Biometric Database Plans Hidden In Immigration Bill 365
Doug Otto writes "Buried deep in the bowels of a bi-partisan immigration reform bill is a 'photo tool.' The goal is to create a photo database consisting of every citizen. Wired calls it 'a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.' Of course the database would be used only for good, and never evil. 'This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet.'"
Counter strike (Score:4, Insightful)
Create a distributed database of all politicians with current (hours old) photos, locations, sound captures, etc. Give them hell. Film them in their homes. I don't care if it's illegal.
Mission Creep? SSN (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:so... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's wrong with this? I know it's all George Orwell and stuff
You answered your own question.
You already need proof-of-self to buy a gun. (Score:4, Insightful)
Two, actually. Yes, even from dealers at gun shows.
For some reason it's racist to ask for ID to vote.
Vote early, vote often!
Re:so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook can just give them the data if they ask.
Re:You already need proof-of-self to buy a gun. (Score:0, Insightful)
For some reason it's racist to ask for ID to vote.
Vote early, vote often!
Have you ever actually darkened the door of a polling place? They've got a list of the registered voters. You vote, they check you off. Try again, and they see you've already voted. And no, the ID requirement isn't racist per se, it's just a happy coincidence of generally disenfranchising the people who will (statistically, speaking) vote against you.
Re:Counter strike (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And doesn't this already exist? (Score:5, Insightful)
When you get your drivers license.. don't they already store your photo in a database?
The simple solution to this is to just NOT get a drivers license. You know that's a perfectly fine thing to do. Build your life around that fact, instead of lazily building your life around the need to drive a car on a taxpayer subsidized highway system.
These days, no ID = no vote. Opt out of a driver's license (or non-driver ID card), you opt out of voting, too. You also opt out of having a bank account. There's more, but I'll leave completing the list of opt-outs to others . . .
Re:so... (Score:5, Insightful)
The surveillance isn't the scary part of 1984. The surveillance is just a tool being used by an oppressive government. The warning of the story is that we must ensure our government exists to serve the people, and not the other way around. Sure, that might mean the government must serve the paranoid folks clamoring for theatrical security, but it's still trying to serve the people. In 1984, every aspect of life was controlled and manipulated by the Inner Party to serve the Inner Party.
Giant facial recognition databases are a powerful tool. That technological power can be used for good or evil, but the risk of evil is no reason to fear the technology itself.
Re:so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any concerns of Big Brother database-tampering to frame you for a crime are equally weighted with the benefits of fewer fake IDs
No they aren't. Our founding principles are that we let some guilty people go free precisely because that's preferable than to possibly imprison innocent people. People using Fake IDs are an acceptable condition of not doing 'Papers please' checks on every law abiding citizen on every street corner.
Re:so... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, that might mean the government must serve the paranoid folks clamoring for theatrical security, but it's still trying to serve the people.
Dystopian novels work both ways, though. The government blindly serving the people's whims against the people's best interests was the root cause behind Fahrenheit 451.
Re:so... (Score:5, Insightful)
Alright, maybe I'm grasping, but I will say this - if government officials think it's necessary and proper to put citizens on constant surveillance and place our information into a monolithic database, then would it not stand to reason that they should be subject to the same? After all, they are public officials, and if a person has done nothing wrong, they should have nothing to hide, correct?
Problem is, Orwellian also includes doublethink. As in "Innocent people have nothing to hide", but "we cannot do our job effectively if people can watch what we are doing".
Re:Mission Creep? SSN (Score:4, Insightful)
Were you around in 2001? First, we had 9/11. Then on 10/24 the House passed the USA Patriot Act 357-66. The Senate passed it 98-1 the next day, and on 10/26 it was signed into law. SIX WEEKS!
If you look at the size and scope of this bill and the bewildering number of changes it made to existing law, it's rather obvious that it had it ready and waiting long before 9/11/2001. Do you really need more evidence to demonstrate that there is a "conspiracy" to deprive U.S. citizens of their civil liberties?
Re:so... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:so... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this is what we need to be angry about. We need to be fighting for the government to be as open as they want us to be. In the end when it's all said and done, everything should have lost their anonymity. The Government, the corporations, and the people. We're not talking police state here, we're talk'n equal playing field.
Re:so... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot of value in having a way to undeniably prove your identity in the eyes of the law. It could help a lot with identity theft and identification wipe-out(like your house burning down).
No, there is only a small amount of value in being able to prove your identity in the eyes of the law. How often have you been to court? For the vast majority of people such interactions are few and far between.
There is value in being able to prove your identity in a bunch of different contexts - like withdrawing money from the bank. It doesn't matter who you are, it only matters that you own the account that you are withdrawing from. Same thing with a driver's license. In order to prove your qualifications to drive, you don't need to prove who you are, only that you have passed the driving exam and don't have any black marks on your driving record. The list goes on and on.
The value of contextual identity is hundreds of times more useful than the value of a single federated identity.
Re:so... (Score:5, Insightful)
"What's wrong with this? I know it's all George Orwell and stuff, but really. We've moved so far past having any real privacy anymore, who cares? I like the idea of people not being able to pretend to be me, not that anyone would really want to."
You should care because it's not possible to have a democratic form of government without anonymity, and you can't have anonymity without privacy.
The reasons are many, but here is the upshot: if you have no privacy, how can you speak out (or vote) against oppression without fear of reprisal? Answer: you can't. History is full of examples, you shouldn't even have to think twice to come up with one you remember.
Re:Rand Paul? (Score:5, Insightful)
The social security database in use for many years already has names, dates of birth, etc.
Worse: The medicare I.D. is the social security number followed by one letter as a "check digit".
That means every medical provider (Including places like Costco if you get a flu shot there) have your name, address, birth date, and SS# in their database and the hands of the clerks. A genealogy site profvides the mother's maiden name and identity theft is a snap. Talk about a target-rich (and predator-rich) environment.
Oldsters are observed to have a substantially higher rate of identity theft. Researchers noticing that, of course, have blamed the oldsters for allegedly being less competent at guarding their identities.
Getting Medicare to assign you qa non-SS$ I.D. is not an option. Turning down Medicare coverage is an option only for the very rich: Private insurance deducts the amount Medicare WOULD have paid from their benefits for anyone eligible for Medicare, whether they have registered for Medicare or not.
Whitehouse online petition, anyone?