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An internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security document indicates that a controversial program designed to predict whether a person will commit a crime is already being tested on some members of the public voluntarily, CNET has learned. If this sounds a bit like the Tom Cruise movie called "Minority Report," or the CBS drama "Person of Interest," it is. But where "Minority Report" author Philip K. Dick enlisted psychics to predict crimes, DHS is betting on algorithms: it's building a "prototype screening facility" that it hopes will use factors such as ethnicity, gender, breathing, and heart rate to "detect cues...

Got home from the airport last night just in time to see Channel 8's piece on how Dallas PD and the FBI are prepping for the 10th anniversary of September 11. Would have been home a little sooner, but, ya know, I stopped by a Northwest Highway construction site. Oh -- and I was briefly detained by a man with a badge at Dallas-Fort Worth International. Perhaps I should explain. I was out of town yesterday, in Los Angeles. Left Tuesday night, came back Wednesday night. Very uneventful. Left the hotel room just long enough to do an interview. Arrived...

Straight out of Minority Report a new Homeland Security program would subject Americans to pre-crime interrogations and physiological scans to detect people who are intending to commit a terrorist act at sports stadiums, malls, airports and other public places has moved closer to being implemented after the FAST program passed its first round of testing at an undisclosed location in northeast US. The system uses a computer program that studies physiological indicators of a person, such as heart rate and the steadiness of a person’s gaze, and then uses the data to make a judgment on whether that individual has...

DETROIT (WXYZ) - The jury has found that a proposed protest by Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, the largest mosque in the United States, is likely to breach the peace and incite violence. The jury has been debating since 3:30 p.m .Thursday. The main issue of the trial was whether or not Jones' main purpose was to say or do something that would incite violence.

Washington is confused; Hollywood is not real. In the movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise heads a police division called “Pre-crime.” I watched it and thought: ’Cool movie.’ John Ashcroft watched it and thought: ’Let’s do it!’ Recently Congress attempted to reauthorize 3 (three) “non-controversial” (read: “completely unconstitutional”) sections of The Patriot Act. For those who like to see for themselves google these variously: patriot act sec. 1805; patriot act sec. 1861; or, patriot act sec. 1862 Now, I could copy and paste the pertinent parts, but then you wouldn’t read it, so I will use a modicum of artistic license…...

To hear them tell it, the officers who apprehended 39-year-old David Pyles on March 8 thwarted a mass murder. The cops “were able to successfully take a potentially volatile male subject into protective custody for a mental evaluation,” the Medford, Oregon, police department announced in a press release. The subject had been placed on administrative leave from his job not long before, was “very disgruntled,” and had recently purchased several firearms. “Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers,” the press release said. Fortunately, Pyles “voluntarily” turned himself over to police custody,...

In his 1956 story, published in Fantastic Universe Magazine, science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick) envisioned a dystopian future in which murders were prevented before they happened. Three mutant humans, known as “precogs,” see the murders in the future and warn the police. The police then arrive in SWAT Teams and take-away the bewildered “pre-murderer,” thus stopping the murder in question and creating a changed timeline (the film 2002 version of the story changes many of the original’s details). Yet in another example of life imitating fiction, the U.S. Congress and President Obama are running full-bore to force “precrime...

There are no naked pre-cogs inside glowing jacuzzis yet, but the Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice will use analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents, putting potential offenders under specific prevention and education programs. Goodbye, human rights! They will use this software on juvenile delinquents, using a series of variables to determine the potential for these people to commit another crime. Depending on this probability, they will put them under specific re-education programs. Deepak Advani—vice president of predictive analytics at IBM—says the system gives "reliable projections" so governments can take "action in real time" to "prevent criminal activities?"...

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration and foreign governments will roll out in the next few weeks a more intelligence-based system to try to stop potentially dangerous passengers from boarding U.S.-bound flights, a senior administration official said. The new system is the product of a three-month review ordered by President Barack Obama after the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. It will replace mandatory secondary screening for all passengers from 14 countries, including nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism and many Muslim-majority countries. That policy—widely criticized as too broad to be effective—was put in place shortly after the...

To hear them tell it, the five police agencies who apprehended 39-year-old Oregonian David Pyles early on the morning of March 8 thwarted another lone wolf mass murderer. The police "were able to successfully take a potentially volatile male subject into protective custody for a mental evaluation," announced a press release put out by the Medford, Oregon, police department. The subject had recently been placed on administrative leave from his job, was "very disgruntled," and had recently purchased several firearms. "Local Law Enforcement agencies were extremely concerned that the subject was planning retaliation against his employers," the release said. Fortunately,...

The Medford man whose firearms were seized by police for safekeeping Monday when he was taken into protective custody has asked for their return. David J. Pyles has asked police to return the items taken from him when a SWAT team and negotiators descended on his Effie Street home early Monday. He sent an e-mailed request today, forwarding copies to legislators and media outlets. Medford police said they were watching the Effie Street home starting Sunday night in response to law enforcement concerns about the man after he was placed on administrative leave from his job on Thursday. A Medford...

<p>Concerns about an Oregon Department of Transportation employee who purchased several guns after being placed on leave prompted law enforcement across Southern Oregon to step in.</p> <p>Negotiators and a SWAT team from Medford police safely took a man — whose name wasn't released — into protective custody Monday morning in the 500 block of Effie Street, Medford police said in a news release.</p>

Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue is a wanted man -- at least according to the liberal activist group that's put a de facto bounty on his head. A network of liberal groups known as Velvet Revolution started an ad campaign offering $200,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the man whose trade organization has become a thorn in the side of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. The group is not leveling any specific charges of criminal behavior. Rather, it is casting a wide net, fishing for any whistleblowers from Donohue's past who might come forward...

Inspectors from Federal Protective Services — a branch of the Homeland Security Department — arrested a Bettendorf chiropractor Friday accused of making harassing phone calls to the Department of Veterans Affairs office in Des Moines. Kenneth C. Tennant, 45, 3447 Magnolia Court, remained in the Polk County, Iowa, jail late Friday afternoon, charged with third-degree harassment. Although it is a state charge — and a misdemeanor — Federal Protective Service, or FPS, personnel were involved because the VA office is a federal facility, said special agent Wil Calvey. The FPS provides law enforcement and security services to more than 1...

<p>Police shot a Mesa teenager 10 times as he held a knife and threatened suicide at his parents' home last week, the family's attorney said Monday.</p> <p>Edward Fitzhugh, attorney for the family of Mario Albert Madrigal Jr., said Valley pathologist Dr. Richard Trepeta was hired to perform an independent autopsy on the 15-year-old.</p>

EXCLUSIVE: SPIELBERG SIDES WITH BUSH ON FBI PRECRIME; FILM WARNS OF FUTURE GOVERNMENT ROLE; DREAMWORKS EXEC CALLS ASHCROFT 'SCARY' "I am willing to give up some of my personal freedoms in order to stop 9/11 from ever happening again," masterdirector Steven Spielberg declares... MORE...