 Updated July 2, 2000
Assumption: A person who has committed a crime has the details of that crime stored in his memory. What if there were to be discovered a method whereby the details stored in the brain could be retrieved....But can this be done?
Dr. Lawrence A. Farwell, along with several other researchers, founded a human brain research laboratory after Dr. Farwell postulated that, indeed, information stored in the brain can be revealed "with extremely high accuracy" by Farwell's brain-wave response measurement using a multifaceted electroencephalographic response. If we find the "guilty knowledge" stored in a person's brain, what do we have?
Is this an Orwellian crime fighting tool? Perhaps all we have to do is drag suspects in, put them on the EEG machine and read their memory? Dr. Farwell suggests use of the term "Orwellian" is misplaced since Orwell's 1984 described a society in which innocent people were constantly in fear of an extremely controlling government that did not value the truth. His "brain fingerprinting" helps to eliminate this kind of fear and oppression, he suggests. Also, one cannot "drag suspects in" to test them because it is physically impossible to test someone who resists the test. According to Dr. Farwell, brain-wave data can be obtained only if a person sits reasonably still and looks at the computer screen. Is it "science"? Is this just another polygraph? We do not have the answers. However, with permission of its inventor, Dr. Lawrence A. Farwell, we are printing a brief summary of the technology as prepared by the creator of the technology.
We would appreciate any additional information, or thoughts, that readers have about the evidential applications of this new technique, and will post further information as it becomes available.
Send comments to: AndreMoenssens@Forensic-Evidence.com
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