Hannah Frey

Welcome to The Rest of Science.

I'm Hannah Frey.

And I'm Michael Stevens.

Right now, I'm thinking an illegal thought.

Uh-oh.

Or am I?

I can't tell.

You can't tell.

I could be committing all kinds of crimes up here right now.

But is it to think it to commit the crime?

That's what we're going to talk about today.

We're going to talk about the power of thoughts, the responsibilities you have as a thinker, and whether you have any.

Can you own a thought?

Can you be punished for it even?

Should you be?

I want to talk about this today because I read a few weeks ago like a startling fact, which is that the police are allowed to collect evidence from you by unlocking your phone if it has face ID or fingerprint recognition encrypting it.

But however, if you lock up your phone with a passcode, they can't get into it legally.

But they can't take the thing that's in your mind, which is exactly that's what I thought was so exciting that we are treating legally what's in your mind with more priority and privilege than your body.

So if the cops arrest you.

And they tell you, hey, you got to tell me your passcode.