Prison Camp or “Prison Clinic?” - Neurotechnology in National Security and Defense - page 200

becomes a tool of oppression, rather than a tool of healing. As such it is illegitimate
to use neuroimaging for the purposes of national security.
In what follows, I will challenge some of the background assumptions made
by the likes of Marks and Mandavilli. This is not to say that I disagree with them
insofar as they say nonclinical applications of brain scanning are unethical in cer-
tain contexts, such as the environment of national security. Far from it. It seems
quite reasonable to cast a dubious eye on the fMRI as a lie detector, and the sys-
tematic violation of human rights associated with some aspects of national security
are clearly matters of ethical concern. What I will challenge is the background
assumption that we can call fMRI scans in the national security context “nonclinical”
in the first place, and the connected claim that these uses of fMRI technology are
necessarily illegitimate from a normative point of view. On the contrary, certain
interpretations of contemporary power structures seem to indicate that this use
of neuroimaging has a profoundly clinical character, and as such may be medi-
cally legitimate (in a nonnormative sense). Michel Foucault's account of biopower
and the clinical character of the State will serve as a launching point for this
discussion.
Throughout this work, I will focus on Guantanamo Bay as a concrete national
security space (Thomsen 2010). 1 I chose Guantanamo for several reasons. Over time
it has become synonymous with the darker aspects of post 9/11 national security,
given the compromised rights status of detainees and the violation of anything that
resembles due process. It is also a space where the issue of lie detection is quite
prevalent. One of the functions of this prison camp is to extract information from
high-profile “enemy combatants.” Lie detectors are a favorite tool of interrogators,
in spite of their frequent ineffectiveness. This chapter is structured as follows. First
I will introduce fMRI and show how it relates to lie detection in a national security
context. Next, I will describe an objection (derived from Jonathan Marks) to the
use of fMRI as a lie detector. Following this description, I will offer a Foucauldian
analysis of State power and show how this analysis complicates the claim that fMRI
lie detecting technology is illegitimate and nonclinical. I will conclude with a call to
action that takes this analysis into account.
fMRI LIE DETECTORS AND NATIONAL SECURITY
In the interest of framing our larger discussion, it is necessary to offer a brief descrip-
tion of what fMRI technology measures and how these measurements affect the
national security landscape. fMRI gauges brain activity by measuring blood oxi-
dation levels in the brain of a subject. These data are then often displayed as an
“activation map,” a three-dimensional representation of a brain with the increased
blood oxidation levels (Devlin et al. 2005). An increase in brain activity in a par-
ticular area results in an increased need for oxygen. By measuring this increase
in oxygen, fMRI technology is able to measure which parts of the brain are more
active at any given time. For example, let us pretend that I am currently receiving an
fMRI scan. While in the scanner, a researcher jabs my foot with a sharp instrument,
which in turn produces a significant amount of pain. The part of my brain associated
with pain reception would see a spike in activity, and as such an increased level of