re that Pointsman/Pavlov thread

[pynchonoid]

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/11/impact1104.asp?trk=nl

Picking Your Brain 
Bioethicist Paul Wolpe explores the implications of
wiring computers to the human brain.

[...]TR: Will those kinds of devices raise ethical
questions?
Wolpe: A key issue is the implications of these
technologies for personal privacy. If there are
eventually technologies that externalize internal
states, who has a right to access that information?
And what about cases where that information could be
taken against people’s will, or without their
knowledge? Are we going to start implanting electrodes
in the brains of the suspected terrorists in
Guantánamo Bay? Certainly not yet—there’s nothing we
could get out of that. But research is being funded by
the Departments of Homeland Security and of Defense
for things like lie detection technologies using
functional MRI or near-infrared light. These
technologies can be used coercively in a way
polygraphs, for example, can’t. If you’re not willing
to cooperate with a polygraph, there’s really nothing
they can do. But you aren’t necessarily going to need
to cooperate for some of these technologies; they can,
theoretically, be used covertly. They may be used on
suspected criminals or enemies of the state, or on you
and me when we’re going through airports.
Near-infrared technology may someday employ an
undetectable spot of light on your forehead. Research
on ways to take what used to be private thoughts and
make them accessible will challenge our laws and our
thinking about what privacy means.[...] 



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