Coming Soon to a Seatback Near You!

If one can believe what our governments are up to, which is a stretch, I know, one would want our government to be forward looking, right?  Airport Security Theatre is one of those places where we get to see what our governments drink at lunch.

This article in the New Scientist, talks about a prototype European system to mount a camera in every seatback to monitor the passengers’ facial expressions for signs of potential terrorist activity.  The high concept is that those under extreme stress exhibit facial expressions that a computer can read and flag.  As well, the computer program will identify those loitering near the cockpit or running in the aisles of the aircraft, along with "other predetermined indicators that suggest a developing threat."

Consider this:  Face recognition software has been in use at sporting events, like the Salt Lake City Olympics, the World Series and the Super Bowl to identify miscreants, terrorists, left-leaning Democrats and other evildoers of the Axis of Evil Doers of Evil Axis, since 2000, give or take

Consider this: There are barely 14 citizens per each police Closed Circuit TV Camera in the United Kingdom.  The UK has a population of just over 60 million. Miami, Chicago, New York City and other large American collections of humanity have embraced the Surveillance Society mantra with equal gusto. 

Consider this:  In George Orwell’s 1984 a citizen could commit facecrime in the Two-Minutes Hate by not protesting loudly enough, therefore citizens learned to have the appropriate expression on their visages at all times.

Which leads us back to the original article in the New Scientist and cameras in aircraft seatbacks watching you for twitches, flinches or other facial quirks that may indicate your hidden terrorist agenda while flying from Luton to Antwerp.

There are three unplanned consequences of continuous airborne passenger surveillance.  First, you will find that terrorists will get their faces Botox’ed solid so they don’t betray their hidden agenda.  Look at Nicole Kidman or Joan Rivers as two examples of faces that cannot move.

Second, the Air Security folks will have hours and hours of video of celebs, the well-heeled and the famous, picking their noses, getting the gunk out from between their teeth and snoring open-mouthed on longer trips.  In the case of some passengers there will be tape of them complaining mightily about the service. then bashing their assistants over the head with a cellphone and calling the flight attendants whores, sluts and trash eaters.  This would be in the Naomi Campbell section. 

Third, if you can fit a camera, you can fit a microphone.  Not only will the Authorities have hours of you face, but every business meeting, confidential chat or rude aside with a seatmate will be heard and recorded, aside from scanning your mug for terrorist-twitches.  Muttering under you breath about the in-flight movie (Happy Gilmour) or not being properly appreciative of the level of service you are being grudgingly offered by the airline (Wow! Almost a full 4 oz cup of water!) can get your butt arrested.

So, in keeping with the logic of the Security Forces, since they can conceivably find the terrorists by watching for twitches, all terrorists will get Botoxed before a flight.  Therefore we must arrest all doctors and clinicians who provide Botox injections, as they may well be in league with the Evildoers. 

However that doesn’t mean we’re home (-land security) free.  No siree!  We’ll have to post 24 hour guards on plastic surgery clinics in case the Evildoers of the Evil Axis of Doers of Evil try rob the clinics of needles and Botox, for their nefarious ends.  Since many makeup and nail spas offer those kinds of services or referrals, then we should also be posting guards at any place that has more than two sinks or three towels, again to Help Keep Our Homeland Safe from bearded, frozen faced terrorists who are determined to climb on a flight and do their Evildoing.

I don’t like being the one to burst the bubble of pervasive surveillance, but a computer reading a face for twitches or other epheremal microtremors during a flight is not a very good way to find terrorists. 

The essential question is "How did this person get on the plane in the first place?"

Watching the citizens all the time does very little to keep us ‘safe’.  It does go a long way to controlling society however, which is probably what they really want.