[LMB] Uses for telepathy: Terrence Cee. revisited

[David McMillan]

tonyzbaraschuk at netzero.net wrote:
> <snip re uses of telepathy in court>
>  
> The other problem with this sort of thing is: how do you know the _telepath_ is telling the truth about what he reads?  (And if you have some kind of truth test that you can use on him, why not just use it directly on the witness instead?)
>  
> Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, indeed.
	
	You could have juries instructed *very* carefully in how much weight to 
give the teep's testimony, but that's not infallible -- look at why 
current-day "lie detectors" aren't allowed as evidence in court cases.
	Or at recent evidence that appears to show that "eyewitness testimony" 
is far, far less trustworthy than most criminal justice systems have (in 
all good faith) assumed for centuries.
	And then, we know that Terrence Cee's mode of telepathy only worked on 
people who were "compatible," and even then only on that person's 
surface thoughts -- no spelunking into witness's memories or 
subconscious.  It's not beyond possibility that people might find ways 
of deceiving such "surface scan" telepathy, the same way that "lie 
detectors" can be beaten via biofeedback today.