…

The rather strong verbal comments aside - I think this is almost certainly correct. Polygraph tests are notoriously inaccurate - where as for something like terrorist threats the number of real positives you are interested is probably in the x > 1/10^6. That's totally fantastic - consider that pregnancy tests have a false positive rate in the single digits.

The language is strong, but pretty much encapsulates the impotent anger I feel even __thinking__ about interacting with the TSA. On the rare occasions when I must, my anxiety and fears match very closely to the GP's post's language.

Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#33

Post by dguaraglia »

guelo wrote: post #17

FAST seems to be some kind of polygraph-type scanner using cameras. It's very likely that it doesn't work but some military contractor will make millions off of it anyway. Any efficacy data will probably be unavailable or classified. Efficacy doesn't matter to the authorities anyway because having people believe that their minds are being read is almost as good as actually reading their minds.

Kind of like that report about how efficient the airport "backscatter" scanners were. All we know about the report is a congressman said that "if released we'd face public outrage". But hey, someone's making a ton of money out of it, so who cares...

Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#34

Post by dragonwriter »

shit_parade wrote: post #26
rayiner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in a world where the government can drop a nuke on Japan, vaporizing tens of thousands of civilians (including some American POWs), and that's 100% legal. What exactly is "common sense" in such a world, and why does waterboarding or drone strikes run counter to that "common sense"? The Constitution invests the executive with tremendous power to act in the interest of national security. That was one of the ove…

>We live in a world where the government can drop a nuke on Japan, vaporizing tens of thousands of civilians (including some American POWs), and that's 100% legal. hahaha, ok maybe you are just insane. How is that legal, are you invoking the Bush doctrine[0] of pre-emptive strikes, although to call that legal is a stretch. Are you suggesting that during a declaration of war it becomes legal? Currently under internati…

> How is that legal, are you invoking the Bush doctrine[0] of pre-emptive strikes, although to call that legal is a stretch.

The nuclear bombing of Japan was not a pre-emptive strike. Pearl Harbor was a thing.

> Are you suggesting that during a declaration of war it becomes legal?

While there are some prohibitions in treaties in force or what is accepted as customary international law on conduct during War (though fewer at the time of the atomic bombing than now!), yes, the consequence of a legal state of war -- whether initiated by declaration or an external attack -- generally is that fighting war by any but such prohibited means is legal. Those making the case that particular conduct is not legal would need to identify the source of the prohibition.

> Currently under international law that would not be legal unless agreed upon by the security council.

Well, the UN Charter postdates the atomic bombing, but even if it didn't it does not prevent the use of force against an aggressor once war has started (though someone had to violate the charter to start the war.) See, particularly, Article 51 of the Charter.

Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#35

Post by rayiner »

dragonwriter wrote: post #31
rayiner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution is a domestic instrument. It does not limit what the United States can do abroad, and the founders were clear that it wasn't meant to do any such thing. Indeed, the concern during the drafting was not about how to limit the government's powers abroad, but how to ensure that it could still act as a sovereign entity abroad despite being limited domestically.

> The Constitution is a domestic instrument. The Constitution is the basis of all US government authority, it is not merely a "domestic instrument". > It does not limit what the United States can do abroad, Several provisions of the Constitution directly and explicitly concern what the United States can do abroad, and which institutions of the United States government are entitled to do those things, so that seems an…

"It results that the investment of the federal government with the powers of external sovereignty did not depend upon the affirmative grants of the Constitution. The powers to declare and wage war, to conclude peace, to make treaties, to maintain diplomatic relations with other sovereignties, if they had never been mentioned in the Constitution, would have vested in the federal government as necessary concomitants of nationality. Neither the Constitution nor the laws passed in pursuance of it have any force in foreign territory unless in respect of our own citizens." United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 318 (1936).

The U.S. cannot engage in war because the Constitution says so. It can engage in war because it's a sovereign country, and waging war is a characteristic capacity of sovereign countries. Admittedly, the U.S. has entered into certain treaties limiting itself in the conduct of war.[1] But in that case, the U.S. is bound not because of "international law" but because those treaties translate international law into domestic law. And it is bound only to the extent it has agreed to be by those treaties.

[1] E.g., the Geneva Conventions: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/04/drone-strik....

Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#36

Post by Balgair »

EazyC wrote: post #24
guelo wrote: post #17

FAST seems to be some kind of polygraph-type scanner using cameras. It's very likely that it doesn't work but some military contractor will make millions off of it anyway. Any efficacy data will probably be unavailable or classified. Efficacy doesn't matter to the authorities anyway because having people believe that their minds are being read is almost as good as actually reading their minds.

Are you sure things like this can't work? I work in a computational neuroscience lab and we do a lot of modelling and also machine learning. Things like Eulerian Video magnification (EVM) already prove you can do the rudimentary proof of concepts of such "FAST scans" like being able to extract heart rate and blood flow from a simple video. Techniques like EVM can even be used to detect sound from video files simply b…

Other posters point out that polygraphs have large error rates and that even the thought that they can 'read you mind' acts as a deterrent. In general, reading one's own mind is somewhat difficult given a stressful situation, let alone reading another's.

Yes, you can do heart rate stuff, but many medications affect that tremendously, you can do temperature stuff via IR video, but that is also super error prone. Just running to grab your flight, a perfectly reasonable thing to do at an airport, would trip every alarm in the building. Your gait would be off, your temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, eye dilation.

The issue is that humans come in an incredible array and variety of conditions. Even if you could take a baseline for every person that would ever want to fly before they got to the airport in a sterile room, the data would be useless by flight #10. This is leaving aside the tremendous human rights issues, engineering, and cost factors.

That said, computers are getting better and better at this every day, so the feasibility is there, it is just that you have to do tracking on an unheard of scale and on a day to day running basis across every single person on the planet. The disease and medical applications are the way to get it 'passed' (whatever governing body that may be), not the TSA.

Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#37

Post by sitkack »

EazyC wrote: post #24
guelo wrote: post #17

FAST seems to be some kind of polygraph-type scanner using cameras. It's very likely that it doesn't work but some military contractor will make millions off of it anyway. Any efficacy data will probably be unavailable or classified. Efficacy doesn't matter to the authorities anyway because having people believe that their minds are being read is almost as good as actually reading their minds.

Are you sure things like this can't work? I work in a computational neuroscience lab and we do a lot of modelling and also machine learning. Things like Eulerian Video magnification (EVM) already prove you can do the rudimentary proof of concepts of such "FAST scans" like being able to extract heart rate and blood flow from a simple video. Techniques like EVM can even be used to detect sound from video files simply b…

Maybe you're fed up, maybe you want to be by yourself...who knows. So you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling toward you...

You reach down and flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.

The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not with out your help. But you're not helping.

I mean you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?

Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#38

Post by jrockway »

dguaraglia wrote: post #33
guelo wrote: post #17

FAST seems to be some kind of polygraph-type scanner using cameras. It's very likely that it doesn't work but some military contractor will make millions off of it anyway. Any efficacy data will probably be unavailable or classified. Efficacy doesn't matter to the authorities anyway because having people believe that their minds are being read is almost as good as actually reading their minds.

Kind of like that report about how efficient the airport "backscatter" scanners were. All we know about the report is a congressman said that "if released we'd face public outrage". But hey, someone's making a ton of money out of it, so who cares...

The rapiscans? Those are gone now.

Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#39

Post by TrevorJ »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #25
EazyC wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure things like this can't work? I work in a computational neuroscience lab and we do a lot of modelling and also machine learning. Things like Eulerian Video magnification (EVM) already prove you can do the rudimentary proof of concepts of such "FAST scans" like being able to extract heart rate and blood flow from a simple video. Techniques like EVM can even be used to detect sound from video files simply b…

OK, so lets assume the cameras work. For the same reasons polygraphs have no basis in science, nor would these. I fucking hate the TSA and am fucking furious every time I have to wait to be sexually molested. I'm also worried that they'll fuck up and I'll miss my flight. I'm nervous because I'm worried. I'm constantly looking around to find out how many TSA agents are just fucking around doing nothing. Yet, I'm not a…

Polygraph tests do work, but as a social engineering technique and nothing more. Test takers are manipulated into behaving in certain ways based on the belief that the machine functions as they are told. The key is in the way the administrator interacts with the test taker.

In short, the same techniques don't apply to this TSA tech and so I doubt it works.

Re: The TSA's FAST Personality Screening Program Violates the Fourth Amendment [pdf]

#40

Post by rasz_pl »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #25
EazyC wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure things like this can't work? I work in a computational neuroscience lab and we do a lot of modelling and also machine learning. Things like Eulerian Video magnification (EVM) already prove you can do the rudimentary proof of concepts of such "FAST scans" like being able to extract heart rate and blood flow from a simple video. Techniques like EVM can even be used to detect sound from video files simply b…

OK, so lets assume the cameras work. For the same reasons polygraphs have no basis in science, nor would these. I fucking hate the TSA and am fucking furious every time I have to wait to be sexually molested. I'm also worried that they'll fuck up and I'll miss my flight. I'm nervous because I'm worried. I'm constantly looking around to find out how many TSA agents are just fucking around doing nothing. Yet, I'm not a…

Polygraph most certainly work ... if you believe they work while being tested.
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