Mind Readers

Officials are going out on a limb to propose innovative solutions to airport security problems such as reading passengers’ minds. “The ideas that have been offered by security experts for staying one step ahead include highly sophisticated sensors, more intensive interrogations of travelers by screeners trained in human behavior, and a lifting of the U.S. prohibitions against profiling. Some of the more unusual ideas are already being tested. Some aren’t being given any serious consideration. Many raise troubling questions about civil liberties. All are costly. ‘Regulators need to accept that the current approach is outdated,’ said Philip Baum, editor of the London-based magazine Aviation Security International. ‘It may have responded to the threats of the 1960s, but it doesn’t respond to the threats of the 21st century.’ The aim of one company that blends high technology and behavioral psychology is hinted at in its name, WeCU — as in ‘We See You.’ The system that Israeli-based WeCU Technologies has devised and is testing in Israel projects images onto airport screens, such as symbols associated with a certain terrorist group or some other image only a would-be terrorist would recognize, company CEO Ehud Givon said.”