Prison Camp or “Prison Clinic?” - Neurotechnology in National Security and Defense - page 209

resemble a typical biological threat. This leads to the second question. Why would the
U.S. government focus on the use of medical technology on vulnerable populations?
Recall that one of Foucault's reasons for discussing biopower was his interest in
describing State racism. The word “racism” may be somewhat misleading, given that
the subjects of State racism are not always members of a particular race. They are
individuals who the State deems to be a threat to the health of the overall population.
As such, they are subject to repression or extermination in an effort to maintain the
health of the nation. As I claimed before, this marginalization or genocide can be
metaphorically compared to a surgeon removing a tumor. The tragedies of Nazi-era
Germany certainly are clear examples of this sort of State racism, but those of us in
the United States should not be deluded into thinking that the nation is above such
atrocities. The Tuskegee experiments, overseen by the U.S. Public Health Service,
are but one clear example where the State used medical means to inflict harm on
a marginalized population (Brandt 1978). Returning to the Nazis, we can look to
the Nuremburg trial and find another example of the U.S. State racism in the testi-
mony of concentration camp physicians. One of the defenses that these physicians
made was that U.S. researchers had deliberately infected hundreds of prison inmates
with deadly diseases in order to increase the U.S. body of medical knowledge. This
includes over 800 inmates who were infected with malaria plasmodia in the 1920s
(Agamben 1998, p. 90). 13 According to this argument, the doctors at Auschwitz and
the University of Chicago were not so different. We can find another clear example
of this State racism at Guantanamo Bay.
This discussion of biopower allows one to see Guantanamo in a new light and
helps to show why the State would want to utilize medical technology, such as fMRI,
on detainees. According to this analysis, Guantanamo is not a prison so much as it is
a quarantine zone. The prisoners can be regarded as biological threats that the State
must isolate in an effort to guard the general population. The prisoner becomes a
“disease” to be contained or eradicated. This dehumanization is evident from fre-
quent human rights abuses, allegations of torture, denial of due process, and so on.
They truly are considered by the government to be “those who were missed by the
bombs” (Žižek 2004). Given that the State characterizes these individuals as a bio-
logical threat, it should come as no surprise that the State would use a medical tool
to assist in mitigating or removing the threat to the greatest possible extent. In this
context, fMRI is more than a form of lie detector. It is a tool used to diagnose a
threat to the State in the same way that a physician utilizes a blood test to diagnose
a threat to the body. It seems that we now have answers to the first two questions.
The DHS is drawn to medical technology due to the fact that a biopolitical State
takes on a profoundly clinical character. The neat line between the political and the
medical disappears, and the State uses medical technology for political ends. This
is particularly apparent with regard to the use of medical technology on vulnerable
populations. These dehumanized groups are treated as biological threats, as a sort of
anthropomorphic disease, which the State must isolate, study, and eradicate.
This leads to a final question. Marks claims that we ought to search for “legitimate
nonclinical applications” of fMRI technology. The tone of his argument implies that
the current national security landscape and the inaccuracy of fMRI lie detection
technology render this nonclinical application of medical technology illegitimate.