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Sunday, January 29, 2017

Terrorism and COGITO


John R. Houk
© January 29, 2017

Rachel Ehrenfeld writes about the extreme vetting process that President Trump could use to quickly detect if a person has terrorist designs against the United States. Ehrenfeld has an idea based on some technology created in Israel yet commissioned by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Check out this quote from Ehrenfeld on the technology:

An effective way to find out the applicant’s intentions would be screening through an efficient, unbiased, and non-intrusive system.  Such a system was developed by an Israeli company with a grant from the Department of Homeland Security, which the Obama administration refused to utilize.

The Suspect Detection System (SDS) has developed counter-terrorist and insider threat detection technology named COGITO.  This technology enables law enforcement agencies to rapidly investigate U.S. visa applicants (and other travelers) entering the country, insider threats among employees, etc.

COGITO technology is an automated interrogation system that can determine in 5-7 minutes if an individual is harboring hostile intent.  The system interviews the examinee with up to 36 questions while measuring the psychophysical signals of the human body.  The system has 95% accuracy and has helped security agencies globally to catch terrorists and solve crimes.

I did a little looking into this COGITO technology. My impression is the concept was initially developed for companies to use to vet their new employees with something more efficiency than a lengthy lie detector test. Evidently the COGITO technology can be streamlined for many psych detection purposes including terrorism.

In the process of investigating “COGITO” I discovered it is not an acronym for some scientific gizmo, rather it is an actual word. Here is an interesting definition for “cogito”:

1: the philosophical principle that one's existence is demonstrated by the fact that one thinks

2: the intellectual processes of the self or ego

Origin and Etymology of cogito
New Latin cogito, ergo sum, literally, I think, therefore I am, principle stated by René Descartes

First Known Use: 1838 (Definition of cogito; Merriam-Webster)

Apparently SDS technology has taken a philosophical and retrofitted it to a psychological examination of discovering – so-to-speak – who a person is.

Here is the short version of the SDS COGITO technology that can be employed:

Suspect Detection Systems Inc.'s Cogito Data Center (Cogito DC) is a central knowledgebase and control server that serves as a complete analytical back office to the Cogito Rapid Interrogation System. Cogito DC will enable SDS customers to create a central storage base of all examinee data. The interrogation system collects an vast amount of data with each examination beginning with a scan of the examinees passport or identification card. The system then scans unique biometric identification information including fingerprint and iris (eye) imaging, and voice signature. The Cogito DC knowledgebase then aggregates and analyzes the interrogation results of all examinees. The system compares test results of potential suspects from common backgrounds, which then enables interrogators to perform intelligence analysis over the entire scope of collected metadata. (Cogito Data Center; SUSPECT DETECTION SYSTEMS INC.)

And here is an excerpt from the longer version of the technology behind COGITO:

General

The COGITO system is a technology-based concept and solution for the detection of suspects harboring malicious intent serves for detection of “Internal Threat” (employees of governmental agencies and enterprises that have destructive intents), Police interrogations and border security. The COGITO concept is derived from extensive interdisciplinary know-how in security, polygraph testing and field-proven security-related interrogation techniques.

The COGITO core technology is based on proprietary software – an “expert system” that emulates an investigator’s Modus Operandi by incorporating “soft decision-making” algorithms such as “Neural Networks” and “Fuzzy Logic”. All hardware elements are best-of-breed off-the-shelf third-party components. The technical solution is comprised of a front-end, the ‘Test Station’, and a back-office where multiple-station and multiple-site data is stored, managed and distributed.

COGITO presents a significant conceptual breakthrough that can assist international aviation and homeland security authorities in responding to increasingly sophisticated means of international terrorism. This concept is based on several well-established paradigms and assumptions.

Intent vs. Means

The COGITO concept focuses on detecting terrorist (malicious) intent as opposed to detecting the means (i.e. explosives or weapons). The value of detecting intent is based on several well-founded and proven assumptions. As proven in the 9/11 and many other terrorist attacks when entering a country, terrorists will not necessarily carry weapons or devices on their person. This has been well demonstrated in several international terror attacks. Moreover, terrorists with intent of perpetrating a chemical, biological or atomic terrorist attack are all the more not likely to carry such devices on their person while entering the United States through an official checkpoint or border crossing.


Stimulated Psycho Physical Reaction (SPPR)

The COGITO method is based on stimulating examinees with specific terrorism-related triggers using a “direct contact, interaction, conscious, portal” approach:

            The COGITO method postulates that specific words or questions can force terrorist to generate a SPPR that is identifiably different than that of a non-terrorist’s SPPR to the same words or questions. Based on extensive field experience accumulated by Israeli security agencies, the only common characteristic to all suicide bombers and “effective terrorists” is their desire not to be caught by security authorities. The terrorist’s fundamental motivation to successfully perform the terrorist act and not be caught by security authorities clearly differentiates him from the innocent person not harboring such intent. This identifiable motivation is known as the “terrorist hunting–hunted syndrome” (THHS). In order to identify and isolate the terrorist, one needs to READ THE REST ([COGITO] TECHNOLOGY; Suspect Detection Systems: Human Psychophysiology Behavour Analysis)

On a personal level and at least a palpable negative argument for this rather quick vetting process, I think this is something President Trump should seriously take a look at! ESPECIALLY since President Barack Hussein Obama rejected this technology as a foreign immigrant vetting process.

Now for the Rachel Ehrenfeld article.

JRH 1/29/17
***************
Protecting America from ill-intended refugees

By Rachel Ehrenfeld @ American Thinker
January 28th, 2017 2:17PM

This is an updated version of the article on American ThinkerProtecting America from ill-intended refugees – 

President Donald Trump’s executive order on “Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals,” has been met, as anticipated, with alarm by opponents at home and abroad. Some resent the new American president and his actions to protect the country, as he promised to do. Others, like the Muslim Brotherhood’s affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), protest the suspension of U.S. visas to Muslim refugees and travelers from the radical -Islamic-terrorist prone countries Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.

His executive order proclaims (emphasis added): “The United States must be vigilant during the visa issuance process to ensure that those approved for admission do not intend to harm Americans and that they have no ties to terrorism. In order to protect Americans, we must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes towards our country and its founding principles. Section 2 of the active order states that the policy of the U.S. is “(a) protect our citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and (b) prevent the admission of foreign nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes.”

To prevent such individuals from entering the U.S., the executive order requests the development of a uniform screening program, which in fact would reinforce requirements that have been deliberately ignored by the Obama administration.

However, radical-Islamic terrorists are not limited to the countries list by the EO. There are unknown numbers of ISIS volunteers who returned to Europe and other Western nations, which the new EO exempts. But even if the screening is done by the book, and all necessary documentation has been obtained and verified, and the applicant declares he holds no ill intentions toward America and Americans, nothing available to the screeners today would easily reveal that he or she is lying.

An effective way to find out the applicant’s intentions would be screening through an efficient, unbiased, and non-intrusive system.  Such a system was developed by an Israeli company with a grant from the Department of Homeland Security, which the Obama administration refused to utilize.

The Suspect Detection System (SDS) has developed counter-terrorist and insider threat detection technology named COGITO.  This technology enables law enforcement agencies to rapidly investigate U.S. visa applicants (and other travelers) entering the country, insider threats among employees, etc.

COGITO technology is an automated interrogation system that can determine in 5-7 minutes if an individual is harboring hostile intent.  The system interviews the examinee with up to 36 questions while measuring the psychophysical signals of the human body.  The system has 95% accuracy and has helped security agencies globally to catch terrorists and solve crimes.

According to the company’s website, the SDS allows the screening of a large number of people in a short time. It “does not require operator training. One operator can handle simultaneously ten stations.  It has a central management and database system that allows storing all tests results, analysis, and data mining, and is deployed and integrated with governmental agencies.”  Using this system would eliminate the need to use often biased U.S. Consulate employees.  Moreover, the SDS uses an automated decision-making system, which is “adaptable to a variety of different questioning contexts, different cultures, and languages. The examination lasts 5 minutes when there are no indications of harmful intent, and 7 minutes to ascertain it (with only 4% false positive, and 10% false negative).”

The COGITO is used in 15 countries including Israel, Singapore, China, India, and Mexico.  U.S. airlines operating in Latin America are using COGITO to check their employees.

But last year DHS refused to use the SDS, claiming that it “would constitute an intrusion on the privacy of those screened by the system” and “[i]t may reflect on VISA applicants or Immigrant’s civil rights.”  However, foreigners applying for a U.S. visa are not protected by American laws.

SDS capability to detect intent seems to fit President Trump’s promise of “extreme vetting” of Muslim refugees from high-risk regions.  This and other similarly objective systems would not only assist in making America safer but also be in keeping its policy and tradition of accepting refugees who do not wish us harm.

~~~
*This is an updated version of the article on American ThinkerProtecting America from ill-intended refugees
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Terrorism and COGITO
John R. Houk
© January 29, 2017
_________________
Protecting America from ill-intended refugees

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