Future Attribute Screening Technology

[4] In a meeting held on July 24, 2008, the DHS Under Secretary Jay Cohen stated, the goal is to create a new technology that would be working in real time as opposed to after a crime is already committed.

[7] The system measures pulse rate, skin temperature, breathing, facial expression, body movement, pupil dilation, and other "psycho physiological/behavioral patterns" to stop "unknown terrorists".

Civil Liberties Groups raised privacy concerns about the project but Burns from the DHS claims "the technology would erase data after each screening, and no personal information would be used to identify subjects, create files, or make lists".

Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, stated "I believe that the premise of this approach—that there is an identifiable physiological signature uniquely associated with malicious intent—is mistaken.

The Nature article in which he was quoted went on to note that Aftergood is concerned that the technology "will produce a large proportion of false positives, frequently tagging innocent people as potential terrorists and making the system unworkable in a busy airport.