[wordup] At Airport Gate, a Cyborg Unplugged

[Adam Shand]

Not that I know Steve Mann well, but based on what I do know, I wouldn't
be surprised if he was hamming it up a bit just to make a scene.

Via: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/14/2051228
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/14/technology/circuits/14MANN.html

At Airport Gate, a Cyborg Unplugged
By LISA GUERNSEY
March 14, 2002

STEVE MANN, an engineering professor at the University of Toronto, has
lived as a cyborg for more than 20 years, wearing a web of wires,
computers and electronic sensors that are designed to augment his memory,
enhance his vision and keep tabs on his vital signs. Although his wearable
computer system sometimes elicited stares, he never encountered any
problems going through the security gates at airports.

Last month that changed. Before boarding a Toronto-bound plane at St.
John's International Airport in Newfoundland, Dr. Mann says, he went
through a three-day ordeal in which he was ultimately strip- searched and
injured by security personnel. During the incident, he said, $56,800 worth
of his $500,000 equipment was lost or damaged beyond repair, including the
eyeglasses that serve as his display screen.

His lawyer in Toronto, Gary Neinstein, sent letters two weeks ago to Air
Canada (news/quote ), the airport and the Canadian transportation
authority arguing that they acted negligently and seeking reimbursement
for the damaged equipment so that Dr. Mann could put his wearable computer
back together again.

The difficulties that Dr. Mann faced seem related to the tightening of
security in airports since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. But he had
flown from Toronto to St. John's two days earlier without a hitch.

On that day, Feb. 16, he said, he followed the routine he has used on
previous flights. He told the security guards in Toronto that he had
already notified the airline about his equipment. He showed them
documentation, some of it signed by his doctor, that described the wires
and glasses, which he wears every waking minute as part of his
internationally renowned research on wearable computers.

He also asked for permission not to put his computer through the X-ray
machine because the device is more sensitive than a laptop. He said that
the guards examined his equipment and allowed him to board the flight.

 But when he tried to board his return flight on Feb. 18, his experience
was entirely different. This time, he said, he was told to turn his
computer on and off and put it on the X-ray machine. He took his case to
Neil Campbell, Air Canada's customer service manager at the St. John's
airport, and spent the next two days arranging conversations between his
university colleagues and the airline.

The security guards continued to require that he turn his machine on and
off and put it through the X-ray machine while also tugging on his wires
and electrodes, he said. Still not satisfied, the guards took him to a
private room for a strip-search in which, he said, the electrodes were
torn from his skin, causing bleeding, and several pieces of equipment were
strewn about the room.

Once his system was turned off, turned on again, X-rayed and dismantled,
Dr. Mann passed the security check. When he was finally allowed to go
home, some pieces of equipment were not returned to him, he said, and his
glasses were put in the plane's baggage compartment although he warned
that cold temperatures there could ruin them.

Without a fully functional system, he said, he found it difficult to
navigate normally. He said he fell at least twice in the airport, once
passing out after hitting his head on what he described as a pile of fire
extinguishers in his way. He boarded the plane in a wheelchair.

"I felt dizzy and disoriented and went downhill from there," he said.

Air Canada said that there was no record that any of Dr. Mann's baggage
had been lost and that the Canadian transportation agency, Transport
Canada, had required that his belongings be X-rayed. "We don't tell the
security firms that there is going to be an exception made," said Nicole
Couture-Simard, a spokeswoman for Air Canada. "We don't have that
authority."

Transport Canada declined to comment on the case except to say that it was
reviewing it.

Considering that even tweezers may be confiscated when a passenger boards
a flight these days, the stricter scrutiny that Dr. Mann faced may not
seem surprising. But for him, the experience raises the question of how a
traveler will fare once wearable computing devices are such fixtures on
the body that a person will not be able to part with them.

"We have to make sure we don't go into a police state where travel becomes
impossible for certain individuals," Dr. Mann said.

Since losing the use of his vision system and computer memory several
weeks ago, he said, he cannot concentrate and is behaving differently. He
is now undergoing tests to determine whether his brain has been affected
by the sudden detachment from the technology.

Alejandro R. Jahad, director of the University of Toronto's Program in
E-Health Innovation, who has worked closely with Dr. Mann, said that
scientists now had an opportunity to see what happens when a cyborg is
unplugged. "I find this a very fascinating case," he said.