FBI Prepares Vast Database of Biometrics 152
MacRonin sends us to the Washington Post for a story about the FBI's plans for a large biometric identification database. The Post also has a chart detailing the characteristics of the different methods of identification. We discussed the ethics of a similar situation a few months ago. Quoting the Post:
"Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law."
Re:U.S.And them (Score:4, Interesting)
We (Americans) are really not all bad. As it turns out most of us dislike the current government, too. It's just that, well, we have a fairly large population of over-religious farmers who tend to vote for all the wrong people. And thus sh*t like this is allowed to happen.
What ARE the Alternatives? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, there is a philosophical conflict raging here. There's obviously people who want to get into the US to perform terrorist acts. This leaves us with 3 choices:
1. Screen every visitor carefully
2. Screen only "suspicious" people (profiling based on religion, etc. and is often considered "racist".)
3. Don't screen anybody, risking attacks
4. Don't allow visitors
I don't see any 5th option, only compromises between these 4. Thus, what are the alternatives and/or ratios of these 4 that you think are the best?
Other countries don't have terrorist problems (yet), and so they don't have to perform intrusive procedures.
The same FBI..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What ARE the Alternatives? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, there's a gap between reality and politicians' view of this issue
How afraid do you have to be???
This will breed a new class of crimes (Score:2, Interesting)
Using biometric data is a dangerous road IMHO. If biometric authentication is performed under very tightly controlled conditions then it may be difficult to spoof but the more widespread it becomes the less controlled the conditions will be (the more people involved the higher the chance of stupid people overseeing the process). You can tighten up a server. even Windows (-; so that it is very difficult to penetrate, but when you have billions of I.T. admins running servers you're going to have some loosening of security. See, Dr. Evil was right when he said "Why make billions when we can make ... millions". His stupid son just didn't see the big picture which is why he'll always just be Dr. Evils son.
It may become an arms race between the bio-crackers and the security vendors, just like software viruses. I'm pretty sure people will get retinal transplants if they think it will make them a million dollars USD. You'll have people sitting around in a cubicle talking about how stupid an idea it was for a guy to have a retinal transplant but one will pipe up and say "The guy made a million dollars". Then the guy will "jump to the conclusion" that he should do it, have it botched, go blind, and sue the surgeon for millions. Then he'll have a BBQ in which he'll tell his former co-workers if they just hang in there long enough "good things can happen to them too". But I digress.
The scariest thing I can think of when it comes to biometric security is that it will just lead to an escalation of violent crime. Before cars had security systems the guy would just steal your car when you weren't there. Now he'll pull you out of the car, pistol whip you, shoot your hysterical wife and drive off with your children in the back seat. Maybe it's a flawed correlation but it seems like car jacking took off at the same time as car security systems. Now, instead of stealing your password, he'll cut out your eyes. True story here Malaysia car thieves steal finger [bbc.co.uk]
This database the FBI is building is so large and so open to corruption through GIGO, that it may make for a very scary country indeed.
Maybe the FBI could just hire attractive 21 year old blonde unemployed models and assign one per household to watch over us. Criminals may never want to leave their house.
equal right to see your bosses' records? (Score:3, Interesting)
First of all, it'll allow you to see, at the interview stage, if you'll be working for a bunch of crooks.
Second, if companies do start to take "brushes with the law" into account for career advancement, it sounds like a relative in law-enforcement could be the fast track to promotion.
Re:Brushes with the law? (Score:3, Interesting)
The gov't, of course. The employers at least pay you money. The gov't _takes_ your money, and then uses it against you!
Re:What ARE the Alternatives? (Score:5, Interesting)
A philosophical conflict? How about a conflict of overdramatized, highly unlikely fearmongering juxtaposed against the loss of civil liberties? The latter seems to be the specific problem.
Living freely includes risk. The problem here is that many people have little or no understanding of the freedoms they had, how hard they were fought for and how unusual it is that they had them in the first place. Most troubling is the fact that they had no clue how easy it was to lose them, and now that they have been lost, recovery is much, much more difficult.
As far as I am concerned, when a criminal - be they terrorist, mugger or politician disobeying the constitution - commits an antisocial act, that criminal should be held accountable for that crime. If the crime is large, the accounting should be large. If society can accept that the crime has been atoned for, then the criminal should get a fresh start. If society cannot accept this, then the criminal should be either put to death or imprisoned permanently. In no case should bystanders or citizens not even involved on any level be inconvenienced by actions nominally taken to ameliorate the criminal act. Sure, this approach involves risk. I prefer the risk. We are a better people when we accept risk in exchange for liberty than when we trade liberty for any illusion of safety gained by treating everyone as if they were a potential criminal.
Your option three is the only honorable option.
Re:Sigh (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sigh (Score:3, Interesting)
You realize, right, that the bookeeping of large, publicly traded corporations is (thanks to measures like SarbOx) under incredible public scrutiny? And that a public official doesn't just take a check from a company and deposit it in his personal account. Donations go to their campaigns - and those are in very small amounts (Exxon can't write a million-dollar check directly to "Ted Kennedy" no matter how much they'd like him to get his brother Joe to stop shilling for Hugo Chavez's Citgo in his ongoing monument to irony as he cites the evils of large oil operations). Rather, politicians' parties can accept larger donations, but can't assign such funds to specific campaigns. Any politician that is actually personally pocketing the millions you seem to suggest would be outed in a second by his campaign opponents. You're confusing expensive campaigns with expensive personal lifestyles. Most legislators don't make much, net-net, and aren't worth much. The rich ones were generally rich before going into politics. Of course you know all of this, and you just like the drama of painting a different picture.
Re:This is disturbing (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, real people, no matter who they are, are only good at a limited number of things. A person who is a whiz in chemistry may stink at things like real estate or home repair. You could start a home improvement company or become a real estate agent, but that's not really an option for most people. Plus, you would basically be asking someone like Einstein to drive a truck for a living (although people like you would probably get their jollies off of such a possibility).
The point you are missing is that a decent society does not make the options:
1. Work for FBI-shilling, oppressive company
2. Throw away years of education and expertise, and go work in some field that you are not very good at and that you hate
3. Starve
Chemistry is a good example of what I am talking about. It takes years and a ton of work to get a masters degree in chemistry. You don't have much choice but to work for one of the big companies. Even if you want to start up a small business in one of the chemical areas, you still need some years of experience in the field. Otherwise, you won't know how the real business works, you won't have any contacts to get your business going, and so on. This is true in most professional and technical fields.
Also, in cases like this in actual reality (as opposed to this bizarre one you have concocted from your imbecilic ideologies), there will be no employer that doesn't use and contribute to the FBI database. It will become an "industry standard" practice and there no company will see enough profit in not complying to justify abandoning (or never beginning) this practice. This sort of thing is common and only a drooling idealist would believe otherwise.