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United States Privacy Security Your Rights Online

Brill's Contentious ID Card 331

Posted by michael from the quack-quack dept.
pwackerly writes "The New York Times (illegal kidney sale required) is running a story on a private venture funded by the man behind CourtTV to sell ID cards that let you bypass security, both national (airports) and private (your business's lobby). Outside of the standard national ID concerns, now we'd have to worry about a terrorist stealing our super-secret ID from our wallet. Don't these people learn anything from reading 'Mostly Harmless?'"
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Brill's Contentious ID Card

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  • Bypass Card (Score:5, Funny)

    by bcolflesh ( 710514 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:03PM (#7294962) Homepage
    Don't Terrorize the Homeland without It!

  • Of course they do (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eccles ( 932 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:03PM (#7294963) Journal
    Don't these people learn anything from reading 'Mostly Harmless?'

    Of course they did, they learned how to bilk gullible people out of money...

    • Mostly Harmless and the Ident-i-Eeze (Score:5, Funny)

      by merriam ( 16227 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @06:28PM (#7295700)

      `I'll do the jokes,' snarled Ford.

      `No,' said [Vann Harl, editor-in-chief]. `You will do the restaurant column.'

      He tossed a piece of plastic onto the desk in front of him. Ford did not move to pick it up.

      `You what?' said Ford.

      [...]

      [Harl] `Every possible position of every possible electron balloons out into billions of probabilities! Billions and billions of shining, gleaming futures! You know what that means?'

      [Ford Prefect] `You're dribbling down your chin.'
      [...]
      [Harl]`Excuse me,' he said, `but this gets me so excited.' Ford handed him his towel. `This is the most radical, dynamic and thrusting business venture in the entire multidimensional infinity of space/time/probability ever.'

      `And you want me to be its restaurant critic,' said Ford.

      `We would value your input.'

      `Kill!' shouted Ford. He shouted it at his towel.

      The towel leapt up out of Harl's hands.

      This was not because it had any motive force of its own, but because Harl was so startled at the idea that it might. The next thing that startled him was the sight of Ford Prefect hurtling across the desk at him fists first. In fact Ford was just lunging for the credit card, but you don't get to occupy the sort of position that Harl occupied in the sort of organisation in which Harl occupied it without developing a healthily paranoid view of life. He took the sensible precaution of hurling himself backwards, and striking his head a sharp blow on the rocket-proof glass, then subsided into a series of worrying and highly personal dreams.

      Ford lay on the desk, surprised at how swimmingly everything had gone. He glanced quickly at the piece of plastic he now held in his hand -- it was a Dine-O-Charge credit card with his name already embossed on it, and an expiry date two years from now, and was possibly the single most exciting thing Ford had ever seen in his life -- then he clambered over the desk to see to Harl.

      He was breathing fairly easily. It occurred to Ford that he might breathe more easily yet without the weight of his wallet bearing down on his chest, so he slipped it out of Harl's breast pocket and flipped through it. Fair amount of cash. Credit tokens. Ultragolf club membership. Other club memberships. Photos of someone's wife and family -- presumably Harl's, but it was hard to be sure these days. Busy executives often didn't have time for a full-time wife and family and would just rent them for weekends.

      Ha!

      He couldn't believe what he'd just found.

      He slowly drew out from the wallet a single and insanely exciting piece of plastic that was nestling amongst a bunch of receipts.

      It wasn't insanely exciting to look at. It was rather dull in fact. It was smaller and a little thicker than a credit card and semi-transparent. If you held it up to the light you could see a lot of holographically encoded information and images buried pseudo-inches deep beneath its surface .

      It was an Ident-i-Eeze, and was a very naughty and silly thing for Harl to have lying around in his wallet, though it was perfectly understandable. There were so many different ways in which you were required to provide absolute proof of your identity these days that life could easily become extremely tiresome just from that factor alone, never mind the deeper existential problems of trying to function as a coherent consciousness in an epistemologically ambiguous physical universe. Just look at cash point machines, for instance. Queues of people standing around waiting to have their fingerprints read, their retinas scanned, bits of skin scraped from the nape of the neck and undergoing instant (or nearly instant -- a good six or seven seconds in tedious reality) genetic analysis, then having to answer trick questions about members of their family they didn't even remember they had, and about their recorded preferences for tablecloth colours. And that was just to get a bit of spare cash for the w

  • Someone tell David Blunkett (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ella the Cat ( 133841 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:04PM (#7294965) Homepage Journal
    - 'cos these are the ID cards I'd vote for!
  • ...I'd buy one in a second. If it cut 15 minutes off my check in time at the airport, it would be well wroth it.

    • Re:Sounds like a great idea.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rick the Red ( 307103 ) <Rick DOT The DOT Red AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:15PM (#7295103) Journal
      Oh, yeah, it's gonna make me feel alot safer knowing that you and any other joker out there can bring a loaded gun or a bomb onto an airplane if they first pay "$30 to $50" to Mr. Brill.

      The total lack of anyone willing to fly under this system is what's gonna cut down the lines at the airport.

      But at least Mr. Brill will be able to tell the FBI exactly who blew up the airplane.

      • Personally I'd fly on Jihad airlines where they put a Koran in the seat back pocket, so you could clutch it too your heart as you stormed the cockpit and gave complimentary box cutters to you upon entry to the plane. There are so many flights, the odds of me being on one that goes down are so slim, its not worth worrying about.
        • Yeah, and there are so many office buildings, the odds of being in the next one they fly an airplane into are so slim, it's not worth worrying about. In fact, why don't we just forget this whole 9/11 thing, since it only affected about 3000 people and their families, and drop security alltogether?

          • In fact, why don't we just forget this whole 9/11 thing, since it only affected about 3000 people and their families, and drop security alltogether?

            Sounds good to me. Sure, 9/11 was a tragedy, but this security bullshit isn't going to help anything - by tunring a plane into a bomb, Osama and friends changed the rules of engagement. If you tried that today, the passengers would kill you before you touched down. 9/11 was a one-shot deal - the next attack will be something that we aren't protecting, like t

            • Re:Sounds like a great idea.. (Score:4, Interesting)

              by TWX ( 665546 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @06:21PM (#7295662)
              power grid...
              highway bridges...
              railroads...
              inland fuel delivery...

              Probably countless others as well. Remember that barge/I-80 collision not too long ago? Imagine if that happened on a particularly busy holiday weekend. It wouldn't have the live coverage of an urban attack, but coordinated attacks on major interstate bridges would have quite an effect, since we rely on these bridges to get around. It would certainly affect trucking, which moves a good chunk of the goods that we use daily.

              The recent problems with the fuel delivery pipeline to Phoenix proved that fuel delivery is very vulnerable to problems. People were panicking over it. They were attempting to fill every container they had with extra fuel, and if people had just kept buying gas like they normally had it probably wouldn't have been a problem. The populace itself caused the problem.

              Railroads also do a lot of our long haul goods delivery, and I would imagine that it wouldn't be hard for that to be a problem. Heck, one person could probably drive around with the right tools, yanking spikes out of railroad ties, and cause a large scale catastrophie. We do send sensor cars over the railroad lines from time to time, but how long would it take for this to be a problem?

              Much of our society is built on the honor system, assuming that people won't engage in civil disobedience. Also, we have rather severe penalties for those who break these pieces of infrastructure. Trouble is, terrorists have shown that they aren't concerned about personal ramifications. We'll just have to wait and see.
        • and gave complimentary box cutters to you upon entry to the plane

          Agreed; I'd rather everyone got box cutters than only the sociopaths who smuggled their own.

    • Buying your way out is an equal rights problem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:27PM (#7295215)
      And not for the tinfoil hat security reasons, but because it undermines the ideals of equal justice under the law for all. Rich people should NOT be able to buy preferential security treatment. If the law is "everyone gets their anus searched for bombs", then we all get in the same line and have the same kind of search. Simply having the money to buy an ID card that "proves" you've got a clean anus isn't equal protection under the law, it's preferential treatment for sale.

      And the same goes for people who claim that they should have it because they're frequent fliers -- that's just a way of abstracting the fact that you have a lot of money.

      Any law should be applied as equally as possible, ESPECIALLY if the law is some national security measure that happens to be a major invasion of your privacy and a general pain in the ass like airport security.

      NO special rights for the rich, ESPECIALLY no special security rights for the rich.
      • It's already happening. At a few airports here on the West Coast (and I assume for the rest of the country) I've noticed that those flying first class get their own express line through security. For now, suck ticket holder still have to undergo the same security check as everyone else, but those who can affort a first class ticket already have preferential treatment and can avoid the multi-hour long security lines that plague airports during peak travel times.

        Avoiding the security check altogether just

      • And the same goes for people who claim that they should have it because they're frequent fliers -- that's just a way of abstracting the fact that you have a lot of money.

        Nonsense.

        There are lots of frequent fliers who don't have a lot of money. Certainly very few frequent fliers have enough money to buy all of their airline tickets.

        • Please show me the people who log over 50k miles per year and aren't making over $50k per year.

          There may be some weird, tiny set of the population that makes no money and flies a lot, but I kind of doubt it.

          Most people who log thousands of miles per year are business travelers, and without exception most business travelers are earning $75k++.

      • NO special rights for the rich, ESPECIALLY no special security rights for the rich.

        Especially considering super richness seems to be a better indication of propensity to terrorism than anything other of the 39 indicators being proposed.

  • Something tells me... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...that these aren't the sort of people who read Douglas Adams.

  • Oh, I see (Score:4, Funny)

    by WebMasterP ( 642061 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:06PM (#7294992) Homepage
    This way we don't have to worry about poor terrorist... just rich one's with the capital to buy bombs.

    Boy does that take a load off my mind. Thanks card inventor guy!
  • Damn! I sold one already!

  • All this means (Score:5, Insightful)

    by imadork ( 226897 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:07PM (#7295012) Homepage
    is that Terrorist groups will start recruiting people who are not on a watch list and who have not convicted of a felony. If airlines use it for easy check-in, then you may as well call it the Shoe Bomb permit.

    • We don't have any airport security anyway. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:20PM (#7295147) Homepage Journal
      We aren't looking for terrorist, so how will this card further increase our risk?

      Until the government gets off its PC centric ass and starts looking for terrorist instead of weapons we might just as well mark airline tickets as shoe bomb permits.

      It wasn't a shoe bomb or razor blade that flew airliners into buidlings.

      This card just falls under the current "safety" situation. We want to feel safe, we just aren't willing to do what is needed to be safe.

      Let them have their quick checkin card, its not like their time is more important than their safety anyway.


      • Until the government...starts looking for terrorist instead of weapons...

        What difference would that make? Apparently a college sophmore with no terrorist training (apart, I suppose, from what you pick up naturally by being a college freshman) was able to smuggle exactly the sort of items they are looking for through "security" not once, but several times.

        So what does it matter what they look for, if they aren't able to find it?

        -- MarkusQ

      • Re:We don't have any airport security anyway. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by pz ( 113803 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @06:39PM (#7295763) Journal
        Agreed. The best security I've ever seen is at the Tel Aviv airport. Before passengers can check in, they are subject to an intensive interrogation by two security guards (think military intelligence officers rather than rent-a-cops) who are trained in asking rapid-fire, pointed questions. I was in Jerusalem attending a scientific conference, and had a letter of introduction with me from the organizers (remember this is *leaving* Israel). The set of questions went something like this (my answers are left as an exercise to the reader) --

        Why were you in Israel?
        Where was the conference?
        Did you present at the conference?
        Do you have the conference program?
        Please give it to me.
        What did you present?
        Is your name in the program?
        Please give us your presentation.
        Yes, now.
        (I spoke for perhaps 2 minutes and was then interrupted.)
        Were you invited to the conference?
        Why would they invite you?
        Are you some kind of expert in this field?
        Where did you stay?
        How did you know where to stay?
        Who arranged your hotel for you?
        Where did you get your taxi this morning?
        How did you know you could find one there? ... and so forth. It was the third degree.

        They are smart enough to have about as many interrogation stands as there are check-in counters, so there's plenty of bandwidth. Once you pass through security, you walk 10 meters to the counter and talk to an airline employee to check in, rather than the other way around, and the path from interrogation to check-in is controlled. The idea behind the interrogation is to make sure you are legitimate, and have a solid, believable story (I do not for a moment think they cared about my research into an arcane corner of neurobiology). They are checking the person rather than his belongings (although they do this as well). That's security.

        American airports don't have security, they have inconveniences to placate the general population into thinking they are secure. I'd much rather the Americans implemented a system like the Israelis have.

        • Re:We don't have any airport security anyway. (Score:4, Funny)

          by replicant108 ( 690832 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:11PM (#7296694) Journal
          The sooner America becomes a police state the better.

          Then the US will be safe, just like Israel.

        • Re:We don't have any airport security anyway. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by halo8 ( 445515 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @10:18PM (#7297039)
          ya know.. i think this is a brilliant idea.. now.. im all for Freedom and Privacy as primarys and security as a secondary

          stay with me.. think about it..

          1- its a humane not a computer, not a database that WILL remeber everything for ever, also better at not making mistakes due to "logic"
          2- This officer see's 50 ppl a day.. yes its YOUR private info but really.. do you think he cares or will remeber it all? no he wants to get home
          3- Military personel.. means hes prolly roated every year or so.. wont get bored, wont get complacent,
          4- not a computer.. info cant be sold to marketers.
          5- Chain of Command.. how many times has a stupid clerk said.. sorry sir.. the computer says its $99.. well the sign says $0.99 cents.. and the manager cant do shit cause the "computer says"

          i think its great.. your incovenanced once.. but it sure beats a computer.

          Thoes that would give up there freedom for secuirty deserve neather - Benjamin Franklin
          • Yes, exactly. This is the only follow-on poster which figured that out: while most might think the series of questions I described to be an invasion of privacy, the fact of the matter was the interrogators couldn't care less (well, nearly so) about my answers, it was the way in which I answered, the way I responded to their questions that mattered. No notes were taken, no recording was made (to my knowledge). I'm sure that they forgot all about my unremarkable-to-them interview during the next one. And

    • This is the problem with "terrorism". Anyone can become a "terrorist" at any moment for no predictable reason. Thus, the only practical solution is to ignore "terrorism" as a law enforcement issue and make it into a social issue. Terrorism is a social problem like any other crime.

  • Fear.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:07PM (#7295014) Homepage Journal

    They can bypass the national security systems with a card but they can't get past the New York Times registration page.
    • Slashdot's michael went over the top on this one.

      From the New York Times registration page:

      Registration: During a free registration process prior to using the site, The New York Times on the Web requires that you supply a unique member ID, e-mail address, and demographic information (country, zip code, age, sex; household income, industry, job title, job function, and subscription status to The New York Times newspaper). You must agree to the terms of our Subscriber Agreement. Only legal kidney sales will

  • Bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by helix400 ( 558178 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:07PM (#7295016) Journal
    It seems those who are influential enough in government to fund quicker security at airports are the same ones who'd receive these ID cards.

    So, you let all the influential people slide by quickly, and they'll never realize there's a real problem. I say let the influential people deal with the wait the same way we do, and then hopefully they'll do something about it.
    • be the influential people would they....love circular logic, I say let those willing to sell their freedom do so. The best solution is to just steal an identity, get one of these cards in that name and enjoy the benefits :)
      • Heh, if you stole their identity, it may end up like Minority Report. You scan your card, a voice says "Thank you Mr. Kenji Yamamoto."

        I guess then you'll just have wave to the guard and act all cool like nothing was wrong.
    • First create a problem then collect money for a "solution".

      Waiting at airports for screening that solves only half the threat and can be bypassed easily [newsday.com] is a problem. If someone wants to comondere an airplane or crash one in a populated area they can shoot it down or hijack it still.

      The solution, of taking money to bypass the problem, is just stupid. "How else are we going to fund all of this?" the jackasses will ask us. How indeed?

      The problem was stupid, the fix is easy - quit making the problem. Le

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Verification (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WarpFlyght ( 586558 ) <warpflyght@@@telltales...net> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:08PM (#7295021) Homepage
    How, though, do they intend to verify that those applying for these cards really have the "credentials" being given to them? Background searches on that kind of a scale would be an extremely intensive undertaking for any organization. Furthermore, there is no way this could be done for the $30 or $50 mentioned in the article. They could, I suppose, require the applicant to submit proof that they meet the requirements for obtaining one of these cards, but then that raises a new problem: falsified records/information. "He said that the system was probably unworkable." I'd say so.
  • It's like fast-pass for terroists!

    "Ohhhh, I'm much to important to bother myself with following the behaviors needed to ensure a civil society." This guy probably talks on the cellphone while driving his SUV.

    • the behaviors needed to ensure a civil society

      You mean like emptying my pockets, removing my belt, watch, and frickin' boots to enter a damn county assessor's office? Like I had to do this week?

      Yeah, how could anyone object to that?

      Quite the contrary, my friend. Putting everyone through checkpoints to do anything only ensures that everyone gets treated like a terrorist -- guilty till proven innocent by the wave of the magic metal-detector wand. Except, that is, for the actual terrorists, who will

  • bitchin (Score:2, Funny)

    by andih8u ( 639841 )
    coolest thing I could buy since that elevator pass in high school...oh, wait...

  • Outside of the standard national ID concerns, now we'd have to worry about a terrorist stealing our super-secret ID from our wallet.

    They would have to cut your hand too, since the card will be linked to fingerprint scanners according to the article.

    Can be done.

  • Sure hope these cards have a picture on them though. Possibly a digitally stored fingerprint.
    • fingerprints are easy to fake. All it takes is a fingerprint from something your victim touched, an inkjet and common household items to make a mask for your finger. A researcher in Japan did just this and then tested it out in stores to verify the whole method. A transparent membrane with the target's fingerprint on it was good enough to fool most readers more than 3/4 of the time, even those that looked for a pulse were fooled - skin itslef is transluscent, that's how the pulse detection works.

  • With a government-issued ID you'd have clear standing to challenge a denial of "trusted" status in Federal Court. As private sector decisions, standing to bring a Civil Rights action is ambiguous.

  • Quack (Score:5, Funny)

    by MoxCamel ( 20484 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:10PM (#7295050)
    "If it walks like a national ID card and quacks like a national ID card, it's a national ID card."

    How naive. If it quacks like a national ID card, it's probably a duck trying to bypass security. Quick, increase to threat level fowl!

  • $30 to $50 dollars just to sign up! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ericspinder ( 146776 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:11PM (#7295057) Journal

    $30 to $50 dollars just to sign up and "a couple of dollars a month". It's could be a license to print money. Can you say "Monopoly", I knew you could.

    This kind of card would only be "fair" if the modified free market is allowed to operate. You don't have to buy your server certificates from Verisign (of course the way that they bought other companies, it's hard not to), so why should all the card readers at public spots focus on one company's authenication system

    Besides, as states tend to get more and more info on their id cards (aka drivers licences), the "need" for a separate system is becoming a moot point. Already some bars will "swipe" an ID rather than just look at the picture (also getting addresses, age and other data into their database).

    Overall, I don't think that it will work, you might be able to get a couple of states to sign on but the cost is too high for the average person and it will be an "elite" privledge which will get lampooned in the public.

  • Similar Reuters Story without need to Register (Score:5, Informative)

    by KingNaught ( 718536 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:13PM (#7295079)
    Heres an artcle on the same subject at Reuters but without the need to register to view it. http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=te chnologyNews&storyID=3678908&section=news [reuters.co.uk]

  • Opening the door (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thehickcoder ( 620326 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:13PM (#7295081) Homepage
    This would open the door to other companies selling ID cards. Eventually there would be enough producers of these cards to allow disreputable produces to slip through. A few of these would be discovered thereby reducing the credability of them all. Causing the government to take over.

    In short, this is just a step in the road to government issued ID cards.

  • What an AMAZING idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Meridun ( 120516 ) * on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:17PM (#7295121) Homepage
    A single identity card that would allow you to bypass invasive security screening. Because obviously, if you've never done anything wrong in the past, you clearly won't in the future.

    I have to agree with all the people who are pointing out that this introduces a single point of failure into any system that honors it, but what's worse is that it seems to ignore the point of security checkpoints, which is not so much to merely identify people as it is to prevent the entry of weapons into a vulnerable area REGARDLESS of their identity.
  • Outside of the standard national ID concerns, now we'd have to worry about a terrorist stealing our super-secret ID from our wallet.

    Looks like the submitter didn't RTFA. From the article:
    "The cards will be linked to their owners through finger- and thumb-print scans at security turnstiles."

    It's relatively simple with current technology, to scan and verify fingerprints and other unique identifying features instantly with a high degree of reliability. Infact, we had an experimental setup at a school I w

  • So, when they screw up your records, it's not just your credit rating or phone service that's screwed up, it's your entire life. Forget about trying to get them to correct things--if you complain, you are obviously a trouble-maker and a terrorist. And think of all the wonderful "marketing tie-ins" that will come with this.

    Give me a government run national ID card system any day over that. Institutions like the INS or IRS may be a pain to deal with, but they don't sell my data (well, not as much), and soo

  • So if your very first known criminal act. . . (Score:3, Funny)

    by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:20PM (#7295149)
    is going to be blowing up the White House you can get red carpet treatment for $50 (plus a few).

    Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

    KFG

  • liability? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shalunov ( 149369 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:21PM (#7295155) Homepage
    If someone bypasses security in the lobby with this card and then goes on a shooting spree, could the company issuing the card be liable? What if they missed prior felony convictions in their background check?
  • Who monitors this company who doles out these ID cards? Since this is Mr. Steven Brill's baby, does he essentially have the power to give himself and his friends (and perhaps those with a little too much cash on their hands) clean IDs?

    Admittedly, I don't know how the public system works with regards to internal checks to the ID distribution system. However, if these companies were to become popular, this strikes me as an excellent opportunity to perceive each company as a weak link in an ever-weakening

  • Not to be a moron, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by djaj ( 704060 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:22PM (#7295161)
    Just because a person with one of these cards isn't a terrorist at the time the card is issued, doesn't mean they won't become one in the future. There would have to be a way to invalidate the card, which means that these card readers would have to be updated on some semi-frequent basis. (Not to mention that when the terrorist first gets denied at the gate, he will know that the government is on to him.)

    Seems pretty unworkable to me.

    • There would have to be a way to invalidate the card, which means that these card readers would have to be updated on some semi-frequent basis.

      No, that's not a problem: The terrorists we are concerned about are mostly suicide bombers, so they are usually dead after becoming a terrorist. [OK, the INS tried to issue visas to some of the 9/11 terrorists half a year after the attack...]

      And terrorism is not like inner-city gang crime, terrorists won't have a string of prior convictions. Most suicide bomber

  • So let me get this straight (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:23PM (#7295170) Homepage
    I actually RTFA, and yes I know they say they would be taking extensive privacy measures.....but what they are doing is collecting a database of EXTREMELY personal information. And they are a privately held organization. What if they happened to get bought out? Or what happens if they change their policy at some point, and begin merging databases with other companies. Wow, the government then has one extremely detailed database of many many people.

    And how long before this is required by airlines and such?

    "Sir, you cannot fly Delta Airlines if you do not have your privatized National ID card. What's that? You don't have one? Well, you must be a terrorist, because only terrorists wouldn't have one. Please remain calm, as authority figures have already been alerted and are en route as we speak."

  • Some questions (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mugnyte ( 203225 ) * on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:24PM (#7295177) Journal

    If I pay my money and fill out the application with completely fake information, is it a crime? Why?

    If I miss my flight because the card and/or reader fails at the airport, will I be refunded? Why not?

    Will the company indemnify me from losses if my fingerprint and card are stolen?

    Once stolen, how long until all points in the system relying on this information are closed to my card?

    Can an employer lawfully require me to get this card as a condition of employment?

  • ID Cards are *so* 1990s.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by SoupaFly ( 558227 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:25PM (#7295192)
    Screw the ID cards, let's just skip right to microchip implants in the back of your neck. Think of all the time you could save!! You don't have to remember your ATM pin, just walk up to machine and you have access to your money. No waiting to pay at the store. It'd be great.. because no one who fits the security profile would ever turn out to be a terrorist. And of course, like all new technologies, it's sure to be infallible.

    I hope we don't have to wait until 2060 for the next big counterculture movement.
  • The real player here is Choicepoint, whose database will be used to determine who gets an ID. That's right, the same folks Katherine Harris hired to purge the Florida voter rolls of "convicted felons" in 2000, striking thousands of mostly Black electors for having the same, or similar, names as actual felons.

    (I'll trust the replies to provide links.)

    • You sure about that?

      Guess you didn't read the update [salon.com].

      "In the Salon Politics article "Florida's flawed 'voter-cleansing' program," it was incorrectly stated that Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired a company, ChoicePoint, to create a voter "purge" list. The company was hired in 1998 before Harris was elected to her post."
    • Hell, just look through the archives at What Really Happened -- the history the gov't hopes you don't learn. [whatreallyhappened.com] The guy running the show may be a crackpot, may not. I'll keep my own opinions on the matter private, but there's plenty o' links in his archives about ChoicePoint (among a great many other things). If nothing else, it's something to think about. Just for a reference point, I read foxnews.com and newsmax.com as well. I don't like only seeing one side of the story. Most likely, neither side is t

    • Re:Brill's just the Shill... (for Choicepoint) (Score:4, Informative)

      by cheezedawg ( 413482 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @06:25PM (#7295684) Journal
      Um, DBT/Choicepoint was hired before Katherine Harris took office, and they were hired by a Democrat named Ethel Baxtor.

      Oh- and although the list was pretty inaccurate, the Florida law accounted for this and required each individual county election supervisor to verify the names on the felon list (many of them are democrats too!). Many counties ignored the list completely. In fact, when the USCCR held hearings on the Florida elections, they were unable to interview a single person that was incorrectly prevented from voting because of the felon list (A link [usccr.gov] of the dissenting opinion that supports this claim)

      Since you seem to want people to back up their information with links, where were your links to back up your claims? Please use something better than a Greg Palast op-ed or a link to democrats.com.
  • For the lesser informed of us, who is this Brill character?

  • oooh! (Score:5, Funny)

    by bob_jenkins ( 144606 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:38PM (#7295324) Homepage Journal
    It's just like a national ID card, except we have to pay for them!
  • Considering that the Bin Laden family has had dealings with the Bush administration for the last ten years and he allowed the whole family to fly out of the country the day after 911; that the majority of the terrorists were Saudi and that the government is uber-cushy with these Saudis, you can bet the first people who get these bypass-scrutiny ID cards would be the very people most of us would be concerned about.

    I know I feel safer already.

  • It might work for a while (Score:3, Insightful)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:40PM (#7295345) Homepage Journal
    1) People see that it can shorten their wait times.

    2) Frequent waiters buy cards to shorten their wait too.

    3) The majority of waiters now have cards

    4) Not enough people get screened

    5) Screeners no longer alllow card holders a "free ride"

    but hey, at least Brill and his investors get rich.

  • Class warfare (Score:5, Interesting)

    by headkase ( 533448 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:43PM (#7295370)
    So, the group of have's get to bypass the security checkpoints while the have-not's must endure hours of security checks. If the have's population is very small and limited to 'influential' people, and the have-not's represent a large percentage of the total population then I would be forced to call it class warfare.
    I'm not saying the proposal has a malicious agenda, instead I'm trying to imagine what an ID card type system such as this one could evolve into given time.
  • Let's offer a "bypass airport security" card and charge enough for it to pay to have agents tail anybody who purchases one full time, as they're the most likely terrorist suspects! While we're at it, maybe we can issue Bush's daughters "bypass liquor sales age check" cards! And how much would former Enron executives pay for a "get out of federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison free" cards?

  • This is so stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by K8Fan ( 37875 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:46PM (#7295392) Journal

    I fly a couple of times a month and I am always "randomly selected". Every single time. And the reason is that I fly:

    1. At the last minute.
    2. Paying cash.
    3. One way

    This is the profile. Everyone knows this is the profile. Which is why the 9/11 highjackers flew:

    1. With tickets bought months before.
    2. Bought on credit cards.
    3. Round trip.

    ...and this is the really nasty bit...First Class. Even fllowing the airlines current policy, there is no way the 9/11 highjackers would be subject to extra searches currently. Because they don't fit the "highjacker profile".

    • So... you know the trick to not be "randomly" searched, and you STILL do this every time? :)

      But seriously, you do make an excellent point. Airports (well the TSA now) aren't looking for the right thing.

  • Problems besides the obvious... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by geekwench ( 644364 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:46PM (#7295394)
    Leaving aside all of the massive-breach-of-security issues for a moment, I think that there are more problems with the execution of this idea than are immediately obvious. These ID cards will be linked to fingerprint information.
    Okay, fine. What if you don't have a printable finger?

    No, I'm not attempting to be facetious. There is a small, yet statistically signifigant percentage of the world's population (IIRC, around 2%) whose fingers just don't produce the patterns of whorls and loops in any usable form. Usually, the skin doesn't form deep enough ridges (result: a blurry, useless smudge.) There was an article carried in the local news a couple of years ago about a woman who was having troubles with the INS because she couldn't be fingerprinted, for just this reason. Also, there are those who have suffered severe burns. Scar tissue doesn't give a usable result, either. Or, what if an applicant is an amputee? I can see a potential loophole here that an ADA lawyer would give his/her left arm to exploit.

    Much as I've come to dislike airport security (think you've been embarrassed by the screening process? Try having the underwire in your bra trip the metal detector), I've come to the conclusion that it really is one of the last few great equalizing experiences. Everybody suffers through it, regardless of who you (think you) are, and everybody should. IMN-S-G-D-HO.

  • Only way to impliment a national ID card (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SeanTobin ( 138474 ) * <<byrdhuntr> <at> <hotmail.com>> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:47PM (#7295398)
    I love reading these stories about how everyone wants to make a national id card, Oracke wants to run the database, IBM wants to provide the hardware etc...

    As long as there is a centralized database of any kind, the potential for abuse is there. The only way that I would get a national ID card of some kind is if it were similar to the following:

    The card would have to be a smart card, and store the following:

    -An MD5 of my PIN number
    -A "fingerprint" of my fingerprint (i.e. the datapoints that are stored instead of fingerprints themselves)
    -A picture of myself (stored digitaly)
    -I may or may not want info like eye color, hair color, weight, height etc.. I hesitate because I don't think they are particularly usefull in identification. I've never had anyone actually check my eye color when I present ID.. and I know women who change thier hair color more often than thier desktop background.
    -Although I really dislike the idea of including it, my SSN will probably be necessaraly included. I'd prefer a MD5 of my ssn, and be required to key it in when necessary, but like income taxes the genie is out of the bottle and I don't see any act of congress to repeal SSN's coming soon.

    This should cover the standard security pillars.. Something you have (the card), something you know (your pin) and something you are (fingerprint). Any one is easy enough to fake. Any two require some serious nastyness to get from you, and all three require some form of intimidation to get from you.

    Now, all that info should be cryptographaly signed by some government agency. Preferably each location (or maybe each operator) that provides registration/card creation service would have its own private key to sign the information. That way, fradulent cards can be traced back to whomever signed them and they can be appropriately beaten and charged as a terrorist w/o due process.

    Now, the most important thing is that.. this information must not be stored anywhere aside from on the card! If there is a uber database of everyones name, photo, ssn and fingerprint that just screams to be abused. This would still allow interoperatability with the watch list du jour via ssn's, and I believe it would even be approved by most privacy advocates.

    Any improvement ideas? Post 'em!

  • Right to know (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) * on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:48PM (#7295410)
    If they actually manage to employ something like this, we should know if there is anyone on the plane we board that has bypassed security. I don't mind going through security and the hassel, but I do NOT want to fly on a plane that has anyone carrying one of these cards that has bypassed security. It's our right to know.

  • Unbelievable Tomfoolery for US (Score:3, Funny)

    by OldHawk777 ( 19923 ) * <oldhawk777&gmail,com> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @05:49PM (#7295420) Journal
    There will be good honest folks, true-blue Americans all, raised from the dead to provide verifiable identity, because no agency knows for sure who's dead yet.

    Then again in a few years they will get a big database going that identifies all the verified dead. The contract for the database will go to the Database American Future Technical (DAFT) Company who's parent company is "Patriotic Alliance" Halliburton Brown & Root ....

    Anyway, DAFT subcontracts to small businesses in Pakistan and China will perform data entry as it is received from the US Deaths Agency that received the data from the FBI who verified the death from local municipal records.

    Finally, corporate America will be able to issue ID cards to whoever walks through the door. This is not a job that politicians would want to have civil servants perform, because America Businesses do everything better then government employees. Examples: Global-Cross/Double-Cross, Enrun/AnRun with the money, Diebald/Scalped, ... many ... many others. Politicians and CEOs will help build the future of America.

    Hell, maybe Mexico (in 50 to 100 years) will eventually be able to invade and save US.

    OldHawk777

    Reality is a self-induced hallucination.

  • Great *ANOTHER* card (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tazanator ( 681948 )
    Like I need another card, between the Civilian CDL, the doctors exam certifacation, the army drivers lic, the military ID card, the Amature Radio lic., the Concealed weapons permit, the 2 gun club cards and 5 library cards... this will prove I am the person all these cards say I am...

  • Let me get this right? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by softspokenrevolution ( 644206 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @06:09PM (#7295579) Journal
    So, upper class white people need special cards to be indentified? I mean I thought that being an old white dude was supposed to be like a special pass in and of itself, I mean, you have to be born into being a rich white dude, or have lots of expensive surgery? Why would these people need an ID to allow them to bypass security that they've already been bypassing?

    Seriously, as others have said before the point of a security checkpoint is to check people, a lot of these radical elements use agents that have totally clean records. If a checkpoint is just letting people past because they have some stupid little card then the whole point of having the thing has just gone out the door, I mean it isn't like the checkpoint is some line rfor a ride at Disney World where you can pay an extra $200 (I have no idea how much) to get into a special fast lane thing. The security is there to prevent very bad things from happening.

    I say that we label these people as terrorists, raid their corporate offices and send them off to Guantanamo, because this idea compromises national security more than any peace demonstrator or person who calls a spade a spade and a Dubya an idiot.
  • .. and go straight to body cavity check. Seriously, is anyone going to subscribe to this besides the terrorists?

  • how could this help? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by keldog728 ( 571023 )
    I seem to remember someone saying that the terrorists that participated in 9/11 received their tickets using their real names and all legitimate information. What's stopping this from happening with the ID cards? How many terrorists are in this country legally and not on any watch list?
    • I'm pretty sure none of the 9/11 hijackers were citizens, there were merely here on either a current or expired visa. I doubt they'd issue these IDs to non-citizens.

  • From the article:

    ... the company would probably alert law enforcement officials about an applicant whose name appears on a terrorist watch list.

    Well, isn't it nice to know that they're at least considering the possibility of letting law enforcement know of potentially dangerous people getting hold of an Id card that would allow them to quickly bypass security.

    Beyond that, I have no comments because, unlike much of the rest of this country, I actually have some patience. I will continue to arrive one h

  • We never learn, do we... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cliffiecee ( 136220 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @10:42PM (#7297138) Homepage Journal
    History repeats? [cnn.com]

    A NYC councilman was shot and killed inside City Hall. How did the "perp" sneak a gun into the seat of city government?

    Well, he was himself a councilman...

    The two [the shooter and his victim] did not pass through a metal detector, which is not unusual for elected officials, apparently allowing Askew to slip his silver .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun into the council chamber undetected, along with an extra four bullets in his socks.

    Why do we keep making the same farking mistakes OVER AND OVER again!?

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