Detecting Intentions: The Value of STS for Elucidating Conceptual Shifts in Truth Verification

• In Event: STS and Security Studies: Expertise, Infrastructures and Practices - II

Abstract

Lie detection procedures for critical security settings are all but new, particularly in the USA. Since they were used in border control settings in the aftermath of 9/11, however, the actual procedures started to change significantly: from testing the individual to screening the masses. This development is closely linked to a shift in the paradigm: The screening practice transformed from attempts to discern lies about past events to capturing the deceptive intention. This epistemological shift has manifold and far reaching implications that have not been systematically reflected in security studies.
In analyzing this development---which is still mostly basic research---from an STS perspective, we highlight shifts in the aspirations, imaginations and objectives in truth verification in security settings that materialize in the technology itself. By drawing on examples from our study on the sociotechnical reconfiguration of lie detection procedures in Germany we elucidate how the shift from detection to prognosis effects the way the human body is addressed as a source of truth, how concepts of dangerous intentions are translated into a computational procedure and what role the availability of technology plays in the actual development of truth verification procedures. We will, thereby, emphasize the potential of STS approaches as a most valuable tool to critically analyze developments of security production and revealing their conceptual shifts.

Authors

• Torsten H Voigt, RWTH Aachen University

• Larissa Fischer, RWTH Aachen University

• Bettina Paul, Universität Hamburg