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Conceived as a cutting-edge counter-terrorism tool, the FAST program will ostensibly detect subjects’ bad intentions by monitoring their physiological characteristics, particularly those associated with fear and anxiety. It’s part of a broader “initiative to develop innovative, non-invasive technologies to screen people at security checkpoints,” according to DHS.

The “non-invasive” claim might be a bit of a stretch. A DHS report issued last December outlined some of the possible technological features of FAST, which include “a remote cardiovascular and respiratory sensor” to measure “heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration rate, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia,” a “remote eye tracker” that “uses a camera and processing software to track the position and gaze of the eyes (and, in some instances, the entire head),” “thermal cameras that provide detailed information on the changes in the thermal properties of the skin in the face,” and “a high resolution video that allows for highly detailed images of the face and body … and an audio system for analyzing human voice for pitch change.”

Ultimately, all of these components would be combined to take the form of a “prototypical mobile suite (FAST M2) … used to increase the accuracy and validity of identifying persons with malintent.”

Coupled with the Transportation Security Administration’s Behavior Detection Officers, 3,000 of whom are already scrutinizing travelers’ expressions and body language at airports and travel hubs nationwide, DHS officials say that FAST will add a potentially lifesaving layer of security to prevent another terrorist attack. “There’s only so much you can see with the naked eye,” DHS spokesperson John Verrico told AlterNet. “We can’t see somebody’s heart rate…. We may be able to see movements of the eye and changes in dilation of the pupil, but will those give us enough [information] to make a determination as to what we’re really seeing?”

Ideally, Verrico says, FAST mobile units would be used for security, not just at airports, but at “any sort of a large-scale event,” including sporting events or political rallies. (“When the Pope visited Washington D.C.,” he says, “it would have been nice to have something like this at the entrance of the stadium.”)

Few of the officers have been charged in the extrajudicial killings, which are often labeled in police reports as the deaths of suspects who resisted arrest, the report said.

The 122-page declaration echoes a 2008 United Nations’ finding that police throughout Brazil were responsible for a “significant portion” of 48,000 slayings the year before.

“Extrajudicial killing of criminal suspects is not the answer to violent crime,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The residents of Rio and Sao Paulo need more effective policing, not more violence from the police.”

Isabel Figueiredo, Brazil’s coordinator-general of human rights and public safety, acknowledged that police violence is a widespread problem and “it concerns the federal government a great deal.”

Figueiredo said authorities have launched a series of initiatives to confront the problem, including training police to respect human rights and the appropriate use of force, in addition to the purchase of less-lethal weapons for state police forces.

Security forces “have begun to understand that instead of solving the problem, confronting criminals with weapons leads to casualties on both sides,” she said.

As you may know, Obama’s public approval ratings are taking a beating. Millions of his former cult members have awakened with a splitting hangover to find their pockets turned inside out and eviction notices on the doors of their 4,000 square foot subprime mortgaged cardboard fuck boxes. Many who voted for Obama out of disgust for the Bush regime are now listening to the Republicans again on their car radios as they drive around looking for a suitable place to hide their vehicles from the repo man. Don’t construe this as support for the GOP. It’s just the standard ping ponging of disappointment and disgust that comes after the honeymoon is over with any administration. Most Americans’ party affiliations are the same as they were when Bush was elected. After all, Obama did not get elected on a landslide by any means; he got 51% of the vote.

Right now his approval ratings are in the 40th percentile and would be headed for the basement of the league were it not for the residual effect of the Kool-Aid love fest a year ago. However, millions of American liberals remain faithful, and believe Obama will arise from the dead in the third year and ascend to glory. You will find them at Huffington Post.

This frustrating ping pong game in which the margin of first time, disenchanted and undecided voters are batted back and forth has become the whole of American elections. That makes both the Republican and Democratic parties very happy, since it keeps the game down to fighting the enemy they know, each other, as opposed to being forced to deal with the real issues, or worse yet, an independent or third party candidate who might have a solution or two.

Another 13,500 troops will deploy by the end of spring 2010, including an additional 6,200 Marines from Regimental Combat Team-2 at Camp Lejeune; 800 from I Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, California; 3,400 troops from a Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, New York; and 4,100 support forces, according to the Department of Defense.

Cars entering the compound are channeled into gated lanes before being searched by a guard. A short distance beyond the security point, the road disappears into a gaping hole in a cliff face. The hole is sealed off by the thick, steel bars of a tall sliding gate controlled by guards carrying semiautomatic pistols. They are protecting a 25-foot-high passage that leads 22 stories down to Iron Mountain’s main archive facility, which takes up 145 acres of a 1,000-acre abandoned limestone mine.

Among dozens of red steel doors inserted in the rock face along corridors that create an elaborate subterranean honeycomb, you’ll find Room 48, an experiment in data center energy efficiency. Open for just six months, the room is used by Iron Mountain to discover the best way to use geothermal conditions and engineering designs to establish the perfect environment for electronic documents.

In October and November, the government spent $292 billion more than it took in, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said.

That was even worse than the same period last year, when the government was on its way to posting a record $1.4 trillion deficit for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

The federal budget has been battered by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, as tax revenues have plunged and spending on safety-net programs like unemployment insurance have skyrocketed.

The budget deficit was $176.4 billion in October, according to Treasury Department records, and the CBO estimated the deficit for November will have come in at $115 billion.

The CBO gave its figures in billions of dollars and said numbers may not add up to the totals because of rounding.

Receipts totaled $132 billion in November, the CBO estimated, down 9 percent from the same month last year. That was partly due to new legislation that gives increased tax write-offs to corporations.