You know, in all of the hubbub and confusion surrounding the elections and the economic meltdown, there hasn't been a lot of news about our friends, Das Überwachenden (German for "the watchers"...but because it's German, it sounds so much darker and foreboding, so I use it as my term of choice for any and all government snooping). Well, I believe it's time for an update.
Fox News, an ardent fan of every form of Überwachendenism, enthusiastically brings us this little tidbit.
Baggage searches are SOOOOOO early-21st century. Homeland Security is now testing the next generation of security screening — a body scanner that can read your mind.Ooh! How exciting! Big Brother gets a little closer every day.
Most preventive screening looks for explosives or metals that pose a threat. But a new system called MALINTENT turns the old school approach on its head. This Orwellian-sounding machine detects the person — not the device — set to wreak havoc and terror.
MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security's directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers.
It has a series of sensors and imagers that read your body temperature, heart rate and respiration for unconscious tells invisible to the naked eye — signals terrorists and criminals may display in advance of an attack.
But this is no polygraph test. Subjects do not get hooked up or strapped down for a careful reading; those sensors do all the work without any actual physical contact. It's like an X-ray for bad intentions.
Is it just me, or did the preceding excerpt strike you as just a WEE bit too happy-slappy, especially given the subject matter? I mean, I know Fox News is the flag-waving standard bearer for King George the Dim, but c'mon!
Speaking of the Dear Leader, it seems his naughty little regime has been up to no good.
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.But King George! You promised!
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), called the allegations "extremely disturbing" and said the committee has begun its own examination.
"We have requested all relevant information from the Bush Administration," Rockefeller said Thursday. "The Committee will take whatever action is necessary."
"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.
Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."
Keep that in mind as King George shovels up bushels of "government involvement [in the financial industry] will be limited and temporary".
