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Cognitive Liberty News | December 2004
 CCLE
Contributes Comments to
United Nation's International Bioethics Commission
The
CCLE contributed written comments to guide the UN's draft of a
Declaration on Universal Norms on Bioethics in incorporating freedom of
thought protections. The CCLE stressed the need to incorporate clear
wording that protects brain privacy, autonomy and choice.
>>
Read this and other Top News for December
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Cognitive Liberty News | November 2004
Debate: Cognitive Enhancement and Human Dignity
Washington D.C.
Wrye Sententia, co-director of the CCLE, addressed members of the
President's Council on Bioethics at a national bioethics conference in
Washington, D.C. concerning their October 2003 Report, Beyond
Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness.
>> Read this
and other November Top News
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Cognitive Liberty News | October 2004
Revolutionary Minds!
CCLE's Richard Glen Boire Named One of
Eighteen "Revolutionary Minds Redefining Science."
>> Read this and
other October Top News |
September 28, 2004
TOP COGNITIVE LIBERTY
NEWS
A digest of the most important and interesting recent cognitive liberty
news, including:
- CCLE in the News:
two articles in the current issue of Reason
>>Read more
August 25, 2004
TOP COGNITIVE LIBERTY
NEWS
A digest of the most important and interesting recent cognitive liberty
news, including:
- Director of The
Corporation spotted in Cognitive Liberty T-Shirt!
- Articles:
"The 'Just Say No' Shot"; "Technology vs. Torture"; "Monkeys test
'hardworking gene'"
>> Read more
August 10, 2004
TOP COGNITIVE LIBERTY
NEWS
A digest of the most important and interesting recent cognitive liberty
news, including:
- Back issues of the
Journal of Cognitive Liberties for sale at reduced prices!
>> Buy now
- In the News:
Articles on Pharmacotherapy drugs including,
"New Ways to Loosen Addiction's Grip" & "Children to get
jabs against drug addiction"
>> Read more
July 21, 2004
TOP COGNITIVE LIBERTY
NEWS
A digest of the most important and interesting recent cognitive liberty
news, including:
- new volunteer forum at
Judges Against the Drug
War
- Wrye in Psychology
Today
- Richard on Canadian radio
- In the News: "Brain
implants 'read' monkey mind" and "Magnetic therapy for depression enter
widespread trials"
>> Read
more
July 1, 2004
Pharmacotherapy and the Future of the Drug War
A 50-page policy
report released by the non-profit Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics
warns that the war on drugs may be about to enter a new era “that expands
the drug war battlefield from the Colombian coca farms and the Middle
Eastern poppy fields, to a new terrain directly inside the bodies and brains
of drug users.”
The report is the first comprehensive and critical analysis of
‘pharmacotherapy,’ the use of new medications designed to block the
effects of illegal drugs.
>> Read
More
June 23, 2004
Peyote Case Decided by Utah Supreme
Court
Peyote is a psychotropic cactus that has been used as a religious
sacrament for centuries. Today, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that a federal
exemption for peyote-using members of the Native American Church must be
interpreted as applying to non-Indians and Indians alike. Utah’s Controlled
Substances Act incorporates the federal exemption, ruled the court, and
because the plain language of the federal exemption is not limited to
Indians, it must be read as applicable to Linda and James Mooney, both of
whom are non-Indian members of the Native American Church.
>> Read more
June 22, 2004
First Implant for Depression Recommended for FDA Approval
An FDA expert advisory pannel has recommended approval of
the first implantable device for the treatment of a
psychiatric disorder. The device is implanted in a person's
neck and electronically stimulates the vagus nerve, which is
believed to regulate mood. Read more about this device on
CCLE Advisor Zack Lynch's Brainwaves column.
>> Read more
June 18, 2004
Strange food for thought
By Gregory Lamb|
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
What used to be confined to
speculative fiction is fast becoming scientific fact. Brain boosting, or
"neural enhancement," is already being done - and much more powerful
techniques are on the way. Some observers say we're rushing into this
brain-gain revolution without sufficient thought or preparation... But even
others with ethical concerns say drawing such a "bright line" between the
use of a drug or other technology for therapy or for enhancement is
problematic. Pharmaceutical companies are going to want to produce and
market drugs that appeal to 100 percent of the population, not just the
minority who are sick at any given time, Mr. Boire points out. After
all, many people would like a better memory, to be able to think a little
more quickly, or to forget troubling memories. Yet a number of issues of
personal liberty are being raised, he says. "What rights does the person
have to manage their own thought processes?" Boire asks. "Thought is not
just something that is changed by reading a book or hearing a speaker. Now,
and more and more, as time goes on, thought will be changed by
pharmacological agents." >> Read
More
June 2, 2004
FBI Abducts Artists, Seizes
Art
Feds Unable to Distinguish Art from Bioterrorism
FBI ARRESTS CRITICAL ART ENSEMBLE MEMBER PROF. STEVE KURTZ
The Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) is an internationally-recognized group
of five artists and intellectuals whose work examines and critiques
biotechnology, information technology and media studies. The arrest and
pending indictment of CAE member Steve Kurtz on "bioweapons" charges
reveals the current fragility of freedom of thought and freedom of
expression. The CCLE urges all our supporters to read the following press
release and contribute what you can to Dr. Kurtz's legal defense.
>> Read More
May 19, 2004
The NeuroAge - Zack Lynch in
Conversation with R.U. Sirius
Zack Lynch, CCLE Advisor and author of the forthcoming book Neurosociety:
How Brain Science Will Shape The Future of Business, Politics, and Culture,
believes that neurotechnology will be the next driving technology that
will shape humanity’s future. In this exceptional conversation with R.U.
Sirius, Zack shares his thoughts on a dazzling array of topics including the
the coming wave of neuroceuticals, how people will be able to use these new
tools for mental health to enable them to live better, and how they will
likely impact economic productivity and personal well being.
>> Read More
April 29, 2004
No Ritalin, No Education?
CCLE Announces Campaign to Return Choice to Parents
The CCLE today launches “Making Choices for Children,” a national campaign
designed to call attention to the issue of school benefits being conditioned
on the use of psychostimulants, and to educate parents on their
legal right to make medication decisions for their children, free of
coercion by school authorities.
>> Read More
April 23, 2004
We hold these freedoms to be self-evident...
By Liz Else, New Scientist, Apr 2004
"Do you want to block traumatic memories from scarring your mind? Perhaps
you do, but would you be happy if someone else did it for you? Or how about
receiving marketing messages beamed directly at you in hypersonic waves?
Mind control is getting smarter by the minute, says Richard Glen Boire,
co-founder of the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics in California.
And, as he told Liz Else, we ain't seen nothing yet..."
>> Read More
April 20, 2004
Using M.R.I.’s
to See Politics on the Brain
John Tierney, New York
Times, April 20,2004
The CCLE
has been watching the "neuromarketing" field develop over the past several
years. An article in today's New York Times adds fuel to our concerns about
neuromarketing being used for political purposes. The race seems to be on
between using sophisticated brain imaging to guard against manipulative
political advertising, versus using it to produce such advertising.
>> Read More
April 16, 2004
Experts to Explore Breakthrough Technologies
at The Arlington Institute
04/14/2004 - ARLINGTON, VA - (MARKET WIRE) - Technology experts,
entrepreneurs, investors, academics, policy makers, and journalists will
peer into humanity's future, spending two days looking at breakthrough
technologies and their global impact on April 27-28th. The event,
`Breakthrough Technologies for the World's Biggest Problems,` will be held
at The Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington, VA. The Center for Cognitive
Liberty & Ethics is a sponsor of this event.
>> Read More
April 14, 2004
With Tiny Brain Implants, Just Thinking May Make It So
Andrew Pollack, New York Times, April 13, 2004
The Food and Drug Administration
has approved a clinical trial in which five paralyzed people will have small
computer chips implanted into their brains in an effort to enable them to
operate devices by thought alone.
>> Read More
FDA Approves Human Brain
Implant Devices
Justin Pope, AP Business Writer, April 14, 2004
>> Read More
April 5, 2004
Neurotech in the News
Murder in mind
Clint Witchalls, The Guardian (UK), March 25, 2004
"Could reading the thoughts of criminals help free the innocent?" A
discussion of the use of Brain Fingerprinting in the case of Jimmy Ray
Slaughter; CCLE's Wrye Sententia quoted.
>>Read more
New wave neurotechnology: small-scale makes big promises
Kelly Morris, The Lancet Neurology (UK), Vol 3 April 2004
A Newsdesk article, quoting Wrye Sententia, which explores the future
of small-scale neurotechnologies.
>>Read more
The Quest to Forget
Robin Marantz Henig, The New York Times Magazine, April 4, 2004
A reductive article concerning memory management drugs that fails to raise
key issues about who will be making these choices.
>>Read more
>>Read Wrye Sententia's Letter to the
Editor in response to this article
March 29, 2004
Cognitive Liberty: What is the Future of Freedom of Thought in the
Age of Neurocops, Brain Fingerprinting, Memory Management Drugs, and
Hypersonic Sound?
Hear Richard Glen Boire speak at Penn State's Rock Ethics Institute at 4pm
on Monday, April 5th.
>>For more
information
March 25, 2004
Is it Your Brain?
R.U. Sirius in Conversation with Wrye Sententia
Vol. 1, No. 5
Neofiles, (2004)
Cognitive liberty ...
the individual’s right to control her own brain. It’s the sort of thing that
has been the subject of beaucoup novels and movies. It’s been a topic of
conversation — directly or indirectly — at one point or another, for almost
every thinking person living in advanced technological civilization. It’s
been floating in the psychic ether at least since Orwell’s 1984 and
Huxley’s Brave New World ... hell, maybe since the first mesmerist
tricked the other tribe members into giving him most of the coconuts. But I
don’t believe there has ever been an organization dedicated to the defense
of freedom of thought. Enter The Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics,
operating out of Davis, California — advocating, analyzing, and educating
around cognitive liberty issues; filing amicus briefs and generally bringing
brain rights into the civil realm. >> Read
More
March 10, 2004
Revving up the brain
By Julie Deardorff (c), Chicago Tribune, March 7, 2004
"The controversial prescription drug Ritalin, best known as a treatment for
children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, has been co-opted by a
new population: healthy people trying to boost their mental performance."
>>Read more
March 8, 2004
Manipulating your mind
European Molecular
Biology Organization Reports: Vol.5, No.3, 2004
"The Decade of the Brain, proclaimed by US President George Bush in 1990,
passed without making much of an obvious impact. But it did in fact produce
considerable scientific advances in neurobiology.... This knowledge is
slowly trickling down to society as well, be it in the pharmaceutical
industry, to parents concerned with their child's performance in school, to
students looking for chemical helpers to pass their exams....
In a way, Ritalin is neuroethics 'in a nutshell', commented Wrye
Sententia, co-director of the CCLE and head of its programme on neuroethics....
[C]ognitive liberty, as Sententia described it, would have to rest on better
public education and understanding about the risks and benefits, the
potentials and myths of neurobiology."
>> Read More
March 4, 2004
Bioethics or Biopolitics?
CCLE comments to the
Government Reform Committee in the
U.S. House of Representatives, which is currently assessing the treatment of
science and scientists by the Bush Administration:
"President
Bush's decision to dismiss two scientists from his Council on Bioethics,
and replace them with conservatives who will toe the party line, makes plain
that the Council is more about biopolitics than bioethics.
>> Read More
March 3, 2004
New Bill Seeks to Protect Your Medical
Privacy
The CCLE is a member of the Medical Privacy
Coalition, which is concerned about the misleadingly titled "Federal Medical
Privacy Rule." Rather than
protect medical privacy, this law actually eliminates individuals’ freedom
to give or withhold consent regarding the release of their personal health
information to many persons for many purposes. Fortunately a new bill seeks
to protect your medical privacy, and there are simple things you can do.
>> Read More
March 1, 2004
Reading the Consumer Mind: The age
of neuromarketing has dawned
By Douglas Rushkoff, (c)
NyPress.com, Feb. 2004.
By now, most of us in the appropriately concerned corners have heard at
least something about Emory University’s neuromarketing research center, the
BrightHouse Institute for Thought Sciences. The latest innovation in a
never-ending quest to decode consumer behaviors, the institute uses Emory
University Hospital’s Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment to scan the
brains of human subjects on behalf of corporate clients such as Coca-Cola,
K-mart and Home Depot. >> Read
More
February 19, 2004
Brain fingerprints under
scrutiny
By Becky McCall
(c) BBC Feb. 17, 2004
A controversial technique for identifying a criminal mind
using involuntary brainwaves that could reveal guilt or
innocence is about to take centre stage in a last-chance
court appeal against a death-row conviction in the US.
The technique, called "brain fingerprinting", has already
been tested by the FBI and has now become part of the key
evidence to overturn the murder conviction of Jimmy Ray
Slaughter who is facing execution in Oklahoma.
>> Read More
February 11, 2004
Blanks for the memories:
Someday you may be
able to take a pill to forget painful recollections
By Scott LaFee,
(c) San Diego Union Tribune Feb. 11, 2004
There's a scene in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" where the protagonist implores a
doctor to treat Lady Macbeth, who is wracked by memories of past bad acts...
Lady Macbeth is condemned to live with her bad memories. Recalling our past
is a part of the human condition. But what if that reality changed? What if
people – 400 years after Shakespeare asked – could take a pill to
purposefully dim – perhaps erase – our most painful and unwanted memories?
The notion has long been a favorite of fiction writers, from Shakespeare to
fantasists like the late Philip K. Dick, but serious people – scientists and
scholars – now believe it might be possible.
>> Read More
February 3, 2004
Brain fingerprinting' startup moving from Iowa to Seattle
By Luke Timmerman (c) Seattle Times Feb 2, 2004
Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, a startup with a
controversial, almost science-fictionlike method of measuring brainwaves to
detect lies or hidden thoughts, is moving from Iowa to try to build its
business in Seattle. ... Wrye Sententia, co-director of the Center for
Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, said her organization is worried that demand
is so strong for improved screening of terrorists in airports that
brain-scanning technologies could be used against people's will and rushed
into the market before being proven accurate. "We're all for it if people can use it to clear
their name of a crime, but it should be a voluntary use," Sententia said.
"But what a person knows and thinks is private, and this technology really
pushes the question of whether thoughts are private."
>> Read More
February 2, 2004
Advertisers probe brains, raise
fears
By DAVID WAHLBERG,
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (c) Feb 1, 2004
When Peter Graser
underwent an MRI scan at Emory University, doctors weren't looking for
disease. Instead, brain researchers flashed images -- Madonna, broccoli,
sushi, a Ford truck, a golden retriever, Bill Clinton, Coca-Cola -- before
the 37-year-old Marietta resident's eyes as he lay inside the coffin-like
tube of the magnetic resonance imaging machine. The scientists discovered a
biological clue to what drives consumers: Whenever Graser and a dozen other
study volunteers saw a picture they particularly liked, their brains showed
increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex -- an area associated
with preference, or sense of self.
>> Read More
January
16, 2004
Cognitive Liberty in the Age of Memory-management Drugs
The pills are at least
five years away, but the question is here now: Will you have a right to
boost or erase your own memory?
If there were a medication that could safely and significantly improve your
memory, would you use it? What if you could take a pill that would
selectively erase an unwanted memory—perhaps of an early childhood trauma
that still haunts your adult life?
Memory-management drugs such as these are not a
question of if, but of when. >>
Read More
January 12, 2004
2004 NBIC Conference: Converging Technologies for
Improving Human Performance: Join CCLE's Co-Director Wrye Sententia and CCLE
Advisor Zack Lynch in NYC next month!
The Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics is proud to announce that for the
second year in a row we will be sponsoring the NBIC Convergence Conference.
A remarkable panel of nationally recognized experts, including Wrye
Sententia, Zack Lynch, and Nobel prize winner Eric Kandel, will be
presenting the latest information about the synergistic combination of four
major provinces of science and technology: Nanoscience and
nanotechnology; Biotechnology and biomedicine, including genetic
engineering; Information technology, including computing and
communications; Cognitive science, including cognitive neuroscience.
>> Read More
January 8, 2004
Mentally ill Inmate Put to
Death
after Medical “Treatment” Prepares Execution
Death row inmate
Charles Singleton, 44, died by lethal injection at the Cummins Unit Prison
near Varner, Arkansas on Tuesday, January 6, but not before prison medical
staff injected him with a mind-altering drug intended to improve his
understanding of the process. >> Read
More
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