Increasingly there are indications that the uses of wireless
technologies have been developed to target an individual’s biological
body, with specific focus upon the neuronal functioning of the brain. In
this paper I examine how some of these uses have had detrimental
effects, and what this implies for both present and upcoming
developments for particular wireless/sensor technologies. I consider
whether this is not shifting dangerously towards a psycho–civilised
society, where greater emphasis is placed upon social control and
pre–emptive strategies.
Introduction
The rate of technological innovation in some fields is developing
exponentially with new advances in wireless sensor networks, ubiquitous
and pervasive computing, motes, nodes, grids, and media platforms.
Information flows are increasing not only in their quantity and density,
but also in their immersive quality. The historical developments of
information communication systems can be said to have traced a similar
path to how nation states have organised their global power base and
dominance. First, power over the land and dominance in waging war on
one’s neighbours through ground battle, the domesticated horse and the
infantry soldier. Second, domination of the seas and the strongest Navy
gave advantage to sea–faring Empires, such as Portugal, Spain, and
Britain. The end of naval dominance then gave rise to the advent of the
railroad and the dynamic change in transport technology, both in routes
and in speed. The transcontinental scope of the railroads finally gave
out to air power, winning the World Wars through dominance in the skies.
And now, finally, the ‘final frontier’ is space, for ‘the vast
potential resource base of outer space is presumably so enormous,
effectively inexhaustible, that any state that can control it will
ultimately dominate the earth’ [1].
Likewise, modern communication technologies have moved from the land
(the telegraph); to the sea (wireless radio; radar); back to land
(cables; fibre optics); and to the intermediate land/air stage
(masts/antenna); to the outer frontier of space (satellites); and
finally now even beyond these frontiers towards a solar system Internet
(Turner, 2007). Whoever controls these channels for communication can,
in some degree, to be said to ‘dominate the earth’. And the possible
uses of wireless communications for the dissemination, targeting, and
receiving of clandestine ‘communications’ is an active industry.
The aim of this paper is to examine some of the examples and
instances where the use of wireless technologies have been developed to
target an individual’s biological body, with specific focus upon the
neuronal functioning of the brain. I also show how some of these uses
have had detrimental effects, and what this implies for both present and
upcoming developments in particular wireless/sensor technologies. This
paper shows that an upcoming area of importance is neurotechnology, a
discipline that places brain functioning and knowledge of the human
brain as primary. Technologies are now being researched and trialled
that seek to penetrate and, to a degree, intervene in neural
functioning. Whilst some have termed this positively as a coming ‘neural
society’ (Lynch, 2004), I consider whether this is not shifting
dangerously towards a psycho–civilised society, where greater emphasis
is placed upon social control and pre–emptive strategies. I trace a
timeline that follows developments from a historical context to the
present; and finally to future scenarios and implications. It may be
that the social pursuit of increasingly connective and immersive
technologies has the potential to open up a Pandora’s box of
problematics.
Opening Pandora’s box
The background to this narrative begins with the story of a true
Pandora’s box — a U.S. project titled Project Pandora that was organized
and administered by the psychology division of the psychiatry research
section of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). This project
was set–up to specifically research programs on the health effects of
microwave exposure following the ‘Moscow Embassy’ incident. From 1953 to
1976, the Soviets directed microwave radiation at the U.S. embassy in
Moscow from the roof of an adjacent building. Whilst this clandestine
microwave targeting was allegedly known for some time by U.S. officials,
the event was not made public until 1976 when the U.S. State Department
finally accused the Soviet Union of bombarding the U.S. embassy in
Moscow with microwave radiation for illicit purposes. It was initially
reported as a harmless procedure for charging Soviet spy–bugs: ‘Soviet
antennas, which are beaming the waves in both to charge up the batteries
of their listening devices and to jam embassy–based U.S. electronic
monitoring of Russian communications’ (Time, 1976a; 1976b).
However, the State Department soon indicated that, in addition to
interference mechanisms, the microwave radiation could have serious
adverse effects on the health of the occupants of the embassy (O’Connor,
1993). This was supported by Soviet data in which Soviet non–ionising
electromagnetic energy (NIEM) ‘research literature reported adverse
health effects in laboratory animals and in Soviet radar workers at
levels well below the 10 mW/cm2 U.S. ANSI safety recommendations’ [2].
Despite this being below the U.S. recommended levels the Soviet
standards excluded military personnel whilst the U.S. did not, according
to the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements
(NCRP), 1986 (O’Connor, 1993).
Soviet studies in the area of electromagnetic microwave radiation
reported psychological symptoms in human subjects that included
lethargy, lack of concentration, headaches, depression, and impotence [3].
O’Connor notes how the Soviet medical journals termed these collective
symptoms microwave sickness whilst the U.S. literature referred to the
symptoms as neurasthenia (1993). Time magazine reported in March 1976 that the State Department launched:
a medical investigation of the thousands of U.S. diplomats and their
families who served in Moscow since the early 1960s. In the wake of the
microwave disclosures, former embassy employees and their families have
recalled suffering strange ailments during their tenure in Moscow,
ranging from eye tics and headaches to heavy menstrual flows. Some point
out that former Ambassadors to Moscow Charles Bohlen and Llewellyn
Thompson both died of cancer, within the last two years one other Moscow
diplomat died of cancer, and five women who lived there have undergone
cancer–related mastectomies — although no medical authorities attribute
these deaths and illnesses to radiation. (Time, 1976b)
U.S. officials and military, long before the public exposure, were
aware and concerned about the consequences of microwave bombardment of
civilian and military targets. In 1972 the U.S. Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) released an internal report (later declassified through the
Freedom Of Information Act [FOIA] Program [4])
that had been previously prepared by the U.S. Army Office of the
Surgeon General Medical Intelligence Office titled ‘Controlled Offensive
Behaviour — USSR’ (initially released in July 1972). The report states
that
This report summarizes the information available on Soviet research
on human vulnerability as it relates to incapacitating individuals or
small groups. The information contained in this study is a review and
evaluation of Soviet research in this field of revolutionary methods of
influencing human behavior and is intended as an aid in the development
of countermeasures for the protection of U.S. or allied personnel. Due
to the nature of the Soviet research in the area of reorientation or
incapacitation of human behavior, this report emphasises the individual
as opposed to groups. (LaMothe, 1972)
It is interesting to note that the Report authors believed the Soviet
research to be in the area of ‘reorientation’; suggesting that the U.S.
were worried over concerns that the Soviets may be planning a mass
zapping of U.S. citizens with the hope of ‘brainwashing’ them into a
newly orientated ideological outlook. The 174–page Report is extensive,
with much material extended upon various forms of beamed energies and
wireless strategies. On the opening section on Electromagnetic Energy
the report concludes that
Super–high frequency electromagnetic oscillations (SHF) may have
potential use as a technique for altering human behavior. Soviet Union
and other foreign literature sources contain over 500 studies devoted to
the biological effect of SHF. Lethal and non–lethal aspects have been
shown to exist. In certain non–lethal exposures, definite behavioural
changes have occurred. [5]
During this time the U.S. establishment was not naïve to the potential of conducting neurological at–a–distance effects upon human behaviour.
In the 1970s José Manuel RodrÃguez Delgado was a controversial figure
in neuroscience; a professor of physiology at Yale University, he was
an acclaimed neuroscientist. In 1970 “the New York Times Magazine
hailed him in a cover story as the impassioned prophet of a new
‘psychocivilized society’ whose members would influence and alter their
own mental functions” [6].
Yet two decades earlier, in 1952, Delgado co–authored the first
peer–reviewed paper describing long–term implantation of electrodes in
humans (Horgan, 2005). As an example of the achievement into
wireless–neurological devices Delgado’s most famous experiment took
place in 1963 at a bull–breeding ranch in Cordoba, Spain. Delgado
implanted radio equipped electrodes, which he termed ‘stimoceivers’,
into the brains of several ‘fighting’ bulls and stood in a bullring with
one bull at a time and attempted to control the actions of the bull by
pressing buttons on a handheld transmitter. In one instance Delgado was
able to stop a charging bull in its tracks only a few feet away from him
by the press of a button. The New York Times published a front
page story on the event, “calling it ‘the most spectacular
demonstration ever performed of the deliberate modification of animal
behavior through external control of the brain’” [7]. In 1969 Delgado described wireless brain–behaviour modification and its implications in his book Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society
(1969). Delgado’s research during this time was supported not only by
academic grants but also by the U.S. Office of Naval Research. This
research is now over forty years old, and much has happened in the
intervening four decades.
Technologies that can wirelessly transmit information from and to the
body is an area of research that has attracted various interested
parties post–World War II. Such energy–information distribution and
targeting within the electromagnetic spectrum can variously be used for
medical, industrial, military, and telecommunications purposes. I now
turn to examine some of the military–industrial research and uses of
wireless technologies.
Beams, firewalls and brain scanning: Inside the military–industrial complex
Researcher Igor Smirnov of the Russian Academy of Sciences is by all accounts an odd person, referred to by a Newsweek
article as ‘A Subliminal Dr. Strangelove’ (Elliott and Barry, 1994).
Smirnov was apparently contacted by the FBI during the Davidian sect
siege in Waco, Texas in 1993. Experts from the FBI Counter–Terrorism
Center met with Smirnov in Arlington, Virginia to discuss ways of
affecting the behaviour of Davidian sect leader David Koresh. Smirnov’s
plan was to send subliminal messages through the phone lines during
negotiations; and for targeting David Koresh the plan was to use the
voice of Charlton Heston to subliminally play God (Elliott and Barry,
1994). Smirnov’s strategies, whilst sounding eccentric, are closely tied
with military research into behaviour modification via wireless
transmissions. Smirnov’s laboratory in Moscow is named the Institute of
Psycho–Correction and using electroencephalograph scanning (EEG) he
measures brain waves which he then computes to create a map of various
human impulses–brain waves correlation. This data can then be used for
experimenting upon affecting brain–body modification at–a–distance.
Asked in a 2004 interview whether it was possible to defeat terrorism
Smirnov replied that
Only informational war is capable of defeating terrorism completely.
And we possess this weapon. Peoples’ actions can in fact be controlled
by unnoticed acoustic influence. Look — it’s easy. All I have to do is
record my voice, apply special coding, which converts my voice to mere
noise and afterwards, all we have to do is record some music on top of
that. The words are indistinguishable to your conscious; however, your
unconscious can hear them clearly. If we were to play this music over
and over again on the radio for instance, people will soon start
developing paranoia. This is the simplest weapon. (Pravda, 2004)
Smirnov’s capabilities were demonstrated to U.S. observers as far
back as 1991 when infra–sound — a very low frequency transmission — was
shown to be able to transmit acoustic messages via bone conduction [8].
Military strategist Timothy Thomas examined these implications in his
paper ‘The Mind Has No Firewall’ in which he states that ‘We are on the
threshold of an era in which these data processors of the human body
may be manipulated or debilitated. Examples of unplanned attacks on the
body’s data–processing capability are well–documented’ [9].
He references a Russian military article on the same subject which
declared that “‘humanity stands on the brink of a psychotronic war’ with
the mind and body as the focus” [10].
The context here is that the human body is a complex communication
system that is constantly receiving signal inputs, both external and
internal. Thus,
The “data” the body receives from external sources — such as
electromagnetic, vortex, or acoustic energy waves — or creates through
its own electrical or chemical stimuli can be manipulated or changed
just as the data (information) in any hardware system can be altered. [11]
Military thinking in this area is beginning to shift towards a
systemic viewpoint which considers the human as an open system rather
than as a closed, bounded system.
In this new systemic approach the human communicates with, and can be
communicated by, the environment through information flows and
communications media. By this understanding military thinking has begun
to openly declare that ‘one’s physical environment, whether through
electromagnetic, gravitational, acoustic, or other effects, can cause a
change in the psycho–physiological condition of an organism’ [12].
Simpson’s investigations into the sociological discipline of
communication research, which crystallised in the U.S. in the early
1950s, shows that it was financed and mentored by governmental
psychological warfare programs:
Government psychological warfare programs helped shape mass
communication research into a distinct scholarly field, strongly
influencing the choice of leaders and determining which of the competing
scientific paradigms of communication would be funded, elaborated, and
encouraged to prosper. [13]
Dominance over the airwaves, and the capability to exert coercive
control over information communications is a vital area in military
planning. Documented and declassified evidence shows that what may have
begun as a program in standardized propaganda and psychological warfare
has now developed into research on wireless information targeting and
‘psychocivilized’ control practices. To this effect the term
‘psycho–terrorism’ was coined by Anisimov of the Moscow
Anti–Psychotronic Center and Anisimov admits to testing such devices as
are said to ‘take away a part of the information which is stored in a
man’s brain. It is sent to a computer, which reworks it to the level
needed for those who need to control the man, and the modified
information is then reinserted into the brain’ [14].
In such cases there is concern that the ‘mind has no firewall’ and may
be vulnerable to accidental, unwanted and/or rogue interventions.
Thomas’s paper concludes by stating that ‘In reality, the game is about
protecting or affecting signals, waves, and impulses that can influence
the data–processing elements of systems, computers, or people. We are
potentially the biggest victims of information warfare, because we have
neglected to protect ourselves’ [15].
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) brief on this subject titled
‘Controlled Effects’ also noted the power to use the electromagnetic
spectrum for wirelessly interfering into human subjects’ thinking and
behaviour. By this stage the strategy had been dubbed ‘non–lethal
weapons’, as explored more fully in the work of non–lethal defence at
Los Alamos by retired Army Colonel John B. Alexander (Alexander, 1999).
The AFRL report states that
the panel investigated the potential for using electromagnetic and
other nonconventional force capabilities to achieve strategic, tactical,
lethal, and nonlethal force projection … . For the Controlled Personnel
Effects capability, the S&T panel explored the potential for
targeting individuals with nonlethal force, from a militarily useful
range, to make selected adversaries think or act according to our needs.
(AFRL, 2004)
These theories and concerns to affect command and control
at–a–distance were echoing the conclusions from a much larger and
significant military report that was published and made available in
1996 titled ‘New World Vistas’. ‘New World Vistas’ was a major
undertaking by the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board to examine
future developments in weapons, and totalled 14 volumes of studies. The
fifteenth ‘ancillary’ volume concluded by putting forth some potential
developments for a possible future man–machine integration. In a section
dealing with ‘Biological Process Control’ the Report states that
One can envision the development of electromagnetic energy sources,
the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, that can couple
with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent
voluntary muscular movements, control emotions (and thus actions),
produce sleep, transmit suggestions, interfere with both short–term and
long–term memory, produce an experience set, and delete an experience
set. (USAF Scientific Advisory Board, 1995)
In military–speak the term ‘experience set’ implies a person’s stored
memories and life experiences; thus suggesting that such a technology
could delete and then replace a person’s memories, or ‘experience set’.
Research and development along these lines have so far materialised a
technology dubbed by the military as active denial system (ADS).
The Active Denial System is a non–lethal, directed–energy weapon
system recently unveiled by the U.S. military and which directs, or
pulses, electromagnetic radiation at a frequency of 95 Gigahertz (GHz)
towards the target subjects. The radiated beam of millimetre–wave energy
can travel over a range of 500m and heats the water molecules in the
epidermis skin up to 54C (130F) (BBC, 2007). The result can be an
intensely painful burning sensation. Such a system was designed for such
uses as crowd control. A fully operational and mounted system was
demonstrated to journalists by U.S. military personnel at Moody Air
Force Base, Georgia, on 24 January 2007. A Reuters correspondent who
volunteered to be shot with the beam during the demonstration described
it as ‘similar to a blast from a very hot oven — too painful to bear
without diving for cover’ (BBC, 2007). The diagram below illustrates the
active denial system (ADS).
Figure 1: The active denial system (ADS).
Source: http://www.specialsol.com/electr5.gif.
These technologies show uses of wireless–to–body communication and
directed energy weapons for possible military attack or defence
purposes. Another area for research and development is in both military
and industrial uses for operator enhancement.
Real–time brain scanning of pilots and similar operators under stress
is an increasingly active area for research involving military and
industrial partnerships. Since the early 1990s research has been made
into detecting and interpreting brain and body signals, especially
brainwaves, for computerized monitoring of pilots. This information can
be used to measure pilot fatigue and to compensate for this with
increased automation of the airplane in order to avoid pilot error.
Initially this was conducted by measuring the pilot’s brain waves
through unobtrusive sponge sensors in the flight helmet:
By measuring the amplitude of the brain waves generated, fatigue of
the pilot can be recognized. By increasing the brightness of the
instrumental panel lights, the amplitude of the brain waves can be
returned to their normal height, thus compensating for fatigue. To get
the “evoked response” from the pilot’s brain, the instrument panel
lights could be made to flash so fast that the pilot would not be aware
of the flashes. [16]
Researchers have said that the brain can ‘register’ up to 145
flickers per second, which can then be followed up by beaming a near
infrared light into the subject’s eye, causing a spot of light to be
reflected off the cornea in order to track eye movement and measure the
degree of pilot concentration. This type of research, which is still
ongoing, has been referred to by at least one current R&D laboratory
as ‘Real–Time EEG for Operator State’ [17].
Brain monitoring of people in situations where fatigue could be fatal
now involves real–time analysis and observation of motorists. A
technology now being considered is one called ‘Sensation’.
This technology is non–intrusive and includes a small camera that
monitors a driver’s eye movements, looking out for repeated blinking,
which can be evidence of tiredness. To compliment this the driver’s seat
is also lined with a material which monitors changes in body
temperature. The steering wheel too checks for handling pressure.
Finally, other sensors, if needed, can be fitted to the finger and ear
to send out measurements of pressure to indicate fatigue and levels of
concentration. The driver is now wirelessly monitored, both by camera
and wireless sensors, to create a more extensive immersive driving
experience (Millward, 2006).
This research and these innovations indicate that a shift is
occurring in how the human is enmeshed into an increasingly information
saturated environment. These developments recognise that the human body
is itself becoming the most capable data–processing subject. The rest of
this paper explores how these trends to envelop the body–brain into an
environment of information flows are being developed into social and
commercial applications.
Emotional gaming and dangerous intentions: Inside the social–civil sphere
The use of EEG brain scanning has now moved into the gaming industry
with up–to–date developments in sensory gaming. Recently Emotiv publicly
released information on their upcoming ‘Project Epoc’, a developmental
technology that interprets electrical signals emitted by the brain and
converts them into actions on a computer. In this way the user/gamer is
able to direct actions via their thoughts in the online environment.
Below are pictures of two prototypes which the company expects to market
some time in 2008 [18].
The company Web site claims that they provide the ultimate
human–computer interface and that they are pioneers in brain computer
interface technology. In their press release of 7 March 2007 they state
that
Emotiv has created the first brain computer interface technology that
can detect and process both human conscious thoughts and non–conscious
emotions. The technology, which comprises a headset and a suite of
applications, allows computers to differentiate between particular
thoughts such as lifting an object or rotating it; detect and mimic a
user’s expressions, such as a smile or wink; and respond to emotions
such as excitement or calmness. [19]
In the same press release the company foresees in the future that
‘Emotiv’s technology has the potential to be applied to numerous
industries, including interactive television, accessibility design,
market research, medicine, and security’ [20].
A similar corporate gaming company, NeuroSky, claims to have gone even
further than Emotiv and reduced ‘the brainwave pickup to the minimum
specification imaginable — a single electrode. Existing versions of this
electrode are small enough to fit into a mobile phone and … they will
soon be shrunk to the size of a thumbnail, enabling people to wear them
without noticing’ (Economist, 2007). The company Web site
claims its ‘bio sensor and signal processing system for the consumer
market’ will unlock ‘worlds of new applications such as consumer
electronics, health, wellness, education and training’ [21].
Clearly there is a potential commercial market envisioned here for
wireless–brain technology that goes beyond the sphere of gaming.
Somewhat on the extreme to this, wireless acoustic transmissions have
now been developed to ‘stop’ people from over–gaming; in other words, as
a treatment for gaming addiction. In highly technologised Asian
countries such as South Korea teenagers are spending an unhealthy amount
of time at their computers in gaming environments. There have even been
instances where gamers have died after extensively long sessions in
front of a computer without a break, such as in MMORPGs (Massive
Multiplayer Online Role–Playing Game). South Korean company Xtive,
established in 2005, spent a year of research to develop a system of
acoustic sound waves that act as subliminal transmissions during the
gaming experience:
We incorporated messages into an acoustic sound wave telling gamers
to stop playing. The messages are told 10,000 to 20,000 times per second
… . Game users can’t recognize the sounds. But their subconscious is
aware of them and the chances are high they will quit playing … . Game
companies can install a system, which delivers the inaudible sounds
after it recognizes a young user has kept playing after a preset period
of time. (Tae–gyu, 2007)
This emphasises that research into techno–information flows are
increasingly being developed that wirelessly interact with a person as a
biological construct, utilising the already present bio–neural
functioning. And this is a trend that is attracting more corporate
players wishing to enter the field.
Gaming giant Sony Corporation has submitted and been granted a patent
on a device for transmitting sensory data directly into the human
brain. Sony’s patent describes the device as firing “pulses of
ultrasound at the head to modify firing patterns in targeted parts of
the brain, creating ‘sensory experiences’ ranging from moving images to
tastes and sounds” (Hogan and Fox, 2005). This is based upon a technique
known as transcranial magnetic stimulation that activates the nerves by
using rapidly changing magnetic fields to induce currents in brain
tissue. The patent also claims that this technology could give blind or
deaf people the chance to see or hear. Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist
at the University of Tübingen in Germany who has himself developed
similar devices, examined the Sony patent and commented that ‘I looked
at it and found it plausible’ (Hogan and Fox, 2005). Since Sony’s
initial patent application in 2000 (granted in March 2003), a series of
further patents have been applied for. However, this line of research is
not totally new.
For several years there has been research conducted into decoding
thoughts from the brain for sending signals to an external device such
as manipulating cursors on a screen, which has been developed for
disabled people, as in the case of Matthew Nagle (Pollack, 2006). In
recent years several other companies have emerged claiming to offer
brain–computer wireless interaction for either gaming purposes or for
various health impairment benefits. One example is S.M.A.R.T.
BrainGames, a company based in California that offers EEG caps designed
to treat people with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. The
company claims to offer superior neurofeedback technology at what it
calls ‘affordable prices’ [22].
The body–brain is increasingly shifting towards becoming a
biologically–enhanced data processor for wireless reception and
transmission. Computer software giant Microsoft is aware of this and
already ahead of the game.
In 2004 Microsoft was awarded U.S. Patent 6,754,472, titled ‘Method
and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body’ [23].
In this patent Microsoft is granted exclusive rights to a technology
that uses the electrical capacity of the human body to act as a computer
network (Adam, 2004). Microsoft envisages ‘using the human skin’s
conductive properties to link a host of electronic devices around the
body, from pagers and personal data assistants (PDA) to mobile phones
and microphones, although the company is uncharacteristically coy about
exactly what it may have in mind’ (Adam, 2004). This supports what Bill
Gates himself has said about the computer finally disappearing into the
environment and the world around us (Gibson, 2005). This may be the
ultimate wireless network, using the complete skin of the body, from
fingers to toes, receiving and transmitting flows of information. The
patent also proposes that an area of skin could even act as a keypad
making a person capable of typing by tapping on their arm (Adam, 2004).
This is a powerful example of how technologies and technological
thinking is shifting away from external hardware devices towards using
the natural bio-properties of the human body for integration into a
global informational environment. As way of some examples, here are just
two from many of the patents filed that claim to develop wireless
transmission technologies: patents 4,395,600 and 5,507,291. Patent No.
4,395,600 is titled ‘Auditory subliminal message system and method’ and
is geared towards subliminal messaging to influence consumer shoppers:
Ambient audio signals from the customer shopping area within a store
are sensed and fed to a signal processing circuit that produces a
control signal which varies with variations in the amplitude of the
sensed audio signals. A control circuit adjusts the amplitude of an
auditory subliminal anti–shoplifting message to increase with increasing
amplitudes of sensed audio signals and decrease with decreasing
amplitudes of sensed audio signals. This amplitude controlled subliminal
message may be mixed with background music and transmitted to the
shopping area. [24]
In a similar manner for affecting an individual’s mental state is
patent no. 5,507,291 — ‘Method and an associated apparatus for remotely
determining information as to person’s emotional state’ — which comes
very close to what has been discussed on military uses of information
warfare:
In a method for remotely determining information relating to a
person’s emotional state, a waveform energy having a predetermined
frequency and a predetermined intensity is generated and wirelessly
transmitted towards a remotely located subject. Waveform energy emitted
from the subject is detected and automatically analyzed to derive
information relating to the individual’s emotional state. [25]
In this scenario information flows are two-way with the body-brain
emitting as well as receiving. Yet with the human body–brain becoming a
site for data transfer and reception, there are concerns that it is
increasingly becoming a target for various corporate interests. And not
only corporate interests are involved in these developments, however,
for there are also recent innovative technologies in this area that
offer serious implications for social privacy and liberty at a state
level.
At first the idea sounds like nothing more than science fiction.
Indeed, it even appeared as a central feature in the film ‘Minority
Report’. This is the notion of pre–cognition: to be able to know a
person’s actions before those actions are committed. Yet now a team of
neuroscientists have developed a technique that can scan a brain and
learn from the patterns of neuronal activity what a person is thinking
or intending to do. This research is the culmination of recent studies
where brain imaging has been used to identify particular brain patterns
pertaining to such behaviour as violence, lying, and racial prejudice
(Sample, 2007). To achieve this the team ‘used high–resolution brain
scans to identify patterns of activity before translating them into
meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person planned to do in the near
future’ (Sample, 2007). This is the first acknowledged instance of
having the technical capacity to judge whether people have the intention
to commit a criminal act regardless of actual hard physical evidence of
the crime. According to Prof Haynes: ‘We see the danger that this might
become compulsory one day, but we have to be aware that if we prohibit
it, we are also denying people who aren’t going to commit any crime the
possibility of proving their innocence’ (Sample, 2007). Since this
technology is so new there are no current ethical or moral debates on
this issue and the implications for its civil use are worrying. If
developed these ‘techniques may eventually have wide–ranging
implications for everything from criminal interrogations to airline
security checks. And that alarms some ethicists who fear the technology
could one day be abused by authorities, marketers or employers’ (Cheng,
2007).
A hypothetical situation in the future might place these scanning
devices within regular x–ray scanning machines at airports. On passing
through to the passenger lounge all travellers will be scanned not only
for potentially dangerous physical objects but also for dangerous intentions.
Yet who has not had a ‘dangerous intention’? Or rather, to quote a more
familiar phrase: ‘He who is without sin among you, let him be the first
to throw a stone’ [26].
In this manner all travellers will have to safeguard their thoughts at
all times; who is to know whether such scanning devices are embedded
into the walls of the airport lounge and corridors? Or in the toilets;
on board the airplane? This uncertain and somewhat dystopian scenario is
one that could shift technologised states into psycho–civilised
societies where thoughts and intentions become part of terrorist
discourse. This could be seen as an extreme case of convergence between
the social compromises required to facilitate efficient physical–digital
infrastructures and the need for securitised mobilities (Wood and
Graham, 2006). It also resembles the extremity of constructing an
all–inclusive technological web of complex information flows that
bypasses traditional forms of interface.
This sees a shift away from earlier prototypes of the hardware–heavy cyborg, such as the early ‘wearcam’ work of Steve Mann [27],
towards people actively engaging with their informational environments
both in terms of security and surveillance. In some ways these
developments have contributed to a rise in acts of self–surveillance, or
sousveillance.
(In)Securities, self–sensoring and sousveillance: Inside the social panopticon
Fears over security and safety have reached new levels in the opening
decade of the twenty–first century. It is, in all respects, a
post–millennium state of insecurity. The older and more familiar
paradigms of warfare and security were based upon binaries (e.g.,
Democracy vs. Communism; friend vs. foe). To some degree this binary
distinction is still maintained and played out in media and cultural
discourse as Freedom vs. Anti–Freedom, or West vs. Islam. Yet upon
deeper scrutiny this manifests as an asymmetrical arrangement:
order/authority vs. guerrilla non–compliance. A terror suspect can
therefore no longer be easily identified as ‘the enemy’ which requires
that all civilians be categorised in a state of ‘potential terrorist’.
This is especially so since the notion of ‘home–grown terrorist’ is
playing out the role of insurgency and resistance from within. This
subtle shift in categorisation has seen a parallel move in the increase
of the militarization of the civil sphere. By this I argue that civil
space is increasingly becoming a ‘censor/sensored zone’ where security
issues — surveillance, tracking, identification — are played out.
This zone, which mobile bodies pass through and negotiate, is
characterised by a pervasive field of information, code, and signifiers
that increasingly constructs the ‘social’. Such a coded environment has
the potential to be extremely intrusive and goes beyond the normal ken
of so–called civil liberties. Under the sway of a post September 11
scenario and amid an orchestrated ‘war on terror’ many of these
intrusive technologies are in rapid development, so much so that the
U.K. Government’s Information Commissioner himself states that we live
in a surveillance society (Information Commissioner, 2006) [28].
These systems of tracking and tracing surveillance involve step changes
that are taking place gradually in many industrialised societies,
especially in the U.S. and the U.K. [29].
Developments in sensor technologies and ubiquitous computing often
focus on the interfaces between person and environment such that
interconnectivity is likely to become more pervasive, intrusive, and
‘everywhere’. In a seminal essay from 1996 computer engineers Mark
Weiser and John Seely Brown coined the term ‘ubiquitous computing’ and
envisioned the ‘social impact of imbedded computers may be analogous to …
electricity, which surges invisibly through the walls of every home,
office, and car’ (Weiser and Brown, 1996). True to form, within a decade
from this pronouncement computing interfaces developed from fixed
locations of access to increased wireless connectivity. And it is
predicted to become ever more ubiquitous in a manner that will dissolve
connectivity into embedded environments (Greenfield, 2006). Greenfield
considers this to be, in one form or another, an inevitability, and
refers to this ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) paradigm as ‘everyware’:
“Everyware is information processing embedded in the objects and
surfaces of everyday life … the extension of information–sensing,
–processing, and –networking capabilities to entire classes of things
we‘ve never before thought of as ‘technology’” [30].
This in turn is likely to trigger the ‘always–on’ surveillance of
people in both public life and in private affairs. This inevitably blurs
the boundaries between what is external and what is internal, and leads
to forms of surveillance that turn inwards and emanates from the ‘self’
— an idea somewhat akin to that of sousveillance.
Sousveillance was coined by Mann (1998) who describes it as form of
‘reflectionism’ or as a ‘watchful vigilance from underneath’, which is a
form of inverse surveillance. Yet it more than inverses the notion; it
embellishes it with a self–reflective responsibility. For Mann,
reflectionism “holds up the mirror and asks the question: ‘Do you like
what you see?’” (Mann, et al., 2003). Also, in this form, it
requires that surveillance is enacted as a form of self–control, as
self–maintenance. It is the discipline of being inwardly secure; firstly
vigilant towards the self; secondly towards other people/selves. This
form of discipline seems to suggest that there is little room for
negligence when watchfulness is the order of the day. Yet it also
prompts the ‘user’ of sousveillance to be active and participate in the
surrounding environment. Sousveillance, whilst it can encourage social
responsibility, also suggests the need for the person to be guarded
against unwanted intrusions and possible violations.
Mann went on to transmit, in the mid ’90s, his daily life experiences
for others to experience and interact with. This created opportunities
for establishing a sousveillance network between Mann and his ‘readers’,
or rather social network. This participatory/social panopticon into
human–environment interactions was a forerunner to how ‘wearable
computing’ might one day emerge as a form of modern ‘intelligent image
processing’ (Mann, 2002). Mann’s performance constructs a lived
experience where the observation, recording, and dissemination of civic
events have shifted towards a social panopticon, infiltrating daily
physical encounters. It is a communal watchfulness of civil
responsibility merged with a technical mandate for collective
commentary, social analysis, and security of the self. It is also an
enactment of performance ethnography, at the same time playful with
notions of socialisation and breaching norms (Mann, et al., 2003).
However, the question this raises, I argue, is whether social domains
might not be in danger of becoming over–sensory realms, and what may
emerge as the most convenient and/or efficient strategy for coping with
this. Stross’s (2002) essay ‘The Panopticon Singularity’ considers this
trend in a dystopian fashion as ‘the emergence of a situation in which
human behaviour is deterministically governed by processes outside human
control’. Stross argues, reminiscent of Foucault, that while the
effectiveness of societal surveillance is dependent on the number of
people involved ‘systems of mechanised surveillance may well increase in
efficiency as a power function of the number of deployed monitoring
points’ (Stross, 2002). In other words, as more people join the social
panopticon, or sousveillant society, this will have a knock–on effect
that encourages more people to join the securitisation of the self,
rather than being left vulnerable and un–sensored.
There is no denying that such panopticon devices are proliferating —
they are carried around with us, increasingly as our own willing
appendages. The debates at present are largely centred on surveillance,
as state practices of pervasive and ubiquitous top–down monitoring of
civil space, rather than forms of self–monitoring, as in sousveillance.
Perhaps the next step will be further towards practices of immersive
surveillance and control, as indicated in this paper as a psycho–civilized society.
The current surge in research and development of wireless sensor
networks is likely to have a significant future impact upon not only how
the human body is configured in terms of medical applications but,
perhaps more importantly, how the human is cognitively configured in
terms of the information–rich environment. One of the scenarios of
ubiquitous, pervasive computing is to embed the environment with
non–invasive informational systems that merge physical–digital
infrastructures. Already much of our atmosphere is saturated with
informational flows in various spectrum bandwidths — we are constantly
walking through TV programs, mobile phone conversations, and even
military broadcasts. Yet we are not decoding these transmissions. The
transformation that these various scenarios in this paper suggest is
that the human body is becoming re–configured — or re–wired — into a
biological antenna. Not only will this greatly facilitate our access
onto the Net but will also re–form the human presence, or identity, into
a coded wavelength. A wavelength that is more readily readable to
various technologies. This may seem far–fetched yet such a future may
not be a far leap away.
Conclusion: The future a quantum leap too far?
Socio–technical evolutionary trends predict a future that is wholly
immersed in and conversant with an integral informational–digitised
environment. Informational flows are envisioned to go beyond the bits
and bytes of present computing into the qubits (quantum bits) and
subatomic circuitry of quantum computing (Schwartz, et al.,
2006). Researchers into quantum computing are working with subatomic
spins for exponential and staggering computational capacity. A possible
future may look a little like this:
Inside the hatband is Sharon’s communication center and intelligent
assistant, which has scanned and sorted the 500,000 e–mails she received
overnight. By the time she reaches the car, it has beamed the 10 most
urgent ones and her travel schedule to her visual cortex. The text
scrolls down in the bottom of her field of vision … . At the airport
there is no ticket check–in or security line. Sharon simply walks
through the revolving door, which scans her for dangerous items, picks
up her identity, confirms her reservation, and delivers her gate number,
all in the space of a second. (Schwartz, et al., 2006)
Perhaps the most common prediction prevalent amongst computer
engineers is that computers — pervasive and non–perceptible — will be
seeded and woven throughout the environment. They will be painted onto
walls, on furniture and objects, inside the body, ‘communicating with
one another constantly and requiring no more power than that which they
can glean from radio frequencies in the air’ (Schwartz, et al.,
2006). Quantum researcher and physicist Stuart Wolf anticipates that
the next two decades will usher in a type of communications he calls
‘network–enabled telepathy’. Despite the fanciful name the method
basically involves wearable devices (such as a ‘quantum headband’)
sharing identity and downloaded information with others in the person’s
social network; and all driven by the power of thought alone. However,
as Wolf points out, ‘it will probably take a new generation raised to
think of quantum headbands as normal for its potential to be truly
realized’ (Schwartz, et al., 2006). Yet Wolf isn’t alone in his thinking.
Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson has speculated upon the possibility of what he calls radioneurology.
Radioneurology refers to a hypothetical future technology of observing
neural processes inside a brain by means of locally deployed radio
transmitters (Dyson, 1997). For this to be feasible, speculates Dyson,
requires a technology to allow for the building and deployment of small
transmitters inside a living brain similar to integrated circuit
technology on a silicon chip:
We know that high–frequency electromagnetic signals can be propagated
through brain tissue for distances of the order of centimeters. We know
that microscopic generators and receivers of electromagnetic radiation
are possible. We know that modern digital data–handling technology is
capable of recording and analyzing the signals emerging from millions of
tiny transmitters simultaneaously. All that is lacking in order to
transform these possibilities into an effective observational tool is
the neurological equivalent of integrated–circuit technology. [31]
Given these speculations, and what has been discussed in this paper,
it is likely that the major technology for the future is
neurotechnology. The information age that emerged out of post–war
technologies, and which has guided most of the technologies of the early
twenty–first century, has made it possible to collect, utilize, and
transfer information/data at unparalleled speeds. Communication,
information, and data have been flowing at exponential rates. However,
they are yet to merge into a systemic environment.
Neurotechnologies are set to change this with the rise of
‘nanobiochips’ and brain imaging and scanning technologies that will
eventually lower the cost of neurological techniques and analysis as
well as making the procedures efficient and profitable.
Neurotechnologies, combined with wireless sensors, may possibly usher in
a communications revolution greater than that caused by the arrival of
the transistor and the microchip. Zack Lynch, executive director of the
Neurotechnology Industry Organization (NIO), writes that ‘When data from
advanced biochips and brain imaging are combined they will accelerate
the development of neurotechnology, the set of tools that can influence
the human central nervous system, especially the brain’ (Lynch, 2004).
Although neurotechnologies are likely to be put to therapeutic and
medical uses, such as for improving emotional stability and mental
clarity, they also open opportunities for intrusive strategies of
control and manipulation.
Part of this paper has been focused on the dangers of an increasingly
wireless world. These dangers may include the potential for invasive
technologies, based upon transmitted/received signals and wavelengths,
to shift social order towards a psycho–civilized society. By
psycho–civilised I mean a society that manages and controls social
behaviour predominantly through non–obvious methods of psychological
manipulations, yet at a level far beyond that of the ‘normalised’ social
manipulations of propaganda and social institutions. What I refer to
are the technologised methods of psychological interference and privacy
intrusions in the manner of creating a docile and constrained society.
And here this brings us back to the problematics involved in opening a
Pandora’s box.
In this paper I have asked whether innovations in wireless and
neuro–technologies are not in danger of shifting human behaviour towards
a psycho–civilised society, where greater emphasis is placed upon forms
of social control and pre–emptive strategies. What are the moral and
ethical implications of using wireless scanning surveillance
technologies for evaluating pre–emptive behaviour based on thoughts and
intentions alone? Is this not a dangerous path towards
psycho–terrorising the social public? As Thomas (1998) reminds us, the
mind has no firewall, and is thus vulnerable to viruses, Trojan horses,
and spam. It is also vulnerable to hackers, cyber–terrorists, and state
surveillance. Whilst this may sound a little too far out, they are
reasonable questions to ask if technologies are racing ahead of us in
order to better get into our heads.
Becoming wireless also means becoming increasingly immersed within an
information–saturated environment. From the evidence of present trends
and developments it seems likely that a greater systemic
interconnectedness and interdependence is being formed between
human–object–environment facilitated through and by information flows.
This may herald the coming of a ‘wonderful wireless world’, yet it may
also signal unforeseen dangers in protection, privacy, and security of
the human biological body within these new relationships. It is the
suggestion of this paper that such issues and concerns need to become
more public, visible, and open; the very opposite of these technologies.
Kingsley Dennis is a Research Associate in the Centre for
Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) based at the Sociology Department at
Lancaster University, U.K. His doctoral work focused on complexity
theory and information communication technologies. Post–doctoral
research now involves examining physical–digital convergences and how
these might impact upon social processes. He is concerned with the
digital rendition of identity and the implications of surveillance
technologies.
Web: http://www.kingsleydennis.com
Blog:
http://www.new-mobilities.co.uk
E–mail: Kingsley [at] kingsleydennis [dot] co [dot] uk
Notes
1. Dolman, 2002, p. 41.
2. O’Connor, 1993, p. 35.
3. Ibid.
4. See
http://www.dia.mil/publicaffairs
/Foia/foia.htm for list of declassified reports, accessed 11 November 2007.
5. LaMothe, 1972, p. 18.
6. Horgan, 2005, p. 67.
7. Horgan, 2005, p. 70.
8. Thomas, 1998, p. 84.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Thomas, 1998, p. 85.
12. Thomas, 1998, p. 86.
13. Simpson, 1994, p. 3.
14. Thomas, 1998, p. 87.
15. Thomas, 1998, p. 89.
16. Welsh, 1998, p. 37.
17. Part of ongoing research at the QinetiQ Group — see
http://www.qinetiq.com/.
18. See
http://crunchgear.com/2007/03/08/
emotiv-project-epoc-sensory-gaming-for-the-masses/, accessed 15 January 2008.
19. http://emotiv.com/3_0/pr/pr022607a.htm, accessed 5 November 2007.
20. http://emotiv.com/3_0/pr/pr022607a.htm, accessed 5 November 2007.
21. See
http://www.neurosky.com/, accessed 5 November 2007.
22. http://www.smartbraingames.com/, accessed 5 November 2007.
23. For patent, see
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6754472&id=30YSAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,754,472.
24. See Google patents
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT4395600&id=V_ItAAAAEBAJ&dq=4,395,600.
25. See Google patents
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5507291&id=940lAAAAEBAJ&dq=5,507,291.
26. John 8:1–9.
27. See
http://wearcam.org/mann.html, accessed 17 January 2008.
28. See also BBC Report —
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
1/hi/uk/6108496.stm, accessed 5 November 2007. For general information see the journal
Surveillance and Society, at
http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/index.htm, accessed 5 November 2007.
29. There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain — about one for every 14 people — more than other industrialised Western states.
30. Greenfield, 2006, p. 18.
31. Dyson, 1997, pp. 133–134.
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