Anxiety-detecting machines could spot terrorists

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. -- A scene from the airport of thefuture: A man's pulse races as he walks through a checkpoint. His quickenedheart rate and heavier breathing set off an alarm. A machine senses his skintemperature jumping. Screeners move in to questionhim.

Signs of a terrorist? Or simply a passenger nervousabout a cross-country flight?

It may seem Orwellian, but on Thursday, theHomeland Security Department showed off an early version of physiologicalscreeners that could spot terrorists. The department's research division isyears from using the machines in an airport or an office building— if they even work at all. But officials believe the ideacould transform security by doing a bio scan to spot dangerouspeople.

Critics doubt such a system can work. The idea, they say,subjects innocent travelers to the intrusion of a medical exam.

Thefuturistic machinery works on the same theory as a polygraph, looking for sharpswings in body temperature, pulse and breathing that signal the kind of anxietyexuded by a would-be terrorist or criminal. Unlike a lie-detector test thatwires subjects to sensors as they answer questions, the "Future AttributeScreening Technology" (FAST) scans people as they walk by a set ofcameras.

"We're picking up things with sensors that can't necessarily bedetected by the human eye," said Jennifer Martin, a consultant to HomelandSecurity's Science and Technology division.

The five-year project, in itssecond year, is the department's latest effort to thwart terrorism by spottingsuspicious people. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has trainedmore than 2,000 screeners to observe passengers as they walk through airports,questioning those who seem oddly agitated or nervous.

The system wouldbe portable and fast, said project manager Robert Burns, who envisions machinesthat scan people as they walk into airports, train stations or arenas. Thoseflagged by the machines would be interviewed in front of cameras that measureminute facial movements for signs they are lying.