Brain Surveillance for National Security

In 2006, during a Congressional debate on the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act which would have purportedly greatly expanded U.S. government surveillance powers, a former U.S. Representative, Pete Hoekstra, the ranking GOP member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the following:

our country needs to rapidly and effectively bring every intelligence tool to bear to find our enemies, detect and understand their intentions, and thwart their hostile and terrorist acts against our country and our people. (Page H7864)

His suggestion to “bring every intelligence tool to bear to find our enemies, detect and understand their intentions” requires emphasis. This is in part because “intentions” occur in the brain; and, “every intelligence tool” used to “detect…intentions” potentially implies remote and secret mind-reading technologies.

Did the U.S. Representative suggest that the U.S. government should rapidly develop mind-reading technologies for surveillance and national security?

Now, it is understandable if many readers squirm at the suggestion of remote mind-reading technologies. Most people were told that they were mentally ill if, using common sense, they even wondered whether medical technologies (like MRI, PET scans, CT scans, ultrasound, EEG, etc.), radar, infrared, or other technologies could be improved enough to be used remotely to surveil the activity within one’s brain.

Convincing such people, at minimum, that mind-reading (or neurological surveillance) and partially mind-controlling technologies might be possible is a difficult task and cannot be completely attempted here.

However, it might be helpful for such people to study U.S. government scientists’ reports from the BRAIN Initiative and DARPA. Non-government research might also be helpful. One should not be intimidated by studying brain science – basic levels of understanding should be enough to determine the possibility of neurological surveillance or mind-controlling uses of neurotechnologies and likely can be achieved without advanced medical or other scientific degrees.

(When studying any public information, medical research, or other science on brain technologies, whether published by the U.S. government, academia, or industry, one should keep in mind that such documents will likely not publish classified or other secret government information. One will discover quickly that brain scientists often say things like “we can record brain activity” or “we can stimulate and partially control the brain” but “it is not possible to” or “we cannot” do such and such yet. Those researchers are not talking about classified information; they likely will not publicize what has already been achieved secretly by U.S. government scientists.)

One example relevant to this article is in a 2019 U.S. government BRAIN Initiative and Neuroethics report. The report authors describe the possibility of brain technologies being used for “enhanced interrogation” and to “elicit actionable intelligence” by military investigators, but while those functions are possible, it is “unknown” if they are currently ongoing because the military “has not revealed [the] extent of its interrogation methods.” (Pages 48 and 53)

The discussion is partially from a 2007 article entitled “Neuroethics and National Security,” written by Harvard, Yale, and Stanford brain scientists and others. (It was published in 2007, which means that the brain technologies described in the article could be significantly improved by now.)

The authors describe the potential for noninvasive brain technologies for national security uses:

Whereas brain imaging technologies measure the activation generated by the brain during cognitive processing, noninvasive brain stimulation induces changes in brain activation. This technology could therefore play a significant role in national security applications that seek to alter a person’s brain state that may impact behavior. For example, stimulation could be used to alter a person’s social behavior or attitudes which could be helpful in interrogations… (Page 5)

The authors describe how some brain technologies work:

TMS [transcranial magnetic stimulation] and tDCS [transcranial direct current stimulation] take advantage of different electromagnetic principles to noninvasively influence neural activity. TMS uses rapidly alternating magnetic fields in a hand-held coil that is positioned over the subject’s scalp (i.e., no skin or direct brain contact is necessary and no electrical current is directly applied to the body surface). The magnetic field passes through the skull and into the brain where it induces small currents in the cortex that can affect neural processing during a task. Although the brain region underneath the coil receives the strongest stimulation, the effects of the TMS are not limited to this targeted region. Other connected brain regions may also be affected and may perhaps even be more critical to any observed behavioral changes than the targeted region itself. (Page 5)

Again, that was in 2007 and likely did not include classified or otherwise secret U.S. government technologies.

Now, as mentioned in the introduction, in 2006 during a discussion on a bill expanding government surveillance powers, a U.S. Representative suggested that “our country needs to rapidly and effectively bring every intelligence tool to bear to find our enemies, detect and understand their intentions.”

The representative did not completely elaborate, but one with scientific and medical knowledge would quickly recognize that “intentions” occur in the human brain, and intelligence tools which “detect and understand…intentions” could imply mind-reading technologies.

Such a possibility is supported by other U.S. government documents. In 2010, the U.S. government published at least two documents with specific plans on using remote technologies to unobtrusively detect adversarial intent. The authors of those documents appear to carefully avoid explicitly mentioning government using mind-reading technologies all while continuously implying using mind-reading technologies.

For example, the authors describe “E-field” technologies which “can detect electrical activity of the…brain” as having the potential to contribute to a government remote detection of a person’s intentions. (Page 7)

It is relevant to emphasize how the government articles conclude. One article concludes in the following way:

The U.S. Government expects to support R&D programs with the objective of producing theoretically founded designs of a prototype system for remote detection of covert tactical adversarial intent of individuals in asymmetric operations. The Government also expects to provide broad support for academic and industrial efforts in remote detection of adversarial intent and in areas (such as linkage of these systems with databases, media, and human input) that are useful for larger systems of systems. Other governments have expressed similar plans. (Page 9)

Thus, the U.S. government clearly explained its intentions of “producing theoretically founded designs of a prototype system for remote detection of covert tactical adversarial intent of individuals in asymmetric operations” and potentially “larger systems of systems.” Additionally, the U.S. government suggested those technologies could be used for “anticrime” and “security.”

A separate U.S. government article on the same subject was also published in 2010 and is more specific:

The Federal Government should fund R&D programs with the objective of producing a theoretically founded design of a prototype system for remote detection of covert tactical adversarial intent of individuals in asymmetric operations within 5

years and a working operational system within 10 years. (Page ii)

In other words, the U.S. government expected remote surveillance systems for the detection of human intentions, and it was suggested that such remote detection of intention technologies would be operational (and potentially used on Americans for “anticrime operations” and “security”) by 2020.

There is more. On Dec. 13, 2016 (after they lost the presidential election to Donald Trump) the Obama-Biden administration legalized the National Neurological Conditions Surveillance System. The law could have multiple interpretations. The law provides several functions for the neurological surveillance system, one which is the “detection” of neurological diseases.

“Detection” of neurological diseases by a “National Neurological Conditions Surveillance System” could be interpreted to imply literally surveilling every human brain in America to detect neurological diseases, such as “mental illnesses,” and also might imply surveillance of intentions.

This interpretation is supported by the above U.S. government documents clearly describing plans for “systems of systems” used for the remote detection of covert adversarial intent which were suggested to be operational before 2020.

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