Interesting snippet from the Register at the bottom of a piece about lie-detectors:
According to Paul Marks writing in the 7 January 2006 New Scientist, the US Department of Defense plans to develop a lie detector that can be used without the subject knowing they are being assessed.
The Remote Personnel Assessment (RPA) device will also be used to pinpoint fighters hiding in a combat zone, or even to spot signs of personal stress that might mark someone out as a terrorist or suicide bomber. The RPA will use microwaves or laser beams reflected off a subject’s skin to assess various physiological signs without the need for wires or skin contact. The RPA will focus a beam on a moving or non-moving subject and use the reflected signal to calculate pulse, respiration, or galvanic skin response.
Now, here’s my question. How well would such a machine distinguish between the stress caused by dastardly plans of murder, mayhem and destruction, and the (far more common) stress caused by the fact that one is late for one’s flight, and the difference between getting it and not might well depend on whether some piece of highly expensive kit decides to select you for a visit from lots of armed men and women? Perhaps Terrorists have a distinctive pulse.