Telepathy and security in Trek

[Tyyr]

Wow. That got stupid fast.

Anyways, ignoring the poorly thought out furry bullshit has anyone considered what Starfleet's apparent total acceptance of telepaths does for their security? If it's open season on thoughts and emotions how would Starfleet ever keep anything secret? Could this explain their total lack of sensible security measures on computers and information? Why bother since any telepath can legally take it at will?

[Captain Seafort]

Split from here

Tyyr, in future if you want to revive a debate that's been dead almost a year, start a new topic and link back to the old one. Don't necro ancient threads.

[Mikey]

apparent total acceptance of telepaths

open season on thoughts and emotions

legally take it at will

These ideas are contradicted by the actions of one of the telepaths in TNG: "Violations" being apparently both taboo and illegal.

[Aaron]

apparent total acceptance of telepaths

open season on thoughts and emotions

legally take it at will

These ideas are contradicted by the actions of one of the telepaths in TNG: "Violations" being apparently both taboo and illegal.

And contradicted again by Troi's mother wandering around reading the mind of alien fish diplomats and casually chatting to Picard via her mind.

[Captain Seafort]

Even if it were true that telepaths could take what they wanted when they wanted, it still wouldn't justify Starfleet's lack of security, any more than building cruisers with no armour whatsoever could be justified by the fact that battleships could easily punch through anything they could carry.

[Mikey]

All true - my only point was that these things shouldn't be treated as if they were cavalierly allowed (at least not all the itme.)

[Aaron]

All true - my only point was that these things shouldn't be treated as if they were cavalierly allowed (at least not all the itme.)

It's only bad if the plot calls for it...err the bad guys do it.

[Mikey]

Exactly. Why should this be treated any different than any other topic in 'Trek?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

It's difficult to police something one has little power to counter. If there is any such thing as telepathy-blocking tech, we haven't heard of it and it'd have to follow the people around. We have heard of some species whose minds seem to be harder to read, so there's something... could beings perhaps be trained to guard their thoughts (Vulcans seem to be natural candidates, especially since they already have a form of telepathy)?


That's all speculation, of course. As Mikey says:

Actually, that's an idea that might have been neglected: maybe I'm just fried but I don't recall a plot involving a major security leak due to telepaths! I mean, we could have telapath agents selling secrets to the Romulans, the Dominion, etc...

[Mikey]

Maybe we should just make all the telepaths wear magic tin-foil headbands (that don't really do anything.)

[Lazar]

http://eclectech.co.uk/mindcontrol.php

[Mikey]

[Lighthawk]

Eh, it's not like starfleet security is all that great to begin with. What's one more hole in a block of swiss cheese?