Paging Uri Geller! The TSA, always looking to transcend the continuities of the physical world, will soon seek clairvoyance by electronic means, with a new device designed to read emotions:

The device, dubbed MALINTENT by inventors, uses sophisticated sensors to read body temperature, heart rate and respiration.

Analysed together, these factors can lead security services to potential terrorists.

Any suspects are pulled aside for questioning and then subjected to a second scan, which involve micro-facial scanning.

This equipment is able to read minute muscle movements which give further indications of criminal intent.

So far it can recognise seven primary emotions and emotional clues and will eventually have equipment which can analyse body movement, an eye scanner and a pheromone-reader.

More importantly, developers have programmed it to recognise the difference between someone who is simply stressed and a potential terrorist.

But there have already been concerns that the equipment is overly invasive and breaches people’s privacy.

We’ll have to hear more about this. Judging people’s emotions is a big part of successful law enforcement, but having a computer do it makes me a little leery. Has the science of measuring guilt gotten so advanced that this is an acceptable technology? What’s the false positive rate? Will we see such a device stand up in a courtroom?

But look to this as the justification for a rollout:

Inventors also claim it will slash queuing times at airports – and bring an end to a ban on liquids.

Watch the TSA gloss over any civil rights worries by promoting the speed and expediency arguments. (And then require slow secondary screenings and liquid prohibitions anyway, just because.)

Stay tuned…

Screenshot of what the “mind reader” output looks like below:

(image, modified to obnoxious heights with blingee)