Uncle Sam’s ‘Mal-intent’
It’s called the FAST Mobile Module. It looks like an outdoor school trailer on wheels, complete with multiple screening rooms, three ramp entry lanes for greater “throughput” and state-of-the-art physiological and behavioral technologies that can detect an individual’s “mal-intent”-that is, intention to do harm.
The Mobile Module may one day roam the country, its high-tech sensors measuring heart rates, skin temperatures, body movements, breathing, pupil dilation and other physiological indicators to predict whether or not someone will commit a crime in the future.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) calls this program, established in 2008, Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST). The goal is to “develop a prototype to detect deception and hostile intent in real time,” DHS Under Secretary of Science and Tehnology Jay Cohen has said. Internal DHS documents recently obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) through the Freedom of Information Act reveal the program in greater detail.
A 2008 preliminary test of the technology on volunteers went like this: First, subjects were assigned one of three distinctions: no mal-intent, mal-intent without device, or mal-intent smuggle. “Mal-intent smuggle” meant the subject was to try to smuggle a “disruptive device” past the sensors without being “flagged” by the FAST Sensor Suit-a tall bed frame-like structure fitted with thermal cameras, heart monitors and other physiological sensors that tracks subjects as they walk past.
If what the Suit saw fit with the FAST algorithm for mal-intent, subjects were taken to a secondary screening for more intensive questioning. The test, conducted in Maryland, in which 140 paid volunteers walked through a pair of trailers fitted with the FAST sensors, showed a “78 percent accuracy [rate] on mal-intent detection, and 80 percent [rate] on deception,” DHS science spokesman John Verrico said.
The FAST program has now completed its first round of field tests on the public. According to DHS, one of the program’s primary goals is to bring security to “open” areas-such as Metro, Amtrak and mass transit systems other than aviation-where threats could go undetected. The Mobile Module, according to DHS, “could be used at security checkpoints such as border crossings or at large public events such as sporting events or conventions.”