With funding from the US Department of Homeland Security, Draper Laboratory and other collaborators are building technology to detect potential terrorists with cameras and noninvasive sensors that monitor eye blinks, heart rate, and even fidgeting. The project, called the “Future Attribute Screening Technology,’’ is aimed at allowing security checkpoint personnel at airports or large public events to make better, faster decisions about whether a person should get follow-up screening. At a demonstration of the technology this week, project manager Robert P. Burns said the idea is to track a set of involuntary physiological reactions that might slip by a human observer. These occur when a person harbors malicious intent - but not when someone is late for a flight or annoyed by something else, he said, citing years of research into the psychology of deception.

Perhaps we could work on a machine that tells us whether a person has the wherewithall to interfere with a flight (such as by carrying exposives) and not worry about whether they have the desire to interfere with the flight.